The Sombrero.
The horses cowered under the cold rain, all of them jaded and hungry. The hot dusty march of the morning, and the long rough gallop of the night, had exhausted their strength; and they stood with drooped heads and hanging ears, dozing and motionless.
The men, too, were wearied—some of them quite worn out. A few kept their feet, bridle in hand, under shelter of the impending cliff; the others, having staggered down, with their backs against the rock, had almost instantly fallen asleep.
For me was neither sleep nor rest; I did not even seek protection against the storm; but standing clear of the cliff, received the drenching shower full upon my shoulders. It was the chill rain of the “norther;” but at that moment neither cold norte nor hot sirocco could have produced upon me an impression of pain. To physical suffering I was insensible. I should even have welcomed it, for I well understood the truth, proverbially expressed in that language, rich above all others in proverbial lore—“un clavo saca otro clavo” and still more fully illustrated by the poet:
“Tristezas me hacen triste,
Tristezas salgo a buscar,
A ver si con tristezas
Tristezas puedo olvidar.”
Yes, under any other form, I should have welcomed physical pain as a neutraliser of my mental anguish; but that cold norther brought no consolation.
Sadly the reverse. It was the harbinger of keen apprehension; for not only had it interrupted our search, but should the heavy rain continue only for a few hours, we might be able neither to find or further to follow the trail. It would be blinded—obliterated—lost.
Can you wonder that in my heart I execrated those black clouds, and that driving deluge?—that with my lips I cursed the sky and the storm, the moon and the stars, the red lightning and the rolling thunder?
My anathema ended, I stood in sullen silence, leaning against the body of my brave horse—whose sides shivered under the chilly rain, though I felt not its chill.
Absorbed in gloomy thought, I recked not what was passing around me; and, for an unnoted period, I remained in this speechless abstraction.