Anton brought him a maté, which revived him. He saw the Aztec step into the midst of the gathering call for silence, and begin a long harangue, with many gestures. The babble of his voice, the heat of the room and more than twenty-four hours of strain together made him fall asleep with the bombilla in his hand.
This falling asleep may be said to mark the end of the first day of Hi’s going to warn Don Manuel. His going had not prospered, mainly because one of Don Lopez’ chief supporters, the half-breed Don Livio, a man of vengeful temper, had detached some lancers to burn the mansion of the Ribotes, who had had the misfortune to be the lords in the village in which he had passed his youth.
This act of private vengeance brought the lancers across Hi’s path at the wrong time.
While Hi was being checked by event after event, on this first day, Ezekiel Rust was riding to the west with his message. At the very moment, when Hi was falling asleep, Ezekiel Rust was rousing from his rest eighty miles away to begin his second day’s ride.
X
Hi may have slept for half an hour, when he was wakened by the tinkle of his bombilla falling on the floor. He roused up as a big, elderly rogue-bull of a man, with bloodshot eyes and a heavy ruminating mouth, which seemed to be chewing the cud of fifty different plans, came in, to take charge of the gathering. Plainly all there looked up to him as a leader. A flock of talkers surged up to him with a gabble of explanation and persuasion: some of it very hot, Hi thought.
Presently, Hi found this man staring at him, though as yet without comprehension. His eyes were fixed on Hi while his lower lip moved in and out under the strain of thought. After a time, his bull-like brain began to notice that Hi was a stranger in the camp: he turned to a man, indicated Hi by a jerk of the head, and asked, “Who is that?” Then, turning to Hi, whom of course he knew to be English, he jerked with his head, saying, “Come here, you. What are you?”
Anton explained as Hi came forward; Hi heard the words “caballero ingles”: then Anton, after asking his name, introduced him to Don Pablo something of Meruel. Hi was refreshed by his sleep and eager to be doing. He made up his mind that as these were Whites he would tell his tale, so he did. He said that he was going on urgent White business to Don Manuel at Encinitas; he asked for a horse that he might proceed.
When he had said his say, he knew that he had said something wrong. “I believe they are Reds, after all,” he thought. “Now I’ve put my foot in it.” Anton drew him aside a moment and explained: “All the Whites here are anti-clerical, they hate Don Manuel like poison. You have said, ‘I take nice Luteran message to the Pope.’ ” Anton seemed to think it very funny, but Hi was appalled. “I’ve done for myself now,” he thought, “they’ll probably jail me for a week.”
“Business with Don Manuel at Encinitas?” Don Pablo repeated. “And what business?”