N THE office of Jaime Gordo, jefe civil of Caicara, the glum conference still was going on. From the parched little plaza outside now came virtually no sound; midday heat and hunger had driven all within doors to dine and drowse. It was high time for Don Jaime and his visitors also to stop talking and eat, but the council showed little sign of breaking up. In fact, it was going over the same ground for the twentieth time, as if in wearisome repetition might at last be found the solution to a pressing problem.
“Vâlgame Dios!” groaned the heavy-paunched official, once more mopping his moist face. “Must I talk myself tongueless? The thing should be plain to blind men. There are no troops. I have asked and asked, and no soldados have come. Perhaps a garrison is on its way to us, perhaps not. I have done all I can. I can do no more. We can only wait.”
“You are the official of the government,” obstinately reiterated a fat-cheeked trader, “and it is your duty—”
“To protect you and your money,” snapped Don Jaime. “For the love of God, can you not even change the words of that whine of yours? You repeat it like a parrot! When taxes are due, maldilo, you have no money! None of you has a bolívar then, and the official of the government is a cold-hearted wretch who snatches the crusts from your starving children. But when rebellion sweeps the land and bandits shoot and loot, then you suddenly discover that you possess not only bolívares but morrocotas And then the inhuman beast of a government official must grow wings and miraculously save you—carry you and your goods up to ride on the clouds, where no man may harm you—or by a greater miracle create an army to defend you! Por Dios! From where shall I make this army to come? Shall I spit on the ground and cause rifle-men to leap from it, or sneeze into the air and turn the spray of my nose into cavalry?”
“Nevertheless something must be done,” insisted an undersized merchant in not-too-recently laundered ducks, “before those guapos who attacked San Fernando de Apure can reach this city. They may be within a league of us even now—”
“And the federal garrison which I have asked from Ciudad Bolívar may be landing at the port at this moment,” sarcastically retorted the chief. “One is as likely as the other. I tell you again, and for the last time, that we can do nothing at all but wait for whatever may come. If the soldiers of the President come it is well. If raiders come—then every man must do what he can for himself.”
A sour silence. Then a man sitting near an iron-grilled window cocked an ear toward the plaza.
“Something comes at this moment,” he announced, “and in haste.”
All tensed. In the stillness of the square sounded the rapid slip-slaps of a single pair of alpargatas speeding along the narrow flagstones forming a sidewalk. A man running at this broiling hour!
Slip-slap, slip-slap, slip-slap; hoarse breathing; then, at the Gordo door, a panting
“Don Jaime! Where is he? I have news—”
“Back, hombre!” sounded the growl of a Gordo peon posted on guard. “Don Jaime is not to be seen. Give your news to me.”
“But they are coming! They have landed and even now are—”
With speed astonishing in so heavy a man, the jefe civil heaved himself erect. The merchants sprang up as if kicked, their eyes darting about in panic.
“Ramon!” sharply called the chief. “Pass the man in! At once!”
“Sí, señor! Go in, you!”
A slither of soles. Into the office popped a sinewy riverman, his sweaty face alive with excitement.
“Señor Don Jaime! I bring news from the river! I was down in the shade of a tree and mending a sail when I heard a strange noise, a noise one does not often hear upon this Orinoco, but I knew at once what it was—I know all noises of all boats, crra!—and I said to myself, Ajo, now here comes a boat of Bolívar, having in it an engine of gasoline, and I think it is the lancha of—”
“Câllese! Hold your tongue!” roared Gordo. “Who has landed?”
The garrulous newsmonger gulped, scowled, then responded—
“The North American señorita who with her father and a crew from Bolívar passed up the river in a lancha not many days ago.”
Vast relief overspread every countenance. Don Jaime, after a speechless moment, sank back in his chair.
“Bueno!” he muttered. “That is good. They have turned back and will be more safe—perhaps.” Then, brow darkening and voice rising, he demanded, “And you come blundering in like a crazy bull and upset a conference of señores only to tell us that a young woman has arrived? You fish-mouthed fool! Get out!”