THE REVENGE OF MANUELITA
MANUELITA shooed the chickens one way, pursing out lips as scarlet as the ripecacao; with a round, copper-tinted arm she wielded a length of bamboo to prod the pigs the other. An exit made, she pulled the door shut behind her to keep out the naked babies cluttered before it among pigs and chickens, and took a proud, leisurely look up and down the double row ofpaja-thatched huts.
It was Sunday afternoon, and fairly cool, for the almost vertical Venezuelan sun was screened by the drab clouds of a gathering storm. So the womankind of the San Jacintohaciendawere before their low houses, some with men beside them, others alone but gossiping volubly to whomever chanced near. Manuelita bent her pretty head to survey the slipper-likealpargatasRicardo had just bought her, and the new skirt, bright-figured, and of a length that left the leg bare from dimpled knee to foot. Then, smoothing her little jacket, and putting her wide straw hat at its jauntiest angle, she set off slowly down the narrow, dirty street.
At some distance from it was Antonia Toro, slouching, hands on hips, in her own door. When she saw Manuelita advancing, she straightened, and let her bony hands fall, clinched, against her petticoat. Small eyes half closed in hate, frowzy head thrust forward, she began to call out, addressinga neighbour, but aiming her words at her successful rival.
“Bah!” she cried, with a laugh. “Look how our parrot’s new feathers stick out!”
Manuelita heard, and walked more slowly. Her brown eyes sparkled delightedly, her round chin went up, her red mouth parted in a smile over even, white teeth.
“Bah!” snorted Antonia again, and put out her tongue. “Let her strut now. But—ha! ha!—Ricardo is a man that likes change. Who knows?”
There was a threat in the hoarse voice. It stung Manuelita. She paused.
“When did a man choose a rotten instead of a ripe banana?” she inquired sweetly, and raised her plump shoulders.
At that, a laugh ran from hut to hut. Antonia’s wrath grew.
“How long does the ripe stay ripe?” she cried. “Ricardo will go. Ha! ha!”
Manuelita was proceeding gracefully. Now she stopped once more, turning her full, girlish throat to look round.
“Yes,” she answered, “when Rio Tuy flows back to the mountains.”
Ricardo came by Antonia’s a little later, just as the last scattered drops of a heavy downpour were falling. He was mud to the waist, muddy of face, and dripping. One hand was busy with a cigarette; from a finger of the other, by their heel straps, hung hisalpargatas. He had been out since noon, walking across the ditches of thehacienda.
Again Antonia was slouching in her door.
“Loan me your fire, Ricardo?” she asked.
He glanced up the street uneasily, then halted and lit the long cigar she was preparing.
“Ah, but you are tired,” she went on, with a great show of concern, “and wet to the skin. Come, will you enter? Juan is gone, and for good—á Dios gracias!I never liked him. He was stingy and ugly and old. Come——”
“Where is he gone?” asked Ricardo, making no move toward accepting her invitation.
“Where?” she repeated, between puffs. “To join the Revolutionists at Rio Chico. He is anxious to fight, he said.Hefight!”
Ricardo’s pale face widened in a grin.
“Maybe you taught him,” he suggested slyly. She understood. “Ah, now, Ricardo, you are wrong. Yes, you are wrong. Once I was quick-tempered, perhaps. But I am notbravanow. No, no. I have learned better. And Juan was happy with me.”
Ricardo was sober again. Suddenly, nostrils swelling, he threw up his head.
“Sometimes I think of going to joinLa Gente, too,” he said.
“Do not be a fool,” Antonia returned. “Within the hour I start for Carenero. But”—her voice was lowered engagingly—“I will stay here if you wish it.”
But Ricardo, having tossed aside his cigarette, was pulling nervously at a curly lock and edging away.
“Adiós,” he said, with more troubled glances toward home. “A pleasant journey.Adiós.”
“Adiós,” echoed the other regretfully.
