Many girls were as beautiful, but something beyond the beauty of feature or color was in her strange half-Egyptian face,—a certain barbaric note held in check by the steady eyes and the mouth firm yet tender. It was a mouth made for love; yet—was it the shadow of the dark veil she had so nearly worn? Was it a hint of regret for the cloistered life left behind? Or was it the shadow of some future—a prophecy of the years to come?
Ana paused at the edge of the stream, in terror at the volume of water barring their way on every side.
"Ai! ai! And Aunt Jacoba but a moment ago declaring that she will have her supper in the refectory of the San Juan Mission. Neither Mission nor supper can we see this night—and no Rafael!"
She turned dismayed though roguish eyes on Raquel.
"He did not expect us when the rains came," said Raquel with quiet certainty. "If he received Doña Luisa's letter, he has gone by sea to San Diego. Did she not say so, Anita?"
"Oh, he can do much, your handsome Rafael," agreed Ana, "but he cannot yet stop the tide, or dam La Christienita! Such a dry bed in Summer! and now it is a river."
"But not deep?" hazarded Raquel. "Not so deep as the carriage bed."
"Deep? There is one ford that is safe if one knows it; but, Holy Maria! on each side are pits of a depth to drown us all!"
"Oh, if there is a good ford to be found—" The rest of Raquel's sentence was drowned in Ana's shrieks of protest, as her horse was spurred into the torrent in search of the roadway safe for a carriage.
Ana was right; there were pits, and there were great round bowlders on the edges of them. The horse stumbled on one, recovered, and stumbled again where the current swung into a whirlpool; and then, as the water roaring in her ears almost drowned Ana's screams, a sharp authoritative voice sounded from the bank—