In this way he kept watch for a period of full two hours; never changing the direction of his glance; or not long enough for any one to pass out unseen by him.
Forms came out, and went in—several of them—men and women. But even in the distance their scant light-coloured garments, and dusky complexions, told them to be only the domestics of the mansion. Besides, they were all on foot; and he, for whom Zeb was watching, should come on horseback—if at all.
His vigil was only interrupted by the going down of the sun; and then only to cause a change in his post of observation. When twilight began to fling its purple shadows over the plain, he rose to his feet; and, leisurely unfolding his tall figure, stood upright by the stem of the tree—as if this attitude was more favourable for “considering.”
“Thur’s jest a posserbillity the skunk mout sneak out i’ the night?” was his reflection. “Leastways afore the light o’ the mornin’; an I must make sure which way he takes purayra.
“’Taint no use my toatin’ the maar after me,” he continued, glancing in the direction where the animal had been left. “She’d only bother me. Beside, thur’s goin’ to be a clurrish sort o’ moonlight; an she mout be seen from the nigger quarter. She’ll be better hyur—both for grass and kiver.”
He went back to the mare; took off the saddle; fastened the trail-rope round her neck, tying the other end to a tree; and then, unstrapping his old blanket from the cantle, he threw it across his left arm, and walked off in the direction of Casa del Corvo.
He did not proceed pari passu; but now quicker, and now more hesitatingly—timing himself, by the twilight—so that his approach might not be observed from the hacienda.
He had need of this caution: for the ground which he had to pass was like a level lawn, without copse or cover of any kind. Here and there stood a solitary tree—dwarf-oak or algarobia, but not close enough to shelter him from being seen through the windows—much less from the azotea.
Now and then he stopped altogether—to wait for the deepening of the twilight.
Working his way in this stealthy manner, he arrived within less than two hundred yards of the walls—just as the last trace of sunlight disappeared from the sky.