"As soon as possible; but you'd better take an hour's rest."
"I'm ready now if you will give me my orders."
When, a few minutes later, he rode away with the guide, Walthew and Blanca left the camp and followed a path that led through a field of rustling sugar-cane.
"We must not go far," Blanca protested. "This is quite against my people's idea of what is correct."
"It's a sign of the change you're going to make for me. You might have been something like a princess here, and you'll be the wife of a plain American citizen, instead."
"I never wanted to be a princess," she said; "and certainly not a conspirator. All I really hoped for was one faithful subject."
"You have one whose loyalty won't change. But you mustn't expect too much, because I'm giving up my adventurous career and turning business man. Men like Bolivar and the other fellow you wanted me to copy aren't born every day—and I'm not sure we'd appreciate them if they were."
Blanca laughed.
"You are a pessimist, but I will tell you a secret. It needs courage to be the wife of a great soldier and I am not brave enough." Her voice fell to a low, caressing note. "One's heart shrinks from sending the man one loves into danger."
Walthew stopped in the path and faced the girl. She was smiling. The half-moon, now high overhead, shed its beams down in a weird light that lay over everything like a mantle of blue silver. All about them the tall cane whispered in the wind.