He arrives, puts the same question as ever, and one of the group says:
“Yes, we have had sight of that pair; look! for a clearer trace see the horse that carried them, who fell here ruptured with running.”
Andrés turns his eyes in the direction they indicated, and indeed sees his horse, his beloved horse, which some men of the place were preparing to flay for the sake of its hide. He could scarcely resist his grief, but recovering himself, he turned again to the thought of his wife.
“And tell me,” he exclaimed impetuously; “how you failed to render aid to that woman in distress.”
“And didn’t we aid her!” said another of the circle. “Didn’t I sell them another saddle-horse so that they might press on their way with all the speed that seemed so important to them!”
“But,” interrupted Andrés, “that woman was stolen away by force; that man is a bandit, who, regardless of her tears and her laments, drags her I know not whither.”
The sly rustics exchanged glances and compassionate smiles.
“Not so, señorito! what tales are you telling us?” slowly continued the man with whom he was talking. “Stolen away by force! But how if it were she herself who said with the greatest earnestness: ‘Quick, quick, let us flee from this district! I shall not be at rest until it is out of my sight forever.’ ”
Andrés comprehended all; a cloud of blood passed before his eyes—eyes which shed no tear, and he fell to the earth prone as the dead.
He went mad; in a few days, he died.