All this while, from her one window, Manuelita had been watching. She had seen Ricardo stop before Antonia’s, seen him light hertabaco, and their talking back and forth. And as he started for his hut once more, she scolded to herself in a passionate undertone, she stamped the floor with an angry foot. He had made of her an object for further taunting. He had made her the laughingstock of the San Jacinto.
“Madre de Dios!” she exclaimed over and over, her lips white with rage and mortification. “But I shall punish him for this!”
Ricardo had scarce entered, her name on his tongue, when the full volume of her ire burst upon him with tropical rigor and suddenness.
“So you have been to see that crooked face,” she cried furiously. “You sneak, you! you that are full of lies!”
Not altogether surprised, he strove to meet her attack by replying, to stem it through endearments. She would not hear. She would have none of his caresses. And he could do nothing but seat himself on a bull’s-hide chair, rest his chin somewhat sheepishly on his breast, and listen.
“Oh, I will not stay with you another day,” she vowed, breath and wits taxed at last for epithets. “I, a girl that all have desired, that could have a better house, yes, one covered with pink stucco, and finer clothes, and shoes, and even a ring or two, and no work, and all the cigarettes I want—here I am with you, who are coiled like aculebra, ready to sting, to kill. You coward!”
“I have always treated you well,” retorted Ricardo sulkily, “and I am not a coward. I shall show you. I shall go to fight with the Revolutionists.”
“Go, go, go,” she answered. “Ishall not mourn. You cannot shame me before them all. Go, and take her with you!”
She flung herself upon the bed, without a look at him, without a thought for their supperless baby, curled up on a gunny sack by the door. There, worn out with the violence of her quarrelling, she sobbed herself to sleep.
Late in the night she awoke suddenly and sat up. She was cold; she felt alone; she was startled, too, as if something direful had happened. Forgetting her wrongs in her fear, she reached out her arms and called softly. Thecubiertawas not spread over her. Only the under blanket was left upon the rushes of the bed. And Ricardo was not by her side! She sprang out upon the floor, feeling this way and that.
“Ricardo! Where are you?” she demanded. “Answer. You will have me wakening Niñito next.”
She touched the reed partition, the table, the chairs. Then she lit thelámparaand held it above her, looking into every corner of the living room and the kitchen. He was not in the hut!
On the instant she was like one gone mad.
“Madre de Dios!” she gasped. “They are together!”
She set the lamp on the table, snatched up a flat, spear-shapedlanza, and raced off down the street. Arrived at Antonia’s, she entered swiftly.
By the light of the single window, that, here, faced the moon, she saw that the room was deserted.
In her own home, once more, she examined the mud walls closely. Ah!—the newmachetewas gone from its nail! And, farther along, the carved gourd flask that heldaguardiente! They had left thehacienda!
She blew out the light and took her stand by the door. Her eyes blazed with hatred and anger. She gave out little inarticulate cries. She shook the keen-pointedlanzaat the hut down the street.
For a long time, thus. Then she grew quieter, and leaned back wearily against the wall. Then she slipped down to a sitting posture on the ground, and her head drooped forward to her knees.
The day broke, the pigs came up, grunting and rooting. A chicken flew to her shoulder and pecked at a bright flower in her waist. She looked up, and the memory of her quarrel and her loss came back. She groaned and covered her face.
From across the street her mother saw her and scented trouble. She came waddling over, her shrivelled face all anxiety.
“What is it, Manuelita?” she asked. “Is theniñodead?” Then, spying the baby, “Or, perhaps, a pig?”
Manuelita shook her head.
The old woman peered about her, searching for the cause of the trouble.
“What, then, what?” she inquired.
“Ricardo is gone!”
The other stared.
“Gone!” she repeated in a tone of disgust; “gone! Do you say that you are deserted? Nineteen, only, and deserted. Pst! You are a fool! I kept your father beside me until I was more than twenty-five!”
