“Señor! señor! Mira! The beacons! The beacons!”
It was one of the peons whom he had left above. “Ride, señor! Ride and give warning lest they have not seen it at El Quiss! I go to my woman and children!” Shouting it, he swung at right angles and flew down the valley at top speed.
Almost as quickly Seyd galloped off. One glance had shown the tall smoke plumes which were rising like ghostly sentinels above the black edge of the pine, and with it there burst upon him a vivid picture of the muddy sea behind the great dam. Crossing the river that morning, he had noticed that the floods were running above last year’s highest mark, and almost as plainly as by actual sight his imagination pictured the wave which had just leaped, like a huge yellow hound, over the broken dam. A solid wall of water, he saw it sweeping down the valley, lapping up villages, ranches, jacals, with greedy tongues. Roweling the flanks of his tired beast, he drove on. Yet, despite his apprehension, the phrase rang in his mind like a clashing bell:
“I shall see her! Now I shall see her!”
While he was still half a mile away he saw two mounted men dash out of the patio gates and ride off at right angles, north and south. After them came a crowd on foot, and as they opened to let him through Seyd noted with wonder that all were women. His surprise deepened when, driving in through the gates, he almost rode over Francesca, who stood with Roberta against her skirts in the deserted patio. While, breathing hard after his wild ride, he sat looking down upon her she returned his gaze with big mournful eyes.
“You are—alone?”
“Yes.” Hesitating, she went on, “Don Sebastien left an hour ago—immediately after our arrival—with the men to work on the dam.”
He almost shouted. It was inconceivable, except on a supposition that filled him with sudden hope. “Then it isn’t true? If it were, he would not have left you. He lied! Paulo lied! All day I have ridden hard on your trail to disprove it! He lied! Tell me that Paulo lied!”
It was not necessary to reply in words. The slender weaving fingers, her quivering distress, the pity and grief of her eyes, made answer.
“Oh, how could you?” But his natural sense of justice instantly asserted itself. “But no! I have only myself to blame. I played the fool all through. Yet, I meant well—but I explained that in my letter.”
“I only received it two hours ago. Oh, why didn’t you send it sooner?”
“I did—wrote the instant I got the paper. It lay here four days.”
Now, only twenty miles away, at speed swifter than bird flight, the wave was leaping over the jungle with plumage of tangled debris streaming out behind. Even then they might have caught its distant roar. But, blind to all but the fortuitous chance that had dogged their love to this unhappy conclusion, they stood gazing at each other in distress and despair.
“We have been unfortunate, you and I.” She spoke, mournfully, at last. “And this is the end.”
He would not accept it. In thought he was storming the barrier her act had placed between them when her sorrowful voice answered the mute appeal of his eyes. “Sí, the end. If Sebastien had not been so kind! He took advantage of my anger to place bars between you and me, but there he rests. His consideration deserves some return, and the least I can offer is the outward semblance of good wifehood. You must go!”
“What! Leave you—now?” Recalled to a sudden realization of their imminent danger, he pleaded, “First let me place you in safety?”
“No.” She nodded toward a saddled horse under the gateway. “In a few minutes I can overtake the people. With you will go my—”
While they talked Roberta had wandered over to the gates. Now she suddenly cried: “Oh, señora! Don Sebastien!”
Seyd’s view of the trail was limited by a swing to the south that cut off all but a couple of hundred yards. As he made, instinctively, to move forward Francesca caught his bridle. “No! no! He must not see you! If he finds you here—with me—oh, has there not been trouble enough?” Her distracted glance circled the courtyard. “See, the old guardhouse! Dismount—quickly! Lead in your horse, then I will ride with the child to meet him!”
As a matter of fact, he felt like anything but hiding. His eye lit with a hard gray gleam. But in these premises that he had forced upon her it was not for him to pick and choose. He yielded to her pleading, “For my sake?”
Dismounting, he led his horse in through the arched doorway, and as she closed the door upon him Francesca added a last hurried instruction. “He will undoubtedly turn with me. Give us time to gain cover under the oaks, then take you the trail to the south. It reaches high ground quickly. And ride hard”—her voice broke in a sob—“for if you should be overtaken by the water what in this miserable world would be left for me?”
“And this is the end?” He caught her hand between the closing doors.
“The end—for thy sake.” She dropped into the tender second person of the Spanish. “Sí, if you wish it.”
Left alone, Seyd stood listening, the soft touch of her lips thrilling upon his. In the guardhouse, used now for a storeroom, all but one window was blocked by piles of sacked maize, but as his eyes grew accustomed to the half gloom he made out the massive beams which held up the heavy roof. The wall from which the one
