“Who?” repeated Enriquez, with a pause, a fixed look at me, and a sublime gesture. “Who SHOULD it be, but myself, Enriquez Saltillo?”
A terrible premonition that this was a chivalrous LIE, that it was NOT himself he had seen, but that our two visions were identical, came upon me. “After all,” I said, with a fixed smile, “if you could imagine you saw your wife, you could easily imagine you saw yourself too. In the shock of the moment you thought of HER naturally, for then she would as naturally seek your protection. You have written for news of her?”
“No,” said Enriquez quietly.
“No?” I repeated amazedly.
“You understand, Pancho! Eef it was the trick of my eyes, why should I affright her for the thing that is not? If it is the truth, and it arrive to ME, as a warning, why shall I affright her before it come?”
“Before WHAT comes? What is it a warning of?” I asked impetuously.
“That we shall be separated! That I go, and she do not.”
To my surprise, his dancing eyes had a slight film over them. “I don't understand you,” I said awkwardly.
“Your head is not of a level, my Pancho. Thees earthquake he remain for only ten seconds, and he fling open the door. If he remain for twenty seconds, he fling open the wall, the hoose toomble, and your friend Enriquez is feenish.”
“Nonsense!” I said. “Professor—I mean the geologists—say that the centre of disturbance of these Californian earthquakes is some far-away point in the Pacific and there never will be any serious convulsions here.”