“Oh, mamma!” It was a plaintive, heart-broken cry.
“But there is no use to snivel over it. What will you do? Do not make a fuss outside here, for all the men to see. Be up, and act gay. Now, there is Felipe, the younger one. He gets fourrealesa day in thecacaocourt. He is worth something, I can tell you. And there is Juan. As you know, Antonia Toro——”
Now, Manuelita looked up, and her whole body trembled with fury.
“Antonia!” she repeated hoarsely. “He has gone with her!”
“So?” The old woman looked incredulous. Then she hitched a shoulder. “Ah, well, no matter. You have chickens and pigs, and you are but nineteen. You have only one baby, too, and he is not much trouble. Soon he will be old enough to look out for himself. Why”—in a burst of generosity—“I will take him off your hands myself for a while. Get up.”
In her eagerness, she put out a claw of a hand to pull at her daughter’s sleeve.
“Ah! mamma! mamma!” Manuelita’s voice was deeper now, almost a groan. “You forget, mamma,—Felipe is not Ricardo.”
“Bah! Ricardo! He is gone. Look you—look you, there is Felipe now!”
“No—no,” Manuelita protested, raising a tear-stained face.
Felipe was indeed coming up the street. He looked angry too, and was rubbing his kinky hair at every step.
“Where is Ricardo?” he demanded as soon as he was within hearing. “Where is he, I say? Why should I work if he does not?”
And now such a mingling of voices—Felipe repeating questions to which he received no answer; the old woman boldly stating Manuelita’s new domestic status; the girl crying out against her mother’s hasty planning.
But after a time, when matters became clear to Felipe, he fell silent to ponder, and the old woman quieted to await his reply. As for Manuelita, she was sobbing a determination. “I shall follow, I shall follow,” she declared. “And when I find them, I shall kill!”
“Felipe can go along,” suggested her mother, “and help you.”
Manuelita glanced at Felipe, and recoiled.
“Where have they gone?” he asked her. “Do you know?”
“He took ourcubierta, the newmachete, and a flask. Yesterday he threatened to join the Revolutionists.”
“He will go either to Tacarigua or to Rio Chico, in that case,” Felipe declared. He began to look dubious. Laying an index finger in the palm of a hand, he did some calculating. It would take not less than so many days, perhaps. At fourrealeseach day—he counted on his fingers. “Out so muchfor just a woman!” he concluded. “I will not do it.”
But Manuelita did not hear. She was on her feet and getting ready to leave. The baby, awake and hungry, seemed to know her purpose. He began a lusty howling.
“Take, mamma.” She pushed him toward her mother.
The old woman caught the squalling child between her knees, hastily lit atabaco, put it between her toothless gums to make it burn, and gave it to him. He grew still at once, seized the long cigar in both little hands, and fell to smoking industriously.
“Foolish! foolish!” she scolded. “And you will have your trouble for naught. Can you hold a man who does not want you? No woman can do that. You had better stay.”
Manuelita ignored the advice. She was putting the last touches to her preparations. In a bright cotton handkerchief she tied a comb, several baked plantains, some round thickarepasmade of mashed corn, and her cigarettes; she swung her straw hat over one arm and dropped thelanzainto a sheath of inlaid leather at her belt. Then, without a glance at mother, child, or neighbour, she went rapidly up the street and entered thecacaounder low-hanging branches.
But soon she paused to consider a moment. What if she were travelling the wrong way! Suppose they had gone in an easterly direction, toward Rio Chico. Yet, no, for Juan was there. Besides, since thehaciendaof San Jacinto, a portion of the northern half of the plain of Barlovento, curves in to meetthe Rio Tuy, the couple would have had to cross the swollen stream at the very start. They would go north, to Tacarigua. She was sure of that. And, taking off heralpargatas, she walked in a great semicircle, looking for fresh footprints.
