CHAPTER XVII
That night, after the storm ceased and a spell before the moon rose, a man of the Guardia Civil rode across hills sweetened by the rain, and came in a roundabout way to the ancient wild olive at the portal of the barranca of the Gitanos. Here he dismounted and waited like one keeping a tryst, smoking innumerable cigarettes and kicking up the soft loam impatiently. He was Miguel Alvarado.
At length and on the sudden, he heard sounds as of some one coming toward him down the canyon through the dripping leaves. He hearkened a moment, then lifted his voice in a rich but gentle baritone:
"Loud sang the Spanish cavalier,
And thus his ditty ran:
God send the