"May you have a happy night," he said softly, and closed the door. The frugal Elizabetta immediately made the rounds of the room, extinguishing all the candles but one.
And then, outside, we heard music beginning to tune up. Some one had hired the village orchestra to serenade us. Late into the night they played steadily, right outside our door. In the next house we heard them moving chairs and tables out of the way; and just before I went to sleep they began to dance there, economically combining a serenade with a baile.
Without the least embarrassment, Elizabetta lay down beside me on the bed. Her hand reached for mine. She snuggled against my body for the comforting human warmth of it, murmured, "Until morning," and went to sleep. And calmly, sweetly, sleep came to me....
When I woke in the morning she was gone. I opened my door and looked out. Morning had come dazzlingly, all blue and gold—a heaven of flame-trimmed big white clouds and windy sky, and the desert brazen and luminous. Under the ashy bare trees the peddlers' morning fire leaped horizontal in the wind. The black women, with wind-folded draperies, crossed the open ground to the river in single file, with red water-jars on their heads. Cocks crew, goats clamored for milking, and a hundred horses drummed up the dust as they were driven to water.
Elizabetta was squatted over a little fire near the corner of the house, patting tortillas for the Captain's breakfast. She smiled as I came up, and politely asked me if I had slept well. She was quite contented now; you knew from the way she sang over her work.
Presently the Captain came up in a surly manner and nodded briefly to me.
"I hope it's ready now," he grunted, taking the tortillas she gave him. "You take a long time to cook a little breakfast. Carramba! Why is there no coffee?" He moved off, munching. "Get ready," he flung back over his shoulder. "We go north in an hour."
"Are you going?" I asked curiously. Elizabetta looked at me with wide-open eyes.
"Of course I am going. Seguro! Is he not my man?" She looked after him admiringly. She was no longer revolted.
"He is my man," she said. "He is very handsome, and very brave. Why, in the battle the other day——"