“It will rain every day soon, and then you would die. There are caves on the slope overlooking the bay. We will take one. Then we can store a supply of food, and, if I can get a pig and some fowls from one of the villages in the valley, we shall have no need to trouble.”
The first two caves they explored were damp and dark, then they went into a third—and came on two men and a woman, sitting in the entrance, smoking some fish.
The men sprang to their feet, and one, the elder, came forward, bolo in hand; but the woman held the other back. “He may not be an enemy, and at least be fair,” she cried, for which Dolores loved her ever afterwards.
The other man was a little unsteady—there was a jar of spirits beside the fire—and his eyes were staring and bloodshot. He did not stop to ask any questions, and Felizardo said nothing, except, very quietly: “Go back, Dolores.”
It was not a fight: it did not last more than a few seconds; then, as he wiped his bolo on the white tunic of his attacker, Felizardo looked at the man beside the fire: “And you now?” he asked.
The other shook his head, and sheathed the bolo, which, despite the woman’s efforts, he had drawn.
“You are the better man,” he replied. “And he,” nodding towards the body—“he was a scoundrel;” whereat the woman gave a queer little sob, gratitude, relief, horror perhaps, which brought Dolores running to her side, and they cried together; whilst the men carried the body out, and threw it over the cliff, returning with dry earth with which to cover the stains.
They sat down beside the fire, Felizardo in his late foe’s place, and the stranger poured out some spirit, which they drank in silence.
After a while Felizardo spoke. “Why did you come up here, on the mountains?”
The stranger, whose name was Carlos, pointed to the woman: “I took her from a convent.”