The padron shook his head with a gesture which meant that it would be well not to think of any such thing.
“Besides,” he said, “look, we are past the landing places. We cannot take the boat in to the shore here.”
This was true; a short way to the south from La Boca the beach changed character from sandy to boulder-strewn. The boulders were packed together almost like a paving of cobbles, and as it were cemented with the broken shell of the beach. It looked a bad beach to beach on.
“The boat is made only of very thin wood,” the patron said, mainly by signs; “she bump and bump and bump and knock herself all to pieces.”
“When we get to Carpinche,” Chigo said, “another officer will say, ‘Back to La Boca.’ Then, when we come back, Yellow Face will say, ‘Back to Carpinche.’ Thus we shall pass our day.”
“Such are soldiers,” the padron said.
It was not a cheerful prospect to Hi, but it seemed possible and likely. “I may not be started before dark,” he thought.
“If we have another commandant at Carpinche,” he thought, “I’ll say nothing.”
Carpinche lay in the south-west angle of the bay, among wooded foothills. A dark, romantic glen of trees, marking a water course, sloped inland from it in the easy places of the hill. Great trees grew about Carpinche. The hill to the south of the bay lay like a lioness crouched to drink with her head between her paws. As they drew nearer to this hill the wind failed them. “See,” Chigo said, “we too near the shore: see? The shore stop the wind.”
“Blanketed,” Hi said.