Page:The plumed serpent - 1926.djvu/175

wound round it, and into a piece of flat open country. There were fields of dry stone, and hedges of dusty thorn and cactus. To the left the bright green of the willows by the lake-shore. To the right the hills swerved inland, to meet the sheer, fluted sides of dry mountains. Away ahead, the hills curved back at the shore, and a queer little crack or niche showed. This crack in the hills led from Don Ramón’s shore-property to the little valley where he grew the sugar cane. And where the hills approached the lake again, there was a dark clustering of mango trees, and the red upper-storey of the hacienda house.

“There it is!” cried the man behind. “Jamiltepec, Señorita. La hacienda de Don Ramón!”

And his eyes shone as he said the name. He was a proud peon, and he really seemed happy.

“Look! How far!” cried Juana.

“Another time,” said Kate, “I shall come alone, or with Ezequiel.”

“No, Don’t. say so. Only my foot hurts this morning.”

“Yes. Better not to bring you.”

“No, Niña! I like to come, very much!”

The tall windmill fan for drawing up water from the lake was spinning gaily. A little valley came down from the niche in the hills, and at the bottom a little water running. Towards the lake, where this valley flattened out, was a grove of banana plants, screened a little from the lake breeze by a vivid row of willow-trees. And on the top of the slope, where the road ran into the shade of mango trees, were the two rows of adobe huts, like a village, set a little back from the road.

Women were coming up between the trees, on the patch from the lake, with jars of water on their shoulders; children were playing around the doors, squatting with little naked posteriors in deep dust; and here and there a goat was tethered. Men in soiled white clothes were lounging, with folded arms and one leg crossed in front of the other, against the corner of a house, or crouching under the walls. Not by any means dolce far niente. They seemed to be waiting, eternally waiting for something.

“That way, Señorita!” called the man with the basket, running to her side and indicating the smoother road sloping