Page:Arthur Stringer - Gun Runner.djvu/345

 It made him think, for a moment, how thirsty he was, how much he would give for a hatful of that rippling blue water. Then all thought of the stream passed from his indifferent mind, for before him he could see walls, white walls and blue walls and pink walls, and above them huddled red roofs, and the dark green of tree-tops, and a yellow cathedral-tower, and still farther away a coppered roof-dome glimmering like a ball of ﬁre in the slanting sunlight. Then he heard a bugle call, and call again, sweet as silver, like a voice out of a dream.

That mellow and trailing note was punctuated by the sudden blow-like sounds of rifle-shots, from somewhere amid the soft white and blue and pink of the very walls ahead of him. He saw the track-ballast about him leap and erupt into ominous little clouds of ﬂying dust. Ulloa's outposts were shooting at him, from Guariqui. They were under ﬁre, from their own people.

"Quick!" he called to the girl. "Show a ﬂag!"

"How?" she asked, not understanding.

"Tie it to a carbine-end! Quick!"

"Tie what?" she called in his ear.

"A ﬂag—a white ﬂag—anything white!"

He knew, the next moment, that she was tearing a linen underskirt from her own limbs. He