"Oh, my little dove! save me from these savages!" she appealed, turning her fat eyes around in quaking fright.
"Inside with you now, old lady," Felipe commanded.
Doña Carlota, not yet recognizing him, was almost dissolved in fright. Her knees were melting under her fat body, she was about to bend in supplication to this fierce, black man when Henderson, having regard for her sex, if no pity for her panic, directed her to Helena's retreat.
Felipe had found a ready response to his call for volunteers. Many of the men on Don Abrahan's plantation, like himself, had borne arms, even if they had not done much fighting, in the rebellion. Their hope of freedom and equality before the law had vanished with the establishment of the new regime. No man's debt had been cancelled by the shift from one rule to another, it appeared; the peon had remained a peon, and such was his sad condition still.
Now the Americans were coming, said Don Felipe; the dust of their approach was on the horizon. It was very likely that all of them would be American citizens or outlaws against American authority before the sun set twice. To such as came forward like good and valiant men at this time, rewards would be forthcoming.
Felipe took that assurance on himself, knowing the reluctance of men to risk even the smallest thing without the hope or promise of reward. The
