“Augustine! You have lost your way!” she cried.
Gloomily he dropped his head, and let his silence answer.
“Lost in the jungle! We’re lost! And Tigre is on our trail!” she shrieked.
Panic overcame her. She tottered and fell against him. Her whole slender length rippled in a violent trembling. Then she beat her hands frantically on Augustine’s shoulders, and clutched him tight, and besought him with inarticulate speech.
“Listen, señora, listen,” he kept saying. “If you give up now, I can’t save you. We’re lost, but there’s a way out. Listen—don’t tear at me so—there’s a way out. Do you hear? You go on alone—follow these deer tracks till you come to water. Soon they’ll lead to water. That water will be the Santa Rosa. Follow up the stream till you come to Micas. It’ll be hard, but you can do it.”
“Go on alone! And you?” she said brokenly.
“I’ll turn on our back trail. I’ll meet Tigre and stop him.”
“Tigre will kill you!”
“He is blind and deaf. I shall be prepared. I’ve a chance, at least, to cripple him.”
“At the end of a trail Tigre is a demon. He has been trained to kill the thing he’s put to trail. You—with only a machete! Ah, señor, I’ve heard that you are brave and strong, but you must not go back to meet Tigre. Come! We’ll follow the deer tracks together. Then if Tigre catches us—well, he can kill us both!”