IN THE NIGHT.
Rita drew a long breath as she folded her letter. She was in a fine glow of mingled affection and patriotic fervour; it had been a great relief to pour it all out in Margaret's sympathetic ear, though that ear were a thousand miles away. Now she really must go to bed. It was one o'clock, her watch told her. It seemed wicked, profane, to sleep under such moonlight as this; but still, the body must be preserved.
"But first," she said to herself, "I must have a drop of water; writing so long has made me thirsty."
She took up the earthen water-jar, but found it empty. Pepe had for once been faithless; indeed, neither he nor Manuela had escaped the witchery of the full moon, and she had had little good of them that whole evening. She glanced at the corner where Manuela lay; the light, regular breathing told that the girl was sound asleep. It would be a pity to wake her from her first sweet sleep, poor Manuela. A year, perhaps a month ago, Rita would not have hesitated an instant; but now she murmured, "Sleep, little one! I myself will fetch the water."
She stepped out into the moonlight, with the jar in her hand. All was still as sleep itself. No sound or motion from huts or tent. Under the palms lay a number of brown bundles, motionless. Dry leaves, piled together for burning? no! soldiers of Cuba, wrapped in such covering as they could find, taking their rest. Alone, beside a little heap of twigs that still smouldered, the sentry sat; his back was turned to her. Should she speak to him, and ask him to go to the spring for her? No; how much more interesting to go herself! Everything looked so different in this magic light; it was a whole new world, the moon's fairyland; who knew what wonderful sights might meet her eyes? Besides, her old nurse used to say that water drawn from a pure spring under the full moon produced a matchless purity of the complexion. Her complexion was well enough, perhaps, but still—and anyhow, it would be an adventure, however small a one.
The girl's feet, in their soft leather slippers, made no sound on the bare earth. The sentry did not turn his head. Silent as a cloud, she stole across the little glade, and passed under the trees at the farther end. Here the ground broke off suddenly in a rocky pitch, down which one scrambled to another valley or glen lying some hundred feet lower; the cliff (for it was steep enough to merit that name) was mostly bare rock, but here and there a little earth had caught and lodged, and a few seeds had dropped, and a tuft of grass or a little tree had sprung up, defying the gulf below. A few feet only from the upper level, just below a group of palms that nodded over the brink, the stream gushed out from the face of the rock, clear and cold. The soldiers had hollowed a little trough to receive the trickling stream, and one had only to hold one's pitcher under this spout for a few minutes, to have it filled with delicious water. Rita had often come hither in the daytime, during the week that had now passed since her arrival at the mountain camp. It was a wild and picturesque scene at any time, but now the effect of the intense white light, falling on splintered rock, hanging tree, and glancing stream was magical indeed. Rita lay down on her face at the edge of the precipice, as she had seen the soldiers do, and lowered her jar carefully. As the water gurgled placidly into the jar, her eyes roved here and there, taking in every detail of the marvellous scene before her. Never, she thought, had she seen anything so beautiful, so unearthly in its loveliness. Peace! silver peace, and silence, the silence of—hark! what was that?
A crack, as of a twig breaking; a rustling, far below in the gorge; a shuffling sound, as of soft shod feet pressing the soft earth. Rita crouched flat to the ground, and, leaning over as far as she dared, peered over the precipice. The bottom of the gorge was filled with a mass of tall grasses and feathery blossoming shrubs, with here and there a tree rising tall and straight. The leaves were black as jet in the strong light. Gazing intently, she saw the branches tremble, wave, separate; and against the dark leaves shone a gleam of metal, that moved, and came nearer. Another and yet another; and now she could see the dark faces, and the moon shone on the barrels of the carbines, and made them glitter like silver.
Swiftly and noiselessly the girl drew back from the brink, crouching in the grass till she reached the shadow of the grove. Then she rose to her feet, still holding her jar of water carefully,—for there was no need of wasting that,—and ran for her life.
A whispered word to the sentry, who sprang quickly enough from his reverie beside the fire; then to the General's tent, then to Carlos, with the same whispered message. "The Gringos are here! Wake, for the love of Heaven!"
In another moment the little glade was alive with dusky figures, springing from their beds of moss and leaves, snatching their arms, fumbling for cartridges. The General was already among them. Carlos and the other officers came running, buckling their sword-belts, rubbing their eyes.