The Coast of Adventure Part 36

Sarmiento bowed.

"We respect our pa.s.sword. You are safe with us; but you cannot continue your journey. The roads will be closed before you get through, and there will be fighting in the next few days. When it seems less dangerous, we must try to send you on, but in the meantime I must put you into my daughter's hands."

He gave one of the officers some instructions, and the man beckoned Evelyn, but she hesitated.

"I must pay my guide and send him back."

"We will give him the money, but he will not go back. We shall, no doubt, find a use for him." Sarmiento smiled meaningly as he added: "It looks as if he could be trusted."

Evelyn followed the officer to the back of the house where creepers trailed about a rude pergola. A sheet of cotton had been stretched among the poles, making a tent in which a light burned. Her companion, saying a few words in Castilian, motioned to Evelyn to go in. She did so, and then stopped abruptly.

The lamp was small and the light was dim; loops of vines falling about it cast puzzling shadows, but Evelyn knew the girl who rose to meet her.

She had seen her talking confidentially to Grahame at the International, and was seized by jealous suspicion. A stout, elderly lady in a black dress, who was apparently the girl's duenna, sat farther back in the shadow. Blanca gave Evelyn a friendly smile of recognition, but it cost her an effort to respond. The Spanish girl seemed to understand that something was wrong, and there was an awkward silence while they stood with their eyes fixed on each other. Then Blanca said with a touch of haughtiness:

"I have been told to make you as comfortable as possible, but I am sorry there is not much comfort here. One cannot expect it in a camp."

She presented Evelyn to her duenna, and the senora Morales indicated a folding chair.

"You come at a bad time," she remarked in awkward French, languidly opening a fan. "It seems we are to have more fighting; it is the way of men."

"They must fight," said Blanca. "The cause is good."

The senora Morales waved her fan. She wore a black silk mantilla fastened tightly round her head like a cowl, and her dark, fleshy face was thickly smeared with powder. Her eyes were lazily contemptuous.

"There are two causes, _nina_, and it is hard to see how both can be right. But, since men quarrel about them, it is not impossible that both may be wrong."

Evelyn smiled. The duenna's remarks saved the situation from becoming strained; the woman was obviously shrewd in spite of her heavy face.

"They are always quarreling in this country," the senora continued.

"Those who will not pay their taxes call themselves Liberators; those who expect favors from the President are Patriots. If he does not give them enough, they conspire with the others to turn him out. Since everybody cannot be satisfied, there is always trouble."

"But our friends are not fighting for rewards!" Blanca objected indignantly.

"A few are disinterested," the senora conceded. She paused, and turned to Evelyn with an authoritative air. "You must tell me why you ran away from Rio Frio. I can guess something, but want to know the rest."

After a moment's hesitation, Evelyn thought it prudent to comply, and the senora seemed to listen with sympathy.

"To run away was the simplest plan, but sometimes the simplest plan is not the best," she said. "Did you think of nothing else?"

"I sent a message to Mr. Grahame of the _Enchantress_, telling him I was in difficulties," Evelyn replied, watching Blanca.

The girl looked up with quick interest, but there was no hint of jealousy in her expression.

"You thought he would come to help you?"

"I knew he would come if it was possible," Evelyn answered.

Blanca looked her in the face with a smile of understanding, and Evelyn saw that her suspicions had been unfounded. Grahame was nothing to the girl.

"My father must know this at once!" she said, and hurried away.

Don Martin came back with her and questioned Evelyn, and then he stood thoughtfully silent for some moments.

"It is fortunate I heard this news," he said. "Your message may be intercepted, and we must try to warn Grahame that you are in our hands."

He gave Evelyn a steady look. "I believe he will be satisfied with that."

"You can tell him that I feel safe," Evelyn answered.

Don Martin left her with a bow, and shortly afterward they heard somebody riding hard along the edge of the ravine. When the beat of hoofs died away Blanca touched Evelyn's arm.

"There will be some supper after a while, but let us walk a little way up the path."

They went out into the dark, pa.s.sing slowly between shadowy rows of bushes which Evelyn thought were young coffee plants. She waited, believing that her companion meant to take her into her confidence.

"You were rash in sending for Mr. Grahame," Blanca began. "We must hope our messenger arrives in time to stop him, but for all that----"

"Do you wish him to come?" Evelyn asked.

Blanca smiled.

"In a sense, it does not matter to me whether he comes or not, though I would not wish him to run into danger. But he would not come alone."

Evelyn started. It was not Grahame, but Walthew, in whom Blanca was interested. Somehow she had not thought of that.

"Of course, you met Mr. Walthew in Havana," she said.

"And at Rio Frio!" There was a hint of triumphant coquetry and something deeper in Blanca's voice. "Indeed, Mr. Grahame should be grateful to me, because it was I who kept him his companion. Mr. Walthew had been dangerously ill, and was thinking of going home--though of course he did not tell me this----"

"But if he did not tell you!"

"How did I know?" Blanca laughed. "_Carina mia_, how do we know such things? Is a man's face a mask? Have we no guide except what he says?"

Evelyn thought of Carmen, for Blanca had something of the great coquette's allurement and power. It was not an unconscious attraction she exercised, but the skill with which it was directed was primitive and instinctive rather than intelligent.

"And you persuaded Mr. Walthew to stay!" she said. "Did you find it hard?"

"Hard? Oh, no! It is not hard to persuade a young man, unless one is a fool. A word or two is enough, and I told him he might become a great _libertador_ like Bolivar and Garibaldi."

Evelyn laughed. She liked Walthew, but he was a very modern American, and the thought of his emulating Garibaldi tickled her. Then, although it was dark, she was aware of a change in her companion's mood. Blanca's pose was different, it had somehow hardened, and her head was lifted high.

"You find this amusing?" she asked in a haughty tone.

"I suppose I do, in a way," Evelyn admitted deprecatingly. "You see, I know my countrymen, and we're not romantic, as a rule."

"Then it is clear you do not know Mr. Walthew. He is young, but he has the spirit of these others, the great _libertadores_."

"I've no doubt that's true," Evelyn agreed, putting her hand on Blanca's arm. "Indeed, I like and admire him very much."

They turned back to the house presently, on friendly terms, for the Spaniard's anger flares up quickly but soon burns down. Evelyn, however, saw that matters had gone farther than she thought, and she imagined that Walthew would have some trouble with his relatives when he went home.