For answer, she kissed him, the first kiss she had ever given him, and they said no more of that matter.
From Felizardo’s own village, from every village for miles round in fact, you can see a great range of mountains, rugged and forbidding, beginning practically at the shore of a huge bay and running inland for many miles. The lower slopes of the range are covered with dense jungle; but when you have climbed a thousand feet or so, you leave all this behind, and find bald rock, and lava-beds, and ashes, for there are half a dozen active volcanoes there, as well as many which are merely quiescent, and hot springs, and geysers, and other dangers to life and peace of mind.
Felizardo had often looked at those mountains, especially when he had been fishing in the bay, waiting lazily for a bite. Then, they had always seemed to suggest harshness and danger, the very antithesis to the dreamy life amongst the cocoa-nut groves and the hemp-patches; now, however, he thought of them in a very different light, as offering an ideal refuge; and even if, as was rumoured, they were the home of many bad men—well, was he, himself, not a bad man too?
He made up his mind quickly. It was no use thinking of remaining in the jungle by the coast. He was not greatly afraid of the authorities finding him, although the Church might insist on a hue-and-cry of an unusually vigorous nature; but he was afraid of coming across some of the local ladrones, who would assuredly take vengeance on him for what he had done to their friends. So, at the first streak of dawn he and Dolores set out for the mountains, where the rest of their lives were to be spent.
It was a long and slow journey, for Dolores was not used to the bush, and they had to avoid all footpaths and villages. Time after time, Felizardo had to carry her through those steep-banked, narrow little streams, which on the paths you cross by shaky pole-bridges; and twice he had to cut down hemp-palms, and make rafts on which to get to the other bank of larger streams. The second night out it rained, a veritable deluge; but he had foreseen it, and had made a little shelter of palm-leaves, which kept them perfectly dry, greatly to the surprise of Dolores.
“You seem to know everything, and to be prepared for everything,” she said; and he felt prouder than he had ever felt in his life.
Early next morning, whilst she still slept, he went out to a neighbouring village, where they were also asleep, and when she awakened he was plucking a newly-killed fowl, whilst there was a basket of sweet potatoes beside him. It was his first definite act of ladronism, and he shifted uneasily under her gaze, until she, understanding, laid a soft hand on his arm and said: “They drove you to it, dearest, and you have done it for me;” so Felizardo enjoyed his meal after all.
That night, Felizardo went much further. He found a water-buffalo belonging to the priest of the village they were skirting; and from that point onwards, until they were well up the lower slopes of the range, there was plenty of meat, whilst, of course, if you are a Filipino, you can always find sweet potatoes, and beans, and cocoa-nuts.
They built a little shelter in the jungle, and there they lived like children of nature for a week.
“I should be content to stay here for ever,” Dolores said; but the man shook his head.