Across ditch after ditch she went, through black water and blacker ooze. Sometimes her steps were sure, more often she sank to the knees, or fell, her hands flattening against a ditch side.
She found fresh footprints in countless numbers, and leading toward every point of the compass. Some had been made by naked feet, some byalpargatas. Some were long and wide, some were short and more narrow. She was bewildered by them.
“Ah!Madre de Dios!” she faltered.
Presently, pointing northward, she found two sets, the one plainly a man’s, the other smaller. They were new, too, for the ooze still stood in them. Instantly her attention fixed upon these. She floundered after them, rod upon rod, as certain that she was upon the right trail as if she could see Ricardo and the woman ahead of her. Here the footprints were close together—she ground her teeth. Here they were farther apart. And here someone had stumbled, for there was the mark of a naked palm on the soft earth. She laughed, and stroked the handle of thelanza.
When the tracks left thehaciendaof San Jacinto they entered that of its northern neighbour—Guevara. Here they made a detour to avoid thecacaocourt and huts of the plantation’s workers. Then on again, through mud and mire, keeping alwaysstraight toward Tacarigua. Farther still, when thishaciendawas crossed, they entered the rough path leading northward through the forest, and were lost.
At midday Manuelita stopped at a deep-shadowed spot on the road to eat a meal of baked plantain andarepa. The monkeys jabbered down at her. Now and then she heard strange movements close by in the jungle. But she felt no fear. A few moments for food, a pull at a water-filled gourd flask, a few crumbs to a lizard, blinking—head downward—from a tree trunk at her elbow, and she trotted on.
It was the hour before sunset when, through a tangle, she peered out from the forest’s edge. Before her was a shallow stream, muddy though it was flowing over a bed of pebbles. Beyond, a cluster of red, tiled roofs, was Tacarigua. Tacarigua! Andtheywere there!
She opened her bundle for the comb; bathed quickly face, arms, and from foot to knee, and carefully rubbed away the caked dirt marring the bright figures of her skirt. Then, with the sun looking back from the ragged range of La Silla de Caracas, and a breeze beginning to stir the leaves that fringed the water, she slipped on heralpargatas, took the path again, and entered the village.
General Blanco Alcantara, in command of the Revolutionary force at Tacarigua, sat upon his horse before the green-walled Jefatura Civil. He looked quite imposing. A broad hat, wound in the blue of his cause, was set rakishly upon his blackhair. A wide sash of webbed stuff in the same blue ran over his right shoulder and was wrinkled into the loop of his sabre scabbard, from which, knotted, it fell, ends free, to a silver spur.
Near him, lounging upon the steps of the building, were several officers, smoking, talking, and evidently waiting. To one side, also occupied with theirtabacosand gossip, were as manyasistentes, waiting, too, and looking as important as the discarded apparel of their superiors would permit.
When Manuelita approached the general, he was looking down his straight nose at the cigarette he was rolling in his fingers. But at the sound of her voice close to his stirrup, he turned his deep-set black eyes upon her.
“Señor general,” she began, quaveringly.
He saw eyes as dark as his own, a pale face scarce younger. And his short upper lip, under its wiry moustache, lifted a little, in what was meant to be a smile.
“At your order, señorita,” he replied.
And now he saw the girl’s eyes widen and flash, saw the red of anger run into lip and cheek.
“Señor general,” she continued huskily, “there is a man—one Ricardo Villegas—who last night left thehaciendaSan Jacinto to come to Tacarigua and joinLa Revolución. Leaving, he took with him ourcubierta, a newmachete, and—a woman.”
The general laughed.
“That man of yours was equipped for fighting,” he said.
She was clasping and unclasping her hands with nervous intensity.
“He had best be so,” she answered, “when next he meets me.”
“You will not meet him here.”
“No? no?”—quickly. Suspicion darkened her face. She drew back. The general was lying, doubtless, to save a much-needed soldier from his deserts.
