Page:Arthur Stringer - Gun Runner.djvu/297

 From one of the nearer tiers of hills black columns of smoke twined and curled and billowed up into the air. It was the town of Parroto, still in flames.

But no sound or sign of movement came from shore. A mysterious and drug-like sleep seemed to envelop both town and swamp and hills. Yet McKinnon, watching with set and thoughtful face, knew that somewhere in the dust-laden streets between the stucco walls señoritas were peering from jalousies, and naked children were playing and lean curs were prowling. In the yellow church facing the Prado priests were moving about. In the shadowy bodegas flies were buzzing and glasses were clinking, and swarthy and undersized patriots were rolling cigarettes and enlarging on the true paths that led to liberty. In each tesselated patio shadowed by rustling palm-fronds, were women and old men, and beside the mud oven of each wattled hut meals were being made ready and eaten. It took him back to the past, painfully, to the past that he would much rather have forgotten.

"Does it look like home?" he asked the girl at his side, a little absently, a little bitterly.

She was silent for another minute or two, as her eyes turned through the broken line of the Cordilleras to where Guariqui lay, to where still