"I find life very interesting," he said to Maria.
She was sitting beside him on the robe, her hands clasped around her ankles.
Some one moved the blanket aside from the entrance to the cave and they both saw the light.
It was night still and here was no promise of morning except that as he looked up through the pines he saw how low the stars had swung.
The morning would be coming fast now in this month.
"Roberto," Maria said.
"Yes, _guapa_."
"In this of today we will be together, will we not?"
"After the start, yes."
"Not at the start?"
"No.
Thou wilt be with the horses."
"I cannot be with thee?"
"No.
I have work that only I can do and I would worry about thee."
"But you will come fast when it is done?"
"Very fast," he said and grinned in the dark.
"Come, _guapa_, let us go and eat."
"And thy robe?"
"Roll it up, if it pleases thee."
"It pleases me," she said.
"I will help thee."
"Nay.
Let me do it alone."
She knelt to spread and roll the robe, then changed her mind and stood up and shook it so it flapped.
Then she knelt down again to straighten it and roll it.
Robert Jordan picked up the two packs, holding them carefully so that nothing would spill from the slits in them, and walked over through the pines to the cave mouth where the smoky blanket hung.
It was ten minutes to three by his watch when he pushed the blanket aside with his elbow and went into the cave.
38
They were in the cave and the men were standing before the fire Maria was fanning.
Pilar had coffee ready in a pot.
She had not gone back to bed at all since she had roused Robert Jordan and now she was sitting on a stool in the smoky cave sewing the rip in one of Jordan's packs.
The other pack was already sewed.
The firelight lit up her face.
"Take more of the stew," she said to Fernando.
"What does it matter if thy belly should be full?
There is no doctor to operate if you take a goring."
"Don't speak that way, woman," Agustin said.
"Thou hast the tongue of the great whore."
He was leaning on the automatic rifle, its legs folded close against the fretted barrel, his pockets were full of grenades, a sack of pans hung from one shoulder, and a full bandolier of ammunition hung over the other shoulder.
He was smoking a cigarette and he held a bowl of coffee in one hand and blew smoke onto its surface as he raised it to his lips.
"Thou art a walking hardware store," Pilar said to him.
"Thou canst not walk a hundred yards with all that."
"_Que va_, woman," Agustin said.
"It is all downhill."
"There is a climb to the post," Fernando said. "Before the downward slope commences."
"I will climb it like a goat," Agustin said.
"And thy brother?" he asked Eladio.
"Thy famous brother has mucked off?"
Eladio was standing against the wall.