"We'd never see them here, if it were not for these sin verguenzas--may a bad lightning split them!--who take money to show them the bridle-paths," the country-man explained. "I'd like to guide them once. I'd lead them into a swamp and leave them to sink in the mud, then I'd go back and cut off their heads. Ha! That would be a satisfaction, now, wouldn't it?"
O'Reilly agreed sleepily that it would doubtless be a very great satisfaction indeed.
"I'm as good a patriot as God ever made," the fellow ran on. "You can see that, eh? But what do you think? I have a brother, a very blood brother, who would sell himself for a peseta. He passed here the other day at the head of a whole Spanish guerrillero." The speaker bared his teeth and spat viciously. "Christ! How I would like to cut his throat!"
The shade was grateful. O'Reilly dozed. He was awakened by being roughly shaken, and he found the man with the derby hat bending over him. The fellow was excited; his eyes were ringed with white; his expression bespoke the liveliest alarm. Loud voices came from the rear of the bohio.
"What's the matter? Spaniards?" Johnnie was on his feet in an instant.
"No, no! Your senorita!" the man gasped, "For the love of God come quickly." He set off at a run, and Johnnie followed, a prey to sudden sick misgivings.
Around the house they dashed, and into a group the center of which was Norine herself, a gourdful of milk in one hand, a partially devoured mango in the other. At first glance there seemed to be nothing amiss; but the owner of the farm was dancing; he was trying to seize first the mango, then the drinking-vessel. His wife was wringing her hands and crying, shrilly: "God have mercy! So young--so beautiful! What a pity!"
The two filibusters and the farmer's eldest son, all visibly perturbed, likewise joined in the commotion, while the smaller children looked on from the background and whimpered.
"What's happened?" O'Reilly demanded, breathlessly.
Norine turned a puzzled face to him, meanwhile warding off the farmer's attack. "I can't quite make out," she said. "They all talk at once. Please ask them what I've done." Mechanically she raised the ripe mango to her lips, whereupon the ranchero, with a yell, leaped upon her and violently wrenched it out of her fingers.
Facing O'Reilly, the man panted: "There! You saw her! She wouldn't listen to my wife--"
"Oh, I warned her!" wailed the woman. "But it was too late."
"You must tell her what she has done," said the fellow. in the stiff hat.