CHAPTER XII
ELIZABETTA
So, against a crimson sky, the beaten, exhausted soldiers came down the hill. Some rode, their horses hanging weary heads—occasionally two on a horse. Others walked, with bloody bandages around their foreheads and arms. Cartridge-belts were empty, rifles gone. Their hands and faces were foul with sweaty dirt and stained still with powder. Beyond the hill, across the twenty-mile arid waste that lay between us and La Cadena, they straggled. There were not more than fifty left, including the women—the rest had dispersed in the barren mountains and the folds of the desert—but they stretched out for miles; it took hours for them to arrive.
Don Petronilo came in front, with lowered face and folded arms, the reins hanging loose upon the neck of his swaying, stumbling horse. Right behind him came Juan Santillanes, gaunt and white, his face years older. Fernando Silveyra, all rags, dragged along at his saddle. As they waded the shallow stream they looked up and saw me. Don Petronilo weakly waved his hand; Fernando shouted, "Why, there's meester! How did you escape? We thought sure they had shot you."
"I ran a race with the goats," I answered. Juan gave a laugh. "Scared to death, eh?"
The horses thrust eager muzzles into the stream, sucking fiercely. Juan cruelly spurred across, and we fell into each other's arms. But Don Petronilo dismounted in the water, dully, as if in a dream, and, wading up to the tops of his boots, came to where I was.
He was weeping. His expression didn't change, but slow, big tears fell silently down his cheeks.
"The colorados captured his wife!" murmured Juan in my ear.
I was filled with pity for the man.
"It is a terrible thing, mi Coronel," I said gently, "to feel the responsibility for all these brave fellows who died. But it was not your fault."