“Well, yes,” said Phil, beginning to pull himself together and act a little more normal. “I must say I wasn’t really expecting you.” He smiled and the girl clapped her hands gleefully.
“Good,” she cried in her pretty voice, “It is good the Americano can still smile.”
Then she clapped a hand over her mouth and glanced at the door apprehensively.
“If I let them know of my presence here,” she said, half as though she were speaking to herself, “I will neither be able to help you—or save myself. I must use—what is it you Americanos say—I must use the caution.”
She smiled at Phil showing two rows of even white teeth, and for the first time hope really began to stir in the boy’s heart. If it were not all an elaborate trap—and somehow he thought of Espato as being more direct in his methods of vengeance—then this girl might really prove a valuable ally in escape.
Escape! The camp again, life and adventure, freedom! At the thought his eyes began to sparkle and he looked at the girl with new interest.
As though once more she read his thoughts, the girl’s face clouded and she moved closer to him.
“You are thinking that I have come to help you to escape,” she said quickly. “But you must not hope, Americano. Hope is dangerous. It makes us do rash things. I tell you, it is almost impossible to escape from the camp of Espato.”
Phil’s heart sank again. For a moment in his disappointment he felt almost a dislike of this girl. Why had she come to raise his hopes, if all she intended to do was to dash them to the ground again? It wasn’t fair.
“But you must not feel altogether discourage’, my frien’,” she went on, swiftly, her voice softened almost to a whisper, and glancing still more often at the door. “For I, Juanita Marino, have come to help you if such a thing is possible.”