He heard the Mexican voices. ‘In ten minutes—’ he hastily whispered.
He was running back toward Mamie’s tether. No moon, but a few great stars, fireflies in a near low tree—a perfumed, humid night. Thoughts ran with him. It was like the mystery of life—her pale upheld face in the dark, with an untellable meaning for his heart, having to do with a corn-dust maiden. Even as he ran, he marveled that she could help him get Bart away ‘to the mountains, to your country!’ ... the breath of her whispering—
Mamie was dancing, as his hands ran over the cinches. ‘The job of our lives!’ he panted. ‘You’re fit, little one. Won’t be your fault if we don’t make it! It’s for him—for old Bob Leadley, Mamie!’
He was riding back. He could not bring the mare too near to the ranch house, lest she signal to the rurales’ horses standing in front. He reached the unglazed window of the unused room. Perhaps she had been unable to get Bart word, for he had not come. Perhaps, the full ten minutes had not passed.
He waited a moment, then climbed into the empty room, crossing softly toward the faint sheen of light in the corridor. Reaching the door, he could look across the corridor into the little room where a single candle burned. Only the foot of Bart’s cot was visible.
Now a step sounded down the corridor at his left. He drew back into the dark. A Mexican approached, glanced into the little room, then turned back toward the patio—the rurale pacing his post.
Elbert craned forward as far as he dared; this time he saw the covering of the cot flung back, a single booted leg beneath. Something familiar in the way it jerked that second, made him know that Bart was drawing a boot on the other leg. How could he let Bart know he had come? The slightest whisper was as impossible as it was for him to cross the corridor while the sentry moved back and forth.
At this instant a liquid shower of chords sounded through the house—the great harp in the front room coming to life—Valencia’s voice lifting above her accompaniment:
‘Cuando sali de la Habana,
Valgame Dios!’