"You must not think, Don Arthur," the girl had said once, "that I do not feel grateful because I cannot tell you so; it is because I feel too grateful to express it."
"Do not trouble yourself, señorita. I know perfectly well how you must be feeling, and it is not at all necessary for you to tell me; you must have gone through a terrible time indeed."
"I thought more of my brother's fate than my own," she said. "It did not seem to me to be so hard to die. It was of Leon, my dear brother, that I thought so much, and grieved for. I could hardly think that that terrible man really meant to kill me, and yet he seemed altogether without pity."
"He was. The good priest, whose dress I wore and whose place I took, had endeavoured in vain to turn him from his determination. I myself saw him, and denounced the crime as being contrary to the Conventions; but he would not hear me, and declared that, come what might, you should be shot the first thing in the morning. And it was only when I found that the case was absolutely hopeless that I determined to set you free at whatever risk. The priest aided me. He obtained from Cabrera an order to spend the night with you, in order to prepare you for death. He passed me the order, and went away himself so as to escape the vengeance of that scoundrel, and I and my man between us managed to get you out."
"But there were two men below, were there not? I heard them talking."
"Yes; I had to kill one of them, and the other I gagged and tied up. I don't suppose he will be any the worse when they find him in the morning. Now we will change horses, and then I hope you will try to sleep. You cannot have closed an eye since you were captured, and we shall have plenty of time to talk later on." The girl did as he told her, and remained quiet in his arms, but he could see that her eyes never closed.
"I wish I could ride," she said once, "so that I might relieve you of my weight."
"Your weight is nothing," he said; "and each time we change horses I put you on the other side, and so rest my arm."
As they drew up at the shed from which he had ridden thirty-six hours before, the women ran out and cried with joy.
Arthur handed the girl down to them.