"Because, you see, muchacho, I must take the air-plants to the Port of Entry. I am on my way there now. I but stopped to warn the Señorita, and I pay well for my kindness. Now I shall not be able to return to-night. As the Señorita has detained me all this long while, will she be so good as to stop at my casa and tell Marianna Romando to come over and light the lantern on the signal-staff at an early hour? This, you know, is my lighthouse, little 'Gueda. This is Los Santos."
"Have I come as far as Los Santos head?" asked the girl.
Agueda looked upwards at the place where the red lantern hung against the staff.
"How can a woman climb up there?" she said.
"She will bring the ladder, the Marianna Romando," said Gremo, moving a step onwards.
"I do not think I know Marianna Romando. Is she your wife, Gremo?"
"Well, so, so," answered Gremo. "But she will do very well to light the lantern all the same."
Agueda sat her horse, lost in thought. When she raised her eyes nothing was to be seen of Gremo. An ambulating mass of bloom, some distance along on the top of the sea bank, told her that he was well on his way toward the Port of Entry. This was the best way, Gremo considered, to put an end to discussion.
Agueda did not know just where the casa of the light-keeper lay. Seeing that a well-worn path entered the bushes just there, she turned her horse's head and pushed into the tall undergrowth. After a few moments she came out upon a well-defined footway. Her path led her through acres of mompoja trees, whose great spreading spatules shaded her from the scorching sun. She had descended a little below the hill, and once out of the fresh trade breeze, began to feel the heat. She took off her hat as she rode, and fanned herself. Five or six minutes of Castaño's walking brought her to a hut; this hut was placed at a point where three paths met. It stood in a sort of hollow, where the moisture from the late rains had settled upon the clay soil. The hut was thatched with yagua. It was so small that, Agueda argued, there could be but one room. There was a stone before the doorway sunk deep in the mud. Before the opening, where the door should be, hung a curtain of bull's hide. A long ladder stood against the house. Its topmost rung was at least an entire story in height above the roof, and Agueda wondered why it was needed there. The only signs of life about the place were three or four withered hens, which ran screaming, with wobbling bodies and thin necks stretched forward, at the approach of the stranger. Their screams brought a yellow woman to the door. If Gremo looked like a withered apple, this was his feminine counterpart. Her one garment appeared to be quite out of place. It seemed as if there could be nothing improper in such a creature going about as she was created. The slits in the faded cotton gown were more suggestive than utter nakedness would have been. This person nodded at the chickens where they were disappearing in the bush.