Page:Fombombo.pdf/50



Gumersindo clamped on the brakes and brought the car to a sudden standstill. Strawbridge looked up and saw a stockysoldier in the middle of their road, with a carbine leveled at the travelers.

Strawbridge gasped and sat upright. The soldier in the sunshine, with his carbine making a little circle under his right eye, focused the drummer's attention so rigidly that for several moments he could not see anything else. Then he became aware that they had come out upon the canal construction, and that a most extraordinary army of shocking red figures were trailing up and down the sides of the big cut in the sand, like an army of ants. Every worker bore a basket on his head, and his legs were chained together so he could take a step of only medium length.

The guard, a smiling, well-equipped soldier, began an apology for having stopped the car. He had been taking his siesta, he said; the popping of the engine had awakened him, and he had thought some one was trying to rescue some of the workers. He had been half asleep, and he was very sorry.

The cadaverous, unshaven faces of the hobbled men, their ragged red clothes gave Strawbridge a nightmarish impression. They might have been fantasms produced by the heat of the sun.

“What have these fellows done!” asked the American, looking at them in amazement.

The guard paused in his conversation with Gumersindo to look at the American. He shrugged.

“How do I know, señor! I am the guard, not the judge.”

Out of the rim of the ditch crept one of the creatures, with scabs about his legs where the chains worked. He advanced toward the automobile.

“Señora,” he said in a ghastly whisper, “a little bread! a little piece of meat!”

The guard turned and was about to drive the wretch back