XIV.
Although tired out by the emotions of the day and comparatively tranquil in his mind in regard to his mother’s condition, Rogelio tossed and turned about for a long time before he fell into a light doze. He did not succeed, however, in obtaining a sound and restorative sleep; his slumbers were interrupted and restless and visited by distressing dreams, in which he seemed to be always falling down, down, rapidly, interminably, with the added distress of never being able to reach the ground and of seeing below him the place on which he was about to be dashed. In one of those painful and involuntary efforts which we make in our sleep to shake off a bad dream or to change its character, he woke with a start and looked about him wonderingly, unable to remember at first how it was that he came to be sleeping here, in his mother’s room.
Absolute silence reigned around. The room, dimly lighted by the little lamp, was in a semi-obscurity; his mother, he thought, must be asleep, for he could hear her breathing deeply, almost snoring; at the head of the bed he saw Esclavita sitting motionless, with large, wide-open eyes fixed on himself. An irresistible impulse made him call to her with the accent of a child who, because of some nocturnal fright, begs not be left alone.
“Esclavita! Hist! Esclavita!” he called softly. “Come here!”
The girl glided toward him, silently as a shadow, and bent over him.
“Is mamma asleep?” he asked.
“Sound asleep.”
“Well, I am wide awake now. Talk to me—softly, so that we may not waken her.”
“Ah, Señorito, and how if we should disturb her?”
“There is no fear of that. Come closer, and speak softly.”