Where the olive lane ended, and the road swept away eastward to the pass and on its way to Buena Ventura and the north, Henderson paused. There was no break in the sound of festivity around the tables beneath the trees; it was certain that Roberto had not broken his insecure bonds and given the alarm. Here the fugitive must leave the highway and take a shorter line across the hills. Little chance that any would find his tracks in the goat path that he must follow up the first steep slope. At dawn Liseta would come with her flock; the tracks of his passing would be cut out of the path by two hundred scrambling hooves. CHAPTER VII A MESSENGER FROM SAN FERNANDO Don Roberto rode into the courtyard at evening, dust on his shoulders. He flung himself from the saddle with impatience, throwing out his hands in baffled expression of emptiness when Don Abrahan came hastily from the house to meet him. "The earth has swallowed him," Don Roberto said. He drew his shoulders up, lifted his eyebrows, pulled down the corners of his large flexible mouth, emphasizing his report of complete failure in his quest. "You have made his grave, then? It is very good." Don Abrahan spoke with well simulated gratification, as a man hearing good news. But that light of something in his eyes that seemed laughter and was not, told Roberto that he was being scorned. "I have not made his grave," Roberto replied shortly, with surly tongue. "No man has seen him, he leaves no tracks." "The earth opens to swallow a man but once," Don Abrahan said gravely. "That is when it makes the little grin called the grave. As long as this sailor is not in his grave, he walks the ground to be brought back to this plantation and serve his time." "I'll cut the heart out of him with a rawhide when I find him!" Roberto said. "Cut him till his back runs blood, you may; but his heart you will leave whole in his body to suffer for the great insult he has put upon this house. Never mind," laying his hand on Roberto's shoulder in comforting caress, "we shall find him. There is no way for him to escape but through the mountains into the desert. He had no arms, no money; his shoes are cut to pieces on the rocks by now; he runs lame, he is hungry. Soon he must come out of his place to beg food. Then the word will come, we shall have him in our hands." Don Felipe came for the horse, led it away unnoticed by father and son, clapped his genie signal for the young man who always seemed just out of sight in the warehouse. Don Abrahan and his son, in close conversation, entered the dwelling.