After riding for an hour Aiken warned me that at any moment we were likely to come upon either Laguerre or the soldiers of Alvarez. “So you keep your eyes and ears open,” he said, “and when they challenge throw up your hands quick. The challenge is ‘Halt, who lives,’” he explained. “If it is a government soldier you must answer, ‘The government.’ But if it’s one of Laguerre’s or Garcia’s pickets you must say ‘The revolution lives.’ And whatever else you do, hold up your hands.”
I rehearsed this at once, challenging myself several times, and giving the appropriate answers. The performance seemed to afford Aiken much amusement.
“Isn’t that right?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said, “but the joke is that you won’t be able to tell which is the government soldier and which is the revolutionist, and you’ll give the wrong answer, and we’ll both get shot.”
“I can tell by our uniform,” I answered.
“Uniform!” exclaimed Aiken, and burst into the most uproarious laughter. “Rags and tatters,” he said.
I was considerably annoyed to learn by this that the revolutionary party had no distinctive uniform. The one worn by the government troops which I had seen at the coast I had thought bad enough, but it was a great disappointment to hear that we had none at all. Ever since I had started from Dobbs Ferry I had been wondering what was the Honduranian uniform. I had promised myself to have my photograph taken in it. I had anticipated the pride I should have in sending the picture back to Beatrice. So I was considerably chagrined, until I decided to invent a uniform of my own, which I would wear whether anyone else wore it or not. This was even better than having to accept one which someone else had selected. As I had thought much on the subject of uniforms, I began at once to design a becoming one.
We had reached a most difficult pass in the mountain, where the trail stumbled over broken masses of rock and through a thick tangle of laurel. The walls of the pass were high and the trees at the top shut out the sunlight. It was damp and cold and dark.
“We’re sure to strike something here,” Aiken whispered over his shoulder. It did not seem at all unlikely. The place was the most excellent man-trap, but as to that, the whole length of the trail had lain through what nature had obviously arranged for a succession of ambushes.
Aiken turned in his saddle and said, in an anxious tone: “Do you know, the nearer I get to the old man, the more I think I was a fool to come. As long as I’ve got nothing but bad news, I’d better have stayed away. Do you remember Pharaoh and the messengers of ill tidings?”