Raquel Arteaga listened, and Ana noticed all at once how white and tired she looked from the little gallop.
"Get down from the saddle, my dear," she said, appealingly. "Lift her, you, Victorio. Mother Mary! Do not faint, Raquel!"
Raquel did not faint. She thanked the muscular Victorio, who lifted her from the saddle as though she had been but a little child, and placed her on one of the long seats of brick, while Ana ran for water, and old Polonia crouched beside her and looked up in her face, but did not speak. She had heard the name of the hated Americano, and she had no need to ask questions. It was the witchcraft come over her again; even the sound of his name could bring it!
"No, I am not ill, Ana. I really am not," she persisted. "You say I turn white. Well, it may be I had no dinner—I think I forgot it, or those heroes the vigilantes took my appetite. See! I can stand; I am quite well. I am ready for the San Joaquin ride when the sun goes down."
"But, if harm should come?"
"Never fear. To go will not harm me. I am very strong—stronger than you think. Ai! I shall live long—a long, long time, Anita!"
She arose and passed through the door of the carved Aztec sun and little half-crescents, and Ana looked after her doubtfully.
"It is the Americana?" said Victorio, with a shrug and lifted brows. "Rafael Arteaga is mad after that baby woman—just mad. I think it makes Doña Maria afraid. It would not be well to have the wrong things happen in her house; so they jump at the chance to ride north together, for any reason at all, and bring Don Rafael to his own wife. That is all the reason they come: Doña Maria is afraid."
"But to bring them here! The Doña Raquel is not fond of heretics."
"I think myself it is the woman and not the religion she will think of when they come," said Victorio; "and she must have heard something,—what else made her look like that?"