Here she stopped at a horrible memory.
“Go ahead,” Hi said.
“This isn’t like England, Hi,” she said. “Twice, even in my life-time, Whites and Reds have made it dangerous for each other. So we make arrangements and codes for messages. We had one of our boys, Estevan Osmeña, sworn to take a message in case of need. We roused him up. Our horses were gone, as you saw; the horses are always the first thing they take, but we sent him off to where he could get a horse. I thought nobody saw him go.”
Here she stopped to tremble till the bed seemed to giggle at her.
“Go on,” Hi said, “cheer up and go on.”
“About two hours ago,” she said, “when we had all gone back to bed, a patrol rode up to the house and summoned mother to open the door. I said that she was too ill, but that I would open. So I lit up and opened. There was the mulatto, Zarzas, with some Pitubas. He said, ‘This is for you.’ He gave me Estevan’s hand, cut off at the wrist, with mother’s letter pinned to it. He said, ‘This is the Dead Letter Post; the White letter comes back Red. I would recommend you send no more.’
“Then I had to serve him and his men with drinks, of course; he called it ‘postage for midnight delivery.’ ”
“Then they had killed your groom?”
“Yes.”
“I say,” Hi said. “But hold on a minute, I’ll just dress, if you’ll excuse me. But tell me, how did you pass the patrols and the gates?”