Lonely? Why, yes, it may have been; but so free, so roomy, and so sunny, that these two who darted athwart the picture never thought of loneliness. Besides, why should they? Santa Felisa was home to them; and during the few short years that Steenie Calthorp had lived she had viewed just such wide stretches of this lovely world, and no other; for a city, or even town, she had never seen.
As they rode they talked,—the girl asking and her attendant parrying questions without number, till he cried out, impatiently, “If thou wilt chatter always, Little Un, how can Tito win the race? Be quiet now, for just two minutes, and my lady Mazan´ shall feel the rope about her throat, if Sutro’s hand has not lost its cunning, with all this tiresome talk of ‘old,’ ‘old’!”
“Ce, ce, ce!” echoed Steenie, softly, in her eagerness using the familiar Spanish injunction to silence, and bending low to whisper a few encouraging words in Tito’s ear. Like an arrow he shot forward, and in a brief space had gained so close to Mazan´ that Sutro made ready to throw.
“Whiz-z! Swish!” The rope had cut the air in shining circles above the runaway’s straining head, and descended with unerring exactness to her steaming neck; who, at the first touch of the cord, understood its meaning, and stood stock-still,—a throbbing, beautiful, but wholly conquered thing.
“Caramba! Señ’rita Mazan´! Wouldst serve thy master so? Take that—”
But the uplifted hand was stayed, as suddenly as the mare’s flight had been, by Steenie’s clutch of Sutro’s wrist, and her rebuke: “What! would you strike her, really,—Mazan´, who never knew stroke or blow! Or has this been your habit, and I s’posing you so gentle! For shame to you, Sutro Vives! and shame ten thousand times! What is she but—”
“A vixen! so I tell thee, who must be broken of her evil tricks. Caramba! Thus I will have it. ‘Women and mares and a spaniel dog—’”
“Sutro! Leave your dirty Spanish jabbering, and listen to me. If you strike her you shall not ride on the beach—for—one—whole—week! And ‘so I tell thee’! I will take—let me see—maybe Nicoloso Barbazon, instead.”
“Si? but thou wilt not, Little Un! What does the stupid Nicoloso know of what a señorita’s body-servant should be? Answer me that. Caramba!”
“Ah, ha, my Sutro! Somebody is silly still; but it isn’t Mazan´, nor Tito, nor me! And you make me think you are not well: you are so very, very cross. Never mind, poor thing! Get upon your pretty beast, who stands so quiet now, and let us go on. I am as hungry as hungry; aren’t you?”