“Oh, I went into this more because I liked Ceara. It was fascinating and Grandfather talked radically to me. I got to think we were abused, but now I see differently—I have ever since I met you on the field that day. I got to realize that we Civil War refugees are nothing but a lot of soreheads and anything but a sporting lot. Our grandparents and great-grandparents who are responsible for bringing us down to this desolate corner of the world weren’t big enough to stay on in the South and come up smiling like the rest. Oh, how I see it! We’ve been brought up on bitterness and prejudice and our terrible poverty’s made us think even worse things about this land of our adoption. But no more. If I ever get out of here I’m going to the Brazilian Government and get down on my knees for forgiveness. Goncalves has made me see what a pack of fools we are. What does he care about political freedom or a square deal for the jungle plantation owner? Not a darn thing. Goncalves is rooting for Goncalves!”
“Rene, you’re simply great! My uncle would be tickled pink to hear that kind of talk. I do believe you’d be given a full pardon by both governments if you’d only tell who the munitions manufacturers are from whom Ceara got his stuff.”
“I couldn’t tell you from Adam, Keen. That’s the work Goncalves did. He used my name, that’s all. So I got the credit for it, eh? No, what I did was to run up and down the jungle for recruits, that’s all. Now you’ve heard it all.”
“Well, my story is that, if we get out of here, the most sensible thing for you to do is to get that mine working and see that your kid sister lives in a country where she’s going to be healthy. I never saw anybody so sad—honest!”
“I know it—I know it, Hal. And I will! I’ll see that I do! Tonight! We’ll get out of here somehow!”
And somehow they did!
CHAPTER XXXIV
A FEAR
Hal was witness to a miracle that midnight. It was one of those rare occasions when a vast body of men are all inspired with one thought, one motive at one time. And Renan, that friend of all men, achieved it.
It began in the early evening with the sentry guarding their hut. Renan whispered to him what horrors the self-styled Coronel was planning for the Pemberton family that evening and what extreme measures would have to be taken to prevent death and destruction.
Toward mid-evening, after Coronel Goncalves left the camp with a picked guard, word had gone around to every man. By midnight they were all assembled to carry out a common purpose, Hal and Renan in the lead.