“No,” went on Alcantara, lighting his cigarette, “you will not find him here. I have one hundred men, but each has been with me since before the beginning of the wet season. No one has joined me of late.”
She turned about, half murmuring to herself, and made as if to go.
“He went the other way, perhaps,” suggested the general; “to Rio Chico, where is another force ofLos Salvadores.”
She came round upon him, arms raised, set teeth showing between lips that were pale again.
“I go to Rio Chico,” she said.
“And he will be gone—wait, wait! General Pablo Montilla leaves Rio Chico to-night with his column.”
“I shall follow.”
“I join him with my men at dawn.”
He saw the light of a terrible hope illuminate her countenance. She came to his stirrup again.
“Señor general,” she pleaded, “let me go with your soldiers. I am young and strong—I can cook—I can carry a load——”
Alcantara puckered his lips teasingly, looking down at her. He marked the plump, well rounded figure, the clear, copper-coloured skin with its scarlettouches on mouth and cheek, the long braid, the full, girlish throat.
“You go,” he said.
Child as she was, she knew the men of Venezuela, and she saw and understood his look.
“I go for revenge, Señor general,” she declared meaningly. “If you are so good as to allow me to follow you, I—I will be safe? Else I walk far in the rear—alone.”
“As you like,” answered Alcantara. “There will be two other women along—Maria, who goes with one of mycoroneles, and La Negrita, the woman of the black general, Pedro Tovar. You may march with them.”
“And when will you start?” she asked eagerly. “When?”
“We thirst for the blood of Ricardo Villegas,” laughed Alcantara. “Well——”
A squad was approaching, led by a determined-looking officer. Two of his men carried large-calibre German Mausers, the third had a Mauser and a canvas money bag, and the fourth a Mauser and a rope.
“Comisario,” said the general, as the latter shuffled near and saluted, “whatracioneshave you collected?”
An expression of defeat spread upon the commissary’s countenance. He shook his head dejectedly, and, reaching round, seized and brought forward the money bag.
“These unreasonable, these unpatriotic people!” he began with heat. “Actually they decline to give up their miserable savings. Observe!”
Alcantara peeked into the bag. “Oh, not so bad,” he said. “But perhaps a better display of the rope——”
The other nodded. “I promise you they will be loyal.” Then, his face more determined than before, the commissary departed. Behind came the squad, the Mausers, the bag, and the noose.
The general addressed Manuelita. “We shall start at sunset,” he said. “But you? You have walked all day, you say.”
“It does not matter. I will walk all night, gladly,gladly!”
He bent to arrange the knot of his sash. When he turned back again she was gone.
At sunset the soldiers of Alcantara left the huts where they had been quartered and gathered in thePlaza. Ragged and dirty they were, and unshaven. Some of them were part Indian, with straight black hair and copper-coloured skins. Others were negroes or half-castes, with flat noses and kinky heads. But all were without uniforms. Their drill trousers were of different colours, and held up by lengths of string or rope. Their tight-fitting, collarless shirts, made of a cheap woven material, were as vari-coloured. Even their little jackets, that buttoned up to the neck and were brought in at the waist under a cartridge belt, were not of the same shade or kind. Here and there among them, stripped of its red trimmings, showed the khaki uniform of the government—spoil of a battlefield. All worealpargatas; and those fortunate enough possessed straw hats of generous circumference or brown, furrypelo de guamas, which displayed, on a narrowdivisasewed around thecrown, the corps and division of the fighter beneath. Over the left shoulder of some of the men, and passed under the belt, was a rolled, double-wool poncho, the blue side out, if it so happened, but quite as often, in unconscious treason, the other, which was dyed the red of the enemy.
Despite the commissary’s promise of loyalty, when the soldiers came together there were no cheers from the townspeople, who, gathering to see the departure, chattered in undertones among themselves, and eyed the motley force in illy concealed dislike.
