"I live with my uncle, the Señor Adan, at San Isidro." She pushed into the undergrowth.
"The Señora is going wrong," said the woman. "Señorita," said Agueda, sharply, correcting the word. "Which way, then?"
Getting no answer, she turned again. She now saw that the woman had gone to the side of the house and was taking the long ladder from its position against the wall. She bent her back and settled it upon her shoulders. Agueda looked on in astonishment while this frail creature fitted her back to so awkward a burden. Marianna Romando looked up sidewise from under the rungs.
"I go to light the señale now," she said. "It may burn all day, for me. What cares Marianna Romando? Government must pay. Then, when it is lighted I shall hide the ladder among the mompoja trees. He did not dare to tell me that he would remain away. He knows that I do not like that fat wife of the inn-keeper. I shall lead him home by the ear at about four o'clock of the morning. There are ghosts in the mompoja patch, but they will not appear to two."
All through this discourse Marianna Romando had not raised her voice. She smiled as if she considered the weaknesses of Gremo amiable ones. She started after him as a mother would go in search of a straying child; like a guardian who would protect a weak brother from himself.
"I have only this to say to you, Señorita," she called after Agueda, turning so that the ladder swished through the low bushes, cutting off some of the tops of the tall weeds, both before and behind her. "Keep the Señor well in hand. When they go away like that, no one knows whom they may be going after."
Agueda closed her ears. She did not wish to hear that which her senses had perforce caught. She pushed along the path that Marianna Romando had indicated, and in twenty minutes saw the white palings of Don Mateo's little plantation, El Cuco.
FOOTNOTES:
[3] Lad.
[4] Merchant ship.