Though all my toils, wanderings, and many
services to the cause of liberty (or whatever people fight for in the
Banda) had not earned me one copper coin, it was some comfort to think
that Candelaria's never-to-be-forgotten generosity had saved me from
being penniless; I was, in fact, returning to Paquita well dressed,
on a splendid horse, and with dollars enough in my pocket to take us
comfortably out of the country. Santos rode out with me, ostensibly
to put me on the right road to Montevideo; only I knew, of course,
that he was the bearer of an important communication from Demetria.
When we had ridden about half a league without any approach to the
subject on his part, in spite of sundry hints I threw out, I asked him
plainly if he had a message for me.
After pondering over the question for as long a time as would be
necessary to work out a rather difficult mathematical problem, he
answered that he had.
"Then," said I, "let me hear it."
He grinned. "Do you think," he said, "that it is a thing to be spoken
in half a dozen words? I have not come all this distance merely to say
that the moon came in dry, or that yesterday, being Friday, Dona
Demetria tasted no meat. It is a long story, senor."
"How many leagues long? Do you intend it to last all the way to
Montevideo? The longer it is the sooner you ought to begin it."
"There are things easy to say, and there are other things not so easy,"
returned Santos.
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