She looked very dear and lovable.
The fugitives did not reach San Geronimo until the third night following their flight. They approached the city in the darkness, as they had planned, but to their surprise and dismay, they saw hundreds of lights moving over the face of the water. From afar off these lights looked like a field of fireflies, but presently they developed into native torches, such as the Orinoco Indians use in hunting alligators at night.
The man and the woman were terrified, and in whispers discussed what course they could pursue. Dolores suggested that they go ashore on the other side of the river and walk down past the town. This was impossible because the city lay in the junction of the Rio Negro and the Orinoco. They would be caught in this V-shaped Mesopotamia, with nowhere to walk except back up the Orinoco. Moreover, any walking at all in such a pestilential country would mean a painful and lingering death for Dolores. Nor was the drummer in any degree a woodsman. He always lost his direction in the open.
It seemed to Strawbridge that their only possible hope was to reach one of the searching canoes and bribe the owner into running them through the blockade. He knew a report of his imaginary wealth had been spread among the peons, and now he hoped by wide promises to slip through Coronel Saturnino's fleet.
He veered his canoe in the darkness and began paddling slowly toward one of the lights. It seemed an ironic thing that freedom, the right to a home and to Dolores should lie just a quarter of a mile beyond those patrolling torches. To accomplish his object, he had scarcely a gambler's chance. Saturnino, sitting in his study in San Geronimo, had worked out every possible combination which Strawbridge could attempt. Now this diapering of lights moving against the darkness was one of his checks.
In the midst of his thoughts, Strawbridge became aware that half a dozen or more lights were bearing down on his canoe. The drummer, in dismay, stopped paddling. He had thought to steal silently up to one of the canoes, unseen by the others, and quietly make his compact with the canoeist to assist him through the blockade. Now, with dozens of boats bearing down on him from every direction, bribery was impossible. He sat staring at the gathering torches, with a profound sinking of the heart. By no possibility could he, a one-handed man, race away from the Indians.
The Spanish girl moved to him.
"Oh, dear Tomas!" she whispered, "are we going to be lost, after all!"
Her helplessness moved the drummer.
"I suppose talking to him, pleading with him, begging him for the love of humanity to let you go—"