“You boys seem to be animated with but one spirit between you.”
“One spirit is quite enough for Jill and me,” “One spirit is quite enough for Jack and me.”—this would be our answers.
It was not very often that Castizo was in the humour to tell us a story; but when we did get him to consent, we had descriptions of the most thrilling adventures, both by sea and land, that it is possible to imagine.
“Do,” I ventured to say once, “do the señora, your wife, and the señorita—”
“Dulzura,” said Peter.
“Miss you greatly, when from home?”
A strange change came over his countenance. From happiness and mirth it suddenly changed to melancholy the most acute. I felt sorry immediately I had spoken, and hastened to say—
“My dear friend, I have hurt your feelings; pray pardon my thoughtlessness.”
“Nay, nay,” he made haste to reply; “it is nothing. But my wife is gone. If ever angel lived and breathed on earth, it was Magdalena. Her death was to me an abiding sorrow. But I seem to see her and feel her presence even yet, and she is often with me when I am alone.”
This gave me the clue to what we had considered a mystery, namely, Castizo’s great fondness for spending a portion of almost every night all alone out in the Pampas. Whether it rained or blew, in fact whatsoever the weather was like, Castizo always went out. This habit he commenced, as I have already shown, when we first started, when he rode two lonesome days and nights after us; and the habit he kept up till the last.