"My friend! What means that word? Have slaves any friends? Ah, yes," she continued, speaking as if in a dream, "I have suffered terribly. Still I can remember long, long ago, being happy, but alas! The worst misfortune is the recollection of past happiness in misery."
She was silent. The bombero gazed at her, and listened to her as if suspended on her lips. That voice, those features! A vague suspicion entered Pedrito's head.
"Oh, speak, speak again," he said, softening down the harshness of his voice, "what do you remember of your youthful years?"
"Why think of past joys in misfortune? What does it avail?" she added, shaking her head with discouragement. "My history is that of all unfortunate persons. There was a time when, like other children, I had the song of birds to lull me to sleep, flowers that smiled on me when I awoke, and a mother who loved and embraced me—all that has fled forever."
Pedrito had raised two poles covered with skins to shelter her from the storm, which was gradually subsiding.
"You are kind, for you have saved me; still, your kindness was cruel, for why did you not let me die? People who are dead no longer suffer. The Pehuenches will return, and then—"
She did not conclude, and buried her face in her hands, with choking sobs.
"Fear nothing, señorita; I will defend you."
"Poor man; alone against all! But before my last hour arrives, listen to me, for I wish to relieve my heart. One day I was playing in my mother's arms, my father was near us, with my two sisters and my four brothers, resolute men who would not have feared twenty. Well! the Pehuenches came up, they burned our estancia, for my father was a farmer, they killed my mother, and—"
"Mercedes, Mercedes!" the bombero exclaimed, "Is it really you? Do I find you again?"