And now, obeying the call of a battered bugle, the start was made. First down the street came General Blanco Alcantara, in fine style; then the black general, Tovar, astride a lanky horse; after these, a bevy of mounted officers—threecoroneles, twocommandantes, and twocapitanes; the privates—on foot and in no formation; theasistentes, loaded down with the personal effects of their superiors; and several burros and mules carrying pack saddles heavy with ammunition; next, each with a bundle balanced on her head, a hat hung to her arm, a gourd and a smoky pail swinging and clinking together at her side, and a longtabacoin her mouth, two women; last of all, a padre, in cassock and shovel hat, riding a gaited mule.
The third woman to accompany the expedition was on the edge of the town, where the road to Higuerote opens into the forest. She was watching as she rested, eating anarepaand the remaining plantain. As Alcantara rode into sight, she stood up, her eyes shining, her lips parted, her head erect.The command by, she walked forward sturdily and fell in behind.
Night was falling then, but she was soon spied by those in the rear. Presently, these had told others, and the soldiers stretched their necks to look back to where she trudged. There was some whispering among those nearest her, and presently the padre reined a little to speak.
“You were not with us when we left the town,” he said. “How come you to be here?”
“I wish to go to Higuerote,” she answered, but would explain no further.
Seeing her questioned, one of theasistentes, a kindly old man, fell back to offer her a cigarette. She took it gratefully.
“And do you ignore the Church?” demanded the padre reprovingly.
Theasistentehanded over a cigarette, and soon the three were journeying forward together.
The night breeze swept over them as they went, making the way cool, and bringing with it the fragrance of growing things. But their travelling was difficult. The road was only a cart’s width, hard and stony, rising and falling, too, on broken ground. There was no moon over the first third of the journey, and every little while a jaguar, scenting their passing, howled out at them from the dark, vine-hung forest lining the march.
Bit by bit Manuelita told her companions the story of Ricardo’s flight. As the padre listened, his round, florid face grew solemn, and he poked out his under lip dubiously. Theasistente, on the otherhand, swore often and pityingly, so that the good priest was kept busy crossing himself.
“And have you come all the way from thehaciendaSan Jacinto to-day?” asked the soldier.
“Since morning,” Manuelita answered.
“In that case,” interposed the padre, settling himself in the saddle, “to make your walking more easy, you may hold to the tail of my mule on the up grades.”
Not long after, they were forced to cover their faces and cease talking. For before the night was half gone, the moon topped the trees, showing its great, burnished shield upon the starlit sky. And with the rising of the moon the forest thinned, the way became more level, but sandy, the walking extremely heavy, and legions of hungry mosquitoes came swarming upon them. The padre’s mule, tormented by the pests, made the middle of the track dangerous for Manuelita. She fell back, and walked in silence beside the old orderly. Once she uncovered to ask him how far they had got.
“Half-way,” he answered, when she murmured a thanksgiving.
Later she again spoke: “And how long before Higuerote is near?”
“Three hours,” he replied.
Her hands stole to her belt.
“Only one day and one night,” she said, “and yet I am almost upon them!”
But she was miserably tired by now, and many times would have stumbled to her knees had not theasistentesupported her. He gave her frequent draughts from hisaguardienteflask, and little lumpsof damp brown sugar out of a canvas bag at his thigh. The padre, riding just in advance, looked back often to speak encouragement, and as often called theasistenteforward to levy upon him for a cigarette.
Bravely Manuelita persevered. Toward morning her brain seemed to wander, for she talked meaningless things to the old man lagging beside her. But a moment’s rest, a swallow of drink, a whispered reminder, and she struggled forward.
“Santa María!” was her petition, “only give me strength!”
