“Pobrecito! He has no more than hunger. To-morrow I will bring another caldo—for even broth of horse gives strength—that ye may not starve. But have ye no fathers?”
“Papa fell in San Felipe; and our mother was sent from the city with many. But us she hid in the house, saying that the enemy had no mercy even to the weak. And so it was; for the women that tried to pass to Lima the insurjentes fired upon. And she never came back.”
“Dogs of rebels! But now I go, little one. Have heart, for I will look to you. Hásta luego.”
When he was gone the child crouched down by her brother and slipped her trembling hand into his. The shadows were so crawly! They seemed to draw back and then come stealing at her. And it was so still—only the hail of the sentries, breaking across such a silence as if they stood guard over a city of the dead.
“Que hay, little sister?” said the boy, starting up wide awake with the suddenness of those that are fevered. “The father? Couldst not find one? But it is all the same, for God sent us a friend with food.”
“And he comes to-morrow also,” she added eagerly. Then she told how she had followed the priest, but he had shaken her off with rough words.
“Ea? How is that? For the fathers do not so. And how is it thou followedst him even to the castillo?”
“Pues, for that he went very fast and I could not catch him. He was at the corner even when the sargento let me pass; but when I came running there he was almost at the next cuadra, as if he too had run.”