“About that,” rejoins Miranda, “I think we need have no uneasiness. Beyond lies the thing to be apprehended—not on the desert, but amid cultivated fields, in the streets of towns, in the midst of so-called civilisation. There will be their real danger.”
For some time the three are silent, their reflections assuming a sombre hue, called forth by the colonel’s words.
But the doctor, habitually light-hearted, soon recovers, and makes an effort to imbue the others with cheerfulness like his own.
“Senorita,” he says, addressing himself to Adela, “your guitar, hanging there against the wall, seems straining its strings as if they longed for the touch of your fair fingers. You’ve been singing every night for the last month, delighting us all I hope you won’t be silent now that your audience is reduced, but will think it all the more reason for bestowing your favours on the few that remain.”
To the gallant speech of pure Castilian idiom, the young lady answers with a smile expressing assent, at the same time taking hold of her guitar. As she reseats herself, and commences tuning the instrument, a string snaps.
It seems an evil omen; and so all three regard it, though without knowing why. It is because, like the strings of the instrument, their hearts are out of tune, or rather attuned to a presentiment which oppresses them.
The broken string is soon remedied by a knot; this easily done. Not so easy to restore the tranquillity of thought disturbed by its breaking.
No more does the melancholy song which succeeds. Even to that far land has travelled the strain of the “Exile of Erin.” Its appropriateness to their own circumstances suggesting itself to the Mexican maiden, she sings—
Sad is my fate, said the heart-broken stranger,
The wild deer and wolf to the covert can flee,
But I have no refuge from famine and danger,
A home and a country remain not to me.
“Dear Adela!” interrupts Miranda. “That song is too sad. We’re already afflicted with its spirit. Change it for one more cheerful. Give us a lay of the Alhambra—a battle-song of the Cid or the Campeador—something patriotic and stirring.”