There weren't even any birds. Judging by the sun, I could tell that we first headed north; then one day we turned to the east. Still none of us knew where we were going. We weren't allowed to talk to each other, we were only permitted to answer the questions that some of the bandits asked us. I looked at the boys who were only a few years older than me. Although they were young, not even full grown, they behaved as if they were old men. I would often sit and sneak a glance at the boy who had chopped off Alfredo's head with his axe. I thought about the way he had laughed because of the terror that filled him. I wondered how his spirit would some day be received by the dead, by his ancestors. I thought they would probably punish him. I couldn't imagine that the spirits would fail to punish each other for the crimes they had committed when they were alive.

'Late one evening we reached a high plateau. For several days the path we had been following grew steeper and steeper. When we came to the top, other bandits were already there, along with several poorly built huts, flickering fires and lots of guns. We had arrived at one of the bases which the bandits concealed in inaccessible places and which the young revolutionaries seldom managed to find. I remember nothing from our first night there except that we were exhausted. My mother had stopped crying by then, but she had also stopped talking, and I thought that her heart was paralysed with sorrow for all those who were left behind in the burned village. The bandits herded us into one of the huts. I lay for a long time on the hard earthen floor in the dark, listening to the bandits getting drunk on palm wine, now and then quarrelling or singing obscene songs or cursing the young revolutionaries. I had a hard time falling asleep because I was so hungry. It felt as though fierce animals were biting me in the stomach, making tiny holes through which all my strength was seeping out, like the last drops of water in an almost dry river bed. But I must have fallen asleep at last.