“And, Morgan, one word more——”
“Go on—a dozen, if you like.”
“When you see her safe, come and help win. We’ll need you—we owe the boys something for their good will, and—I want ’em to see you in the thick of it, for, I forgot to tell you, they’ve adopted us, and we’re already citizens of this turbulent country.”
That was just like Robbins, rushing things, and without so much as “by your leave.” How did he know I would agree to forfeit my allegiance to the Stars and Stripes, and join a little picayune revolutionary dot of a Central American republic?
Then I remembered that I had been in a bad way when he did this; such a sacrifice was not of enormous magnitude when one considered that his liberty and life were endangered. I swung around to his way of thinking that there was conditions requiring heroic measures—I would sooner be alive and a citizen of Bolivar than buried under six feet of black soil.
“It’s all right, my boy—count on me before long. I couldn’t keep out of it, you know. Now, get along with you, and silence that gun,” as another tremendous discharge made the adobe buildings around us shake.
Robbins ran off.
I declare, he seemed as happy and frolicsome as a school urchin let loose; some among us are so peculiarly constructed that they never seem so joyous as when there looms up a chance for a ruction.
Hildegarde had come through all right.
How she clung to my arm, and with what eagerness she looked up in my face when we chanced to pass under a lamp which some worthy Bolivar citizen had placed above the door of his dwelling.