The rebel changed the subject, but Cliffe imagined he had gained his confidence. He was invited to the officers' frugal four o'clock dinner, and afterward sat talking with them while the shadows filled the hollow. Although still anxious about Evelyn, he felt less disturbed, and was sensible of a strange but pleasant thrill. Feelings he thought he had long grown out of were reawakening; there would be no more trucking with the rogues who had cheated him and carried off his daughter. When they next met, he would demand satisfaction with a rifle in his hands. Cliffe admitted that there was something rather absurd and barbarous in the pleasure the thought of the meeting afforded him, but, for all that, the adventure he was embarking on had a strong attraction.
CHAPTER XXVIII
THE PRESIDENT'S DESPATCHES
The sun had set when Walthew urged his worn-out mule up a narrow track that twisted along the hillside through thick timber. The evening was very dark, and thin mist drifted among the giant trees. Creepers streamed down from their interlacing boughs, damp brush projected from the sides of the trail, and Walthew growled savagely when he was buffeted by clusters of dewy leaves. His head ached, the perspiration dripped from his hot face, and he was sore in every limb, while he found the steamy atmosphere almost unbreathable.
The cut on his head was healing, but after a long, forced march from the coast, he had at sunrise left the camp where he and the revolutionaries had spent the night. The country ahead was reported to be watched by the President's soldiers, and as the party was not strong enough to fight, they had separated, hoping to slip past the pickets singly and meet at a rendezvous agreed upon. Walthew reached the spot without being molested, but although he waited for an hour nobody else arrived. It seemed possible, however, that he had mistaken the place, and he determined to push on to Rio Frio, trusting that his companions would rejoin him there. He had been told that as the President had dealings with foreigners he might be allowed to pass by any soldiers he fell in with when they saw he was an American.
He was, however, still a long way from Rio Frio, his mule was exhausted, and he doubted if he were going the right way. There was nothing to be seen but shadowy trunks that loomed through the mist a yard or two off, and faint specks of phosphorescent light where the fireflies twinkled.
Rocking in his saddle with a painful jar, Walthew thought that if the jaded beast stumbled again as badly it would come down, and he half decided to dismount. He felt that he would be safer on his feet; but the mule, recovering, turned abruptly without his guiding it, and a few moments later the darkness grew thinner.
The trees now rose on one side in a dense, black mass, the ground was more level, and Walthew saw that the animal had struck into a road that led through a clearing. He followed it, in the hope that there was a hacienda near, and soon a light shone in the distance. The mule now needed no urging, and in a few minutes a building of some size loomed against the sky. Walthew rode up to it, and as he reached the arched entrance to the patio a man appeared, while another man moved softly behind him as if to cut off his retreat.
"Can I get a fresh mule here and perhaps something to eat?" he asked as carelessly as he could.
"Certainly, señor," said the man. "If you will get down, we will put the beast in the stable."