“My guitar, Anita! Instante! Maybe she will hear it, our Carlota! Always it would bring her. Always. Quick! the guitar!”
“Ay de mi! Woe is me! She has gone even more mad. Well, mad folks must be humored!” murmured the maid.
A few moments later, the two men taking their food in the kitchen were startled by the notes of the antiquated instrument and the curious, quavering song which accompanied it. Miguel, the son, shared Anita’s suspicion, and cried:
“It is my mother! Her brain has now turned. Ah! it is hard when the old must die of grief.”
“Hark! That isn’t grief! That’s something more—and different!” returned the girl, listening intently.
For the song had abruptly ceased; been cut in two, as it were, by some sudden interruption.
Mr. Rupert hurried outward as old Marta hobbled inward, and they met on the threshold, where, to the great peril of his eyes, she thrust a thorny agave leaf into his face and, pointing to it, gesticulated wildly. Also, she muttered Spanish so rapidly that even Anita couldn’t keep pace with half she said. At every few words she motioned toward the outer court—then back to the leaf again. Evidently, she was frantically imploring Mr. Rupert to examine it; but he now, also, believed her crazed.
It was the ancient Guadalupo who finally brought reason out of this confusion. Without troubling to move his head or alter his feeble monotone he reiterated again and again:
“Before ink and paper was the Pueblos wrote on leaves. Before ink and paper was. Before ink and paper—”
“Hush! thou imbecile!” screamed Anita.