"Looks like that," said Wyndham. "I imagine he has been in Africa. Although his Castilian is not remarkably bad, the English he uses on board has the true West-coast twang. You might hear the words at Kingston, but the accent's good Sar Leone. However, if he's a friend of the Bat's, why was he going about with one of the President's port-guard?"
"Perhaps he met him at a wine-shop; they're both sailors," Marston suggested. "I thought you rather went out of your way to tell him we would sail in a week."
"An example of instinctive caution. It's possible we may sail before. In the meantime, we won't bother about the thing."
They went to the agent's office, and after transshipping their cargo set out one morning for Don Luis' finca. The road was bad, their horses were poor, and when they reached the big whitewashed, mud house their host persuaded them to stop the night. Dinner was served at four o'clock and soon afterwards Don Luis gave them fresh horses and they started for the marsh. It got dark while they floundered through the mud and reeds, but they shot some ducks as the light was going and stayed until the mosquitoes drove them off.
Going back, they took a road that crossed a steep hillside. Trees in dark masses rolled down the slope and thin hot mist drifted about the trunks. The moon, however, was full, and where there was an opening in the wet leaves bright beams pierced the gloom and made pools of silver light on the ground. A cloud of mosquitoes followed them and Marston's horse was fresh. He was not used to the big stirrups and wide Spanish saddle, and now and then found it hard to hold the animal. By and by, a regular throbbing noise came up the hill and he turned to Don Luis.
"It sounds like soldiers marching," he said.
Don Luis pulled up. "It is soldiers. A battalion of cazadores occupies the old mission. If we could go another way, it would be better, but there is no road up the hill."
The road was bad and narrow. There would not be much room for the soldiers to pass, and Marston imagined this accounted for Don Luis' wanting to turn off.
"They keep the troops a long way from the town," he said.
"The old mission makes a good barracks," Don Luis replied. "Besides, this is the President's own battalion. They are very loyal while their pay is regular, and made disturbances in the town, wrecking the wine shops where there was revolutionary talk."