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'They will treat you well, no doubt.
We republicans are not savages and take no vengeance on women.'
"She gave me a look at the word 'republicans' which I imagined full of
undying hate. But an hour or so afterwards, as we drew up to let the
baggage mules go first along a narrow path skirting a precipice, she
looked at me with such a white, troubled face that I felt a great pity
for her.
"'Senor officer,' she said, 'I am weak, I tremble. It is an insensate
fear.' And indeed her lips did tremble while she tried to smile,
glancing at the beginning of the narrow path which was not so dangerous
after all. 'I am afraid I shall drop the child. Gaspar saved your life,
you remember. . . . Take her from me.'
"I took the child out of her extended arms. 'Shut your eyes, senora, and
trust to your mule,' I recommended.
"She did so, and with her pallor and her wasted, thin face she looked
deathlike. At a turn of the path where a great crag of purple porphyry
closes the view of the lowlands, I saw her open her eyes.


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