"Take care!"
"What?" he said, as he looked fixedly at her. Without replying, she laid her finger on her rosy lips, and turning quickly away, ran back into the venta.
The Captain drew himself up, frowned savagely, and bent a threatening glance on the two or three fellows leaning against the wall, but he soon shook his head.
"Bah!" he muttered, disdainfully, "they would not dare."
He then drew his sabre, whose blade glistened dazzlingly in the sunbeams, and placed himself at the head of the troop.
"Forward!" he shouted.
They started at once.
The mules followed the bell of the Néna, and the dragoons collected round the recua enclosed it in their midst.
For a few minutes the Campesinos, who had been watching the departure of the troop, looked after it along the winding road, then re-entered the venta one by one.
The girl was seated alone on an equipal, apparently busily engaged in sewing; still, through the almost imperceptible tremor that agitated her body, the flush on her brow, and the timid look she shot through her long eyelashes on the entrance of the Campesinos, it was easy to read that the calmness she affected was far from her heart, and that, on the contrary, a secret fear tormented her.