At a little sandy rill, the only one they crossed, a long water-snake endeavored to escape before the rapid wagon could strike it, but the Captain rose to his feet quick and cat-like, and projected the long lash into the roadside, and the snake writhed and bounded in the air almost cut in two. Then, sitting again and bending so close to Hulda that his long, downy mustache of gold touched her cheek, Van Dorn said, softly:
"Qué hermoso! Young wild-flower, let me take a snake out of your path also?"
"Which one, Captain?"
"It does not matter. Name any one."
"Alas!" said Hulda, "I am of them; how can I wish harm to my stepfather and my grand-dame? They are not what I wish, but I am commanded to honor them."
"By whom, fair Hulda?"
"By God. I read it in the Book after I heard it from a slave."
"Dónde está! What slave that we know was so God-read?"
"Poor drunken Dave. He was a good man before he knew us. He told me all the Commandments for a drink of brandy, and I wrote them down and afterwards I found them in a book."
"Chis! chito! how graceful is your mind, Hulda! It comes out of the absolute blank of your condition and discovers things, as the young osprey, untaught before, knows where to dive for fish. Who that ever comes to Johnson's Cross-roads brings the Bible?"