Explore "Captain Fly-By-Night" by Johnston McCulley on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Not a light showed in the Indian huts of tide and straw that clustered near the presidio. From behind the walls came no whisperings of conspiracy, no cries of children in their dreams, no mumblings of women. Since nightfall they had been slipping away down the coast and back into the hills -- the men to hurry to their camps, women and children to seek refuge in the wilderness until the war should be over -- exactly as they had done in every uprising since the coming of Serra and his coadjutors.
Even the mangy curs that generally infested the road were gone, and so there was none to bark and snap at the heels of the caballero as he made his way slowly toward the presidio, walking silently, holding the scabbard of his sword so it would not strike against boot or spur, stopping every few yards to peer into the night, to listen for some sound above the wash of the sea that would apprise him of the nearness of danger.