She replied at once. `You do our humble house a great honour, Lord. My father, mother and brothers do not speak the tongue of the Gachupines but my father wishes me to say that we are your servants and everything here is yours.'
Having thanked her, Adam went on, `You will realise, senorita, that as a Man God, when I take human form I have all the weaknesses and needs of any ordinary man. Tonight I have travelled far and am very spent. I started out with a companion a lady. She is injured and still some way up the mountain. My most urgent need is help to bring her here.'
Rapidly the girl translated. The father issued orders and the two younger men quickly left the house. The girl told Adam that they had gone to knock up a stretcher, then explained that the name of the family was Zupango and hers Juanita.
Displaying respect, but no fear of him, she continued to chatter away. The nearest village, about three miles distant down in the valley, was Xalcatlan and the nearest large town, nine miles off, was Apizaco. Her father and brothers cultivated the terraces on the slope of the volcano and, as these faced south, good crops of maize were grown on the lower ones and of grapes on those higher up. They also had a few cattle, pigs and poultry, and enough fruit trees scattered about the place to supply their own needs. Her first job had been as a waitress in Apizaco; she had then spent four years in Mexico City as a chambermaid in a good hotel. She was at home only because she had returned to marry her fiancé. The district was famous for its wood carving. He was a skilful craftsman and, now that so many American tourists bought such work, he made good money at his trade.
Her father and mother meanwhile produced tequila, some slices of cold meat, onions, the inevitable tortillas and a bowl of fresh fruit, and nervously offered them to Adam. He was no longer
feeling the cold but, loath to hurt their feelings by refusing, he drank the fiery spirit and ate a banana. As he finished, the brothers returned, carrying two stout poles to which they had attached several empty sacks. Their father picked up the lantern and, bowing to Adam, signed to him to lead the way.
Now that Chela's rescue seemed to be so close at hand, his heart was gripped with a new fear. Would they succeed in finding her? In the past half hour he had been incredibly lucky. Instead of having to force himself to walk for another hour or, perhaps, collapse from exhaustion, he had come upon a habitation within a comparatively short time of leaving her; instead of it being a peasant's shack, it had been a well equipped farmstead; instead of being received with hostility, he had been treated as a god; instead of a single native, three strong men had been available to carry her down to safety; and instead of his being unable to communicate with them, Juanita had chanced to be at home, so was able to translate his need and its urgency.
But would his luck hold? In the past half hour Chela might have fainted again or, as a result of the morphia he had given her, fallen asleep. If so, there would be no flash of the torch to guide them to her, then in the darkness it would be next to impossible to find her. Again, there were so many tracks on the mountainside, and in the pale light of the setting moon there was no way of telling one from another. If he took a wrong one, it might lead them round a shoulder of the mountain; then Chela might flash the torch for the next hour, but they would not see it.
His fatigue temporarily forgotten in his acute anxiety, he set off at a good pace. Yet very soon he realised that had it not been for his brief rest he would not have had the strength left to make the climb at all. As it was, he had not been in the house for much longer than ten minutes; so before they had gone far he had to shorten his stride. Coming down he had counted it fortunate that the long rivers of lava from past eruptions had, to some extent, smoothed out the sides of the volcano and made the slopes by no means precipitous; but now, going up, it seemed to him that they were almost as steep as the roof of a house.
With labouring breath he rhythmically pushed one foot in front of the other, but a new wave of weariness caused him to start stumbling again every time his eyes left the track to search the heights above for the flash of the torch. At last one of the brothers saw it. Adam's heart missed a beat, then he sent up a prayer of thankfulness. He had not led them in the wrong direction and Chela had not dozed off. Soon now she would be warm and safe.
But, for him, `soon' was not applicable. He had yet to drag himself up another hundred and fifty yards. When they reached Chela he could do no more than croak out a greeting as he sank down beside her. Then came the descent. It had to be made slowly, lest either of the brothers, who were acting as stretcher bearers, tripped and fell with her. Yet, even at this modest pace, to Adam the way down seemed interminable. Towards the end he could not even keep his eyes open and the older Zupango had to support him.
Afterwards he could not remember reaching the farmhouse. His gruelling fight with the six priests, the nerve racking flight in the helicopter, the awful strain of supporting both Hunterscombe and Chela down to clean air, having carried the dead weight of Chela for so far, and his final effort of going down the last slope, then up and down again, had drained the last ounce of strength from his body. When he did enter the farmhouse he slumped to the floor, having passed out cold.
When he woke, memory seeped back to him the terrible ordeal of the previous night, then Hunterscombe's last words, conveying that every policeman in Mexico was by now on the look out for him as the most wanted criminal in the country.
With a groan he raised his head and looked about him. He was lying on a palliasse in a narrow room. A few feet away Chela was lying on another. Between them Juanita was sitting on a stool, knitting.
Seeing that he had woken, she stood up, smiled down at him and said:
`You have slept well, Lord. Eight hours, and it is close on midday.'
Raising himself on an elbow, he looked across at Chela and asked, `How is the Senorita?'
`As well as can be expected. When they brought her in she was in a high fever. My mother gave her a herbal drink which is better than the doctors in the cities can prescribe. When she became drowsy we looked at her wound, cleaned and dressed it with a healing ointment. The bone of her leg is not broken, but the tendons are torn. She may become a little lame, but she is very beautiful and a slight limp will not lessen her attraction.'
Greatly relieved that Chela was being so well cared for, Adam's mind turned to his other anxieties. He now cursed himself for having slept so long. His freedom and possibly his life hung on his getting Hunterscombe to hospital and it was now nearly twelve
hours since he had been wounded. Lying untended in the cave, his condition would deteriorate with every hour and he might not
Last out the day. He alone could testify that it was Adam who had enabled him to warn the authorities and, that apart, no effort must be spared to reach in time this friend who had had the courage to arrive alone among the fanatical priests on the top of the pyramid.
Pulling himself together, Adam told Juanita about Hunterscombe and said that as soon as possible a rescue party must go up to get him. She said that her father and brothers had, as usual, been working up on the terraces all the morning, but would shortly be back for the midday meal, and would then be entirely at his disposal.
After his collapse they had taken off only his jacket and shoes before laying him on the palliasse and putting a single blanket over him. As he threw the blanket off and sat up to put them on, he was smitten with a dozen aches and pains from the kicks and blows he had received the previous night. Striving to ignore them and the stiffness of his limbs, he went over to look at Chela. She was very pale from having lost so much blood, but sleeping peacefully under the drug that the old woman had given her. When he felt her pulse it was slow but regular so, satisfied that her state was somewhat better than he could have hoped for, he asked Juanita where he could wash.