I stood in silence gazing on this apparition so unexpected, so lovely. Surprise, along with admiration, restrained my speech.
For a time the girl was equally silent, though her silence had a different cause. Her eyes were fixed, not upon me but upon the form at my feet. She had only glanced at me, and then quickly transferred her gaze to the prostrate figure.
It was a look of eager inquiry, lasting not long. In a second it changed to one of recognition, and the instant afterwards her eyes filled with an expression of intense agony. She saw Calros—her beloved Calros—prostrate, his face besprinkled with blood. It was Calros, silent, but not asleep; speechless and motionless; perhaps dead?
“Dead! Mother of God, dead!” were the words that, in accents of anguish, came pealing from the lips of Lola.
Her eyes flashed upward. In an instant the expression changed—grief giving place to indignation—something still more dire.
I saw that I was myself its object. With astonishment did I perceive this. It had not occurred to me to reflect on my compromising position. I was still standing over the body of the Jarocho, blood-besprinkled as it was. Less than five minutes before, Calros’s voice had been heard, along with that of another man, mingling in excited dialogue.
A shot had been fired. I held a pistol in my hand, from the muzzle of which a slight film of sulphureous smoke could be seen stringing outward. Calros appeared to be dead. Who but I could have been his slayer?
I heard the word asesino ringing in my ears, with other epithets of like fearful signification, as the girl rushed up to the spot where I stood. There was no weapon in her hand, or I might have fancied she was about to strike me. Even with her clenched fist, I was for a while uncertain whether this was not her intention; and to avoid her, I stepped back.
She stood for some seconds looking me straight in the face. Behind the parting of her tightly compressed lips was displayed a double row of teeth, that, despite their pearly whiteness, gleamed fiercely in the moonlight; while her eyes, as they flashed, seemed to send forth jets of living fire!