The yellow moon had gone and the dawn was near when, having arrived at three great sand hummocks thrown up close to the road, General Alcantara drew rein. Noiselessly the soldiers laid down their ponchos, partook of cold coffee and a little food, and stretched themselves for a brief rest. The horses of the officers and the ammunition animals were led to one side, where they might crop the grass growing about in clumps. Alcantara and Pedro Tovar walked apart, conversing. The padre guided his mule to one side and, out of his saddle, was soon drowsing as comfortably as the mosquitoes would permit; while Manuelita sought the women, who were smoking, and squatted on the sand beside them, her face to the east, her lips moving with soundless words.
Swiftly the day came. A moment of little light, another that was brighter, and the stars dimmed. Then the unkempt force got to their feet and moved on—cartridge belts filled andmachetesslipped under them. Above, floating on white-tipped wings, followeda score of the bald blacksamuro, their curved beaks lowered in horrid watchfulness.
When the sun rose, the company made a second halt, behind a line of scrub growth. From here General Alcantara, dismounting, went forward alone on hands and knees. He stopped while yet in the shelter of the dense underbrush and stood up. To his left lay a town—tile-roofed, low houses, three rows of them, two rows having their back yards to the sea. Beyond these was a gently shelving beach strewn with the unpainted, dugout canoes of fishermen. Still farther, dotted here and there with a dingy sail, was the blue of the Caribbean, its outermost edge moving up and down upon the paler blue of the sky. To his right, some two hundred yards away, was the curving line of a railroad, then beach and boats, then sea again. And in the very foreground, seated on the sand, under a sagging telegraph wire, was a man in khaki, fast asleep, with his gun, muzzle end down, in a land-crab hole.
Alcantara now lowered himself again to creep on, and a moment later the sentry awoke and found himself a prisoner.
Presently, from the south, there sounded a faint rumble. And soon, far down the rusty rails, appeared a train. Alcantara gave a signal to those who had come up from behind, and at once the Revolutionists in khaki gathered the officers’ mounts and, taking the captured sentry with them, went back along the road to the shelter of the sand hummocks. The padre turned his gaited mule and single-footed after them, concern written large on his round, florid face. The rest of the company displayedtheir agitation. The soldiers craned and gestured, or examined their arms. La Negrita and the other woman chattered under their breath. The twocapitanesran to and fro between Alcantara and the black general, taking and bringing messages. The men with the pack animals proceeded slowly toward the road gap in the shielding shrub. Only one of them all was giving the hour a solemn beginning. This was Manuelita, kneeling, bareheaded, in the sand, her hands clasped, her eyes closed, her face upturned.
“Santa María!” she whispered, for once more she was praying.
When the train was less than half a mile away Alcantara drew a small blue flag from his breast. It was of flimsy muslin, and showed at its centre a cross of yellow, blue, and red. The general, having unfolded it, held it in his right hand, so low that it could not be seen from the town. Instantly similar colours were waved from the engine cab. Again Alcantara signalled those behind, and the black general led them forward. At their front was borne a large flag of the cause, fastened to a bamboo pole.
When the train had crawled abreast of the Tacarigua force, its antique, ramshackle coaches came to a stop. Out of them tumbled some sixty soldiers, the heavy-set Pablo Montilla commanding. Alcantara saluted silently and made off with two-thirds of his own men straight along the track toward a railroad bridge in the town. As quietly, Tovar took the remaining third, joined Montilla, and started toward a second bridge, which crossed the Rio Curiepe at the main street. The train backed. The ammunition-mulesand -burros were held close to the track, where stayed Maria and the other woman. But Manuelita, marking which way the men of Rio Chico had gone, ran after, and fell in behind them.
That advance was made in two lines, the soldiers trotting single file. Those on the track were heard from first. A shot rang out—then another. Then the battered bugle sounded a few clear notes, which the Mausers obeyed with a spatter of shots.
Now Tovar turned to his men with a cry: “Adelante, muchachos!”
The soldiers broke into a run, firing willy-nilly, and bunching together at the bridge end.
“Viva Montilla!” they shouted. “Viva Tovar!”
