“‘Yes, it is all over now,’ she repeated. Then, after a time: ‘senor officer, what will your Government do with me?’
“‘I do not know, senora,’ I said. ‘They will treat you well, no doubt. We republicans are not savages, and take no vengeance on women.’
“She gave me a look at the word ‘republicans’ which I imagined full of undying hate. But an hour or so afterwards, as we drew up to let the baggage mules go first along a narrow path skirting a precipice, she looked at me with such a white, troubled face that I felt a great pity for her.
“‘Senor officer,’ she said, ‘I am weak, I tremble. It is an insensate fear.’ And indeed her lips did tremble, while she tried to smile glancing at the beginning of the narrow path which was not so dangerous after all. ‘I am afraid I shall drop the child. Gaspar saved your life, you remember.... Take her from me.’
“I took the child out of her extended arms. ‘Shut your eyes, senora, and trust to your mule,’ I recommended.
“She did so, and with her pallor and her wasted thin face she looked deathlike. At a turn of the path, where a great crag of purple porphyry closes the view of the lowlands, I saw her open her eyes. I rode just behind her holding the little girl with my right arm. ‘The child is all right,’ I cried encouragingly.
“‘Yes,’ she answered faintly; and then, to my intense terror, I saw her stand up on the footrest, staring horribly, and throw herself forward into the chasm on our right.
“I cannot describe to you the sudden and abject fear that came over me at that dreadful sight. It was a dread of the abyss, the dread of the crags which seemed to nod upon me. My head swam. I pressed the child to my side and sat my horse as still as a statue. I was speechless and cold all over. Her mule staggered, sidling close to the rock, and then went on. My horse only pricked up his ears with a slight snort. My heart stood still, and from the depths of the precipice the stones rattling in the bed of the furious stream made me almost insane with their sound.
“Next moment we were round the turn and on a broad and grassy slope. And then I yelled. My men came running back to me in great alarm. It seems that at first I did nothing but shout, ‘She has given the child into my hands! She has given the child into my hands!’ The escort thought I had gone mad.”
General Santierra ceased and got up from the table. “And that is all, senores,” he concluded, with a courteous glance at his rising guests.