"No, no!" he replied, quickly. "They are not killing, and now that they have found our traces they will probably burn no more. Your return would not help, Ñusta Rava. Compose yourself, I pray you."
"Ah, my poor people!" she wailed. "My unhappy country! The Sun hath indeed turned away his face! Ah me, ah me!"
Cristoval crossed himself at the mention of her pagan deity, and whispered a prayer for her soul. She turned to him earnestly.
"Viracocha, we will not seek aid until beyond the reach of those cruel men. We must endanger none of my father's children. We will flee alone—die alone, if need be."
Cristoval nodded assent, but thought of Pedro's pouch, which was none too heavy. How to replenish it without the help of men would be a question. "By the saints!" he thought; "this lady's escape is attended by difficulties, and now she setteth up problems of generalship that are unfamiliar. Ah, well, we'll see what can be done." Then he said aloud, "We will consider it later, Ñusta Rava. For the present, it is better not to talk, for breath may grow precious later on."
They pressed forward. The cottage was smouldering now, and left by the soldiery, who had apparently gone into the lower hills, for none was in sight. The top of the ridge was fairly smooth, though occasionally strewn with rock; but toward midday it developed into a succession of deep gullies, and their progress became labored, with halts of growing frequency. Before the afternoon was half gone Rava showed serious exhaustion, and they stopped in a thicket. Cristoval again spread his cloak, and once more she slept. In an hour he regretfully awakened her, and they took up their march. The sky was clearing, and presently Cristoval saw the expected. Far to the eastward, creeping over the first foothills, was a small, dark column of horsemen, sparkling here and there as the afternoon sun struck upon burnished helm and corselet, and deploying at last into a widely-extended line. Another column was moving to the southward along the highway, almost imperceptibly, as it appeared to Rava, but in reality at a gallop, as Cristoval knew. He watched for a time without comment, then led on. When darkness fell they rested again; then up with the rising moon and wearily onward.
The night was far spent when they were brought to a halt at the verge of a cliff, and looked into a valley half a league in breadth, roughly semicircular, and opening to the east. Its floor held many a hillock and hollow, and here and there the white walls of a cottage glimmered in the moonlight. At the foot of the declivity flowed a stream, showing silvery where it rippled past a shoal, black in the quiet pools, finally losing itself in the distant plain to which the vale descended. To the west the hills closed in gradually, forming the head of the amphitheatre and softening into the semiluminous mist which filled a great rift in the wall of the Cordillera looming beyond. Through this dim moonlit canyon the stream found its way into the valley from the fastnesses of its source.
The dale was one of those rare spots of the arid Sierra made fertile by an ample supply of water, and every available foot, as Cristoval could see, was under cultivation. From the edge of the cliff the long sinuous lines of terraces on the opposite hills were distinctly visible in the moonlight, following the contour of the valley-wall far to the east and west.
They stood for several minutes, Rava gazing longingly upon the peaceful cottages of her people, their shelter so near, yet denied. Cristoval, strongly tempted to take the risk of entrusting themselves to some of the denizens, was about to make the suggestion when both were startled by the neighing of a horse. It came, apparently, from a point just below, and was answered immediately by another, more remote. Rava clutched his arm with a quick catching of breath.
"Santa Maria!" interjected he, in an undertone. "So they are here before us!" His faint hope of aid was dashed. While Rava clung, trembling, to his arm, he debated. The plain was occupied. To cross it in this brilliant moonlight would be fatal. Even the hills were no longer safe; parties would be scouring them with the earliest dawn, and in their last march darkness had made it impossible not to leave traces. Cristoval glanced at the dark eyes turned anxiously to his.