It was the hour before sunset when, through a tangle, she peered out from the forest’s edge. Before her was a shallow stream, muddy though it was flowing over a bed of pebbles. Beyond, a cluster of red, tiled roofs, was Tacarigua. Tacarigua! And _they_ were there! She opened her bundle for the comb; bathed quickly face, arms, and from foot to knee, and carefully rubbed away the caked dirt marring the bright figures of her skirt. Then, with the sun looking back from the ragged range of La Silla de Caracas, and a breeze beginning to stir the leaves that fringed the water, she slipped on her _alpargatas_, took the path again, and entered the village. * * * * * General Blanco Alcantara, in command of the Revolutionary force at Tacarigua, sat upon his horse before the green-walled Jefatura Civil. He looked quite imposing. A broad hat, wound in the blue of his cause, was set rakishly upon his black hair. A wide sash of webbed stuff in the same blue ran over his right shoulder and was wrinkled into the loop of his sabre scabbard, from which, knotted, it fell, ends free, to a silver spur. Near him, lounging upon the steps of the building, were several officers, smoking, talking, and evidently waiting. To one side, also occupied with their _tabacos_ and gossip, were as many _asistentes_, waiting, too, and looking as important as the discarded apparel of their superiors would permit. When Manuelita approached the general, he was looking down his straight nose at the cigarette he was rolling in his fingers. But at the sound of her voice close to his stirrup, he turned his deep-set black eyes upon her. “Señor general,” she began, quaveringly. He saw eyes as dark as his own, a pale face scarce younger. And his short upper lip, under its wiry moustache, lifted a little, in what was meant to be a smile. “At your order, señorita,” he replied. And now he saw the girl’s eyes widen and flash, saw the red of anger run into lip and cheek. “Señor general,” she continued huskily, “there is a man--one Ricardo Villegas--who last night left the _hacienda_ San Jacinto to come to Tacarigua and join _La Revolución_. Leaving, he took with him our _cubierta_, a new _machete_, and--a woman.” The general laughed. “That man of yours was equipped for fighting,” he said. She was clasping and unclasping her hands with nervous intensity. “He had best be so,” she answered, “when next he meets me.” “You will not meet him here.” “No? no?”--quickly. Suspicion darkened her face. She drew back. The general was lying, doubtless, to save a much-needed soldier from his deserts. “No,” went on Alcantara, lighting his cigarette, “you will not find him here. I have one hundred men, but each has been with me since before the beginning of the wet season. No one has joined me of late.” She turned about, half murmuring to herself, and made as if to go.