"We'll go, then," Pancracio shouted, "but I'm certainly going in good company this time. My sweetheart's coming along with me!"
Demetrio replied that he too would willingly take along a girl he had set his eye on, but that he hoped none of his men would leave bitter memories behind them as the Federals did.
"You won't have long to wait. Everything will be arranged when you return," Luis Cervantes whispered to him.
"What do you mean?" Demetrio asked. "I thought that you and Camilla..."
"There's not a word of truth in it, Chief. She likes you but she's afraid of you, that's all."
"Really? Is that really true?"
"Yes. But I think you're quite right in not wanting to leave any bitter feelings behind you as you go. When you come back as a conqueror, everything will be different. They'll all thank you for it even."
"By God, you're certainly a shrewd one," Demetrio replied, patting him on the back.
At sundown, Camilla went to the river to fetch water as usual. Luis Cervantes, walking down the same trail, met her. Camilla felt her heart leap to her mouth. But, without taking the slightest notice of her, Luis Cervantes hastily took one of the turns and disappeared among the rocks.
At this hour, as usual, the calcinated rocks, the sun-burnt branches, and the dry weeds faded into the semi-obscurity of the shadows. The wind blew softly, the green lances of the young corn leaves rustling in the twilight. Nothing was changed; all nature was as she had found it before, evening upon evening; but in the stones and the dry weeds, amid the fragrance of the air and the light whir of falling leaves, Camilla sensed a new strangeness, a vast desolation in everything about her.