Then came answering cries from across the bridge, where khaki uniforms were swarming in a hasty rally, where shots were plentiful now, and a drum was keeping up a steadythump! thump!
Behind the cluster of men on that bridge was Manuelita. She had no thought of danger for herself, though the bullets were flying about her. She did not even watch the khaki figures hurrying to oppose, or those others spreading out between the bridges, lining the Curiepe to prevent a crossing. Her gaze was upon the men of Rio Chico. Her dust-rimmed eyes searched for one figure.
But now Tovar was leadingLos Salvadoresacross the stone-flagged bridge. Officered by red-sashed men in blue, the front ranks of the government received them with bayonets. Those in the background sent upon them a hail of lead.
“Ah!”
The piercing cry that broke from Manuelita washeard above the clashing of steel, the singing of bullets, the curses andvivas, the shrieks of agony. There he was,there—in the very front of the fight, laying about him with hismachete. Her whole body trembled, her heart fluttered, her breath came in gasps, she choked.
“Madre de Dios!” She clutched the spear-shaped knife. “Let me but get at him first!”
But now she was rudely driven back. The government was gaining—it wasmacheteto bayonet, and the latter’s deal was the more deadly.Los Salvadoresretreated, one against another, clubbing their Mausers, filling the air with their yells. Maria’scoronelraced up, bringing a futile order. For Pedro Tovar was out of earshot, in the front of them all, still facing the enemy, but backing from the fierce onslaught of the men in yellow.
But where was Ricardo? Manuelita could not see. Forgetful of personal safety, she sprang upon the nearer iron rail of the bridge. And from there, looking beyond the line of hand-to-hand combat, beyond the van of the government, she saw him—lying flat upon the flags, arms stretched out, face downward. At his curly head was a growing pool.
Like a flash, she was down and standing on the bridge. She flattened herself against the hand rail to keep from being knocked off her feet. Men of the Revolution struggled by her, bravely contesting each step of the way. And now Pedro Tovar was beside her—losing his ground. And now the khaki of the government was on every side.
“Viva el Gobierno! Viva Domingo Morales!”
Los Salvadoreswere losing!
She saw more khaki-clad men running up from the tumbled-down church in thePlaza—running straight toward the bridge, toward Ricardo, helpless, but moving feebly now, turning his head from side to side as if in pain. They would cut at him as they passed!
Another cry, and she made her way back along the hand rail to where Tovar was swinging his black arms. Then on, beyond him, to where showed the top of the Revolution’s colours. A moment, and she had seized the bamboo pole, had unfurled the blue flag with its tricoloured cross. Then, facing about, with cries again, she pushed her way toward the black general.
“Viva la Revolución!” she cried.
Spent with their night march and with fighting, disheartened by retreat, the motley forces of Montilla and Tovar now beheld a girl at their front, waving aloft the flag of their cause. They hesitated; then, spurred by the sight, stood fast.
And now, with cheers from Alcantara’s men to announce a victory at the railroad bridge, there came the change of balance in that fight at the other. A moment and the government was retreating, not foot by foot, but quickly, up the gentle slope.
“Viva la Revolución!” was the whole shout now. And with a fearful grin on his black face, Pedro Tovar cried on the men, cursed them into fiercer fighting, struck them with the flat of his sabre.
And now the wavering blue flag was at the middle of the bridge, was on the farther slope, was almost to the man lying face downward on the approach—then, beside him.
Another hand caught the bamboo pole there, saving the riddled colours from fluttering to the ground. Still the government fell backward, still the Revolution pressed on. The bridge was cleared, except where wounded or dead lay stretched upon the stone; the clash of weapons grew less and less. The retreat of the government was a rout.
But back at the bridge, unmindful of victory, exhausted, yet not realising that, sat Manuelita, a soldier’s head pillowed against her breast, a wet cheek rested against a paler one.
“Santa María!” she sobbed, “he is alive—alive!Madre de Dios, I thank thee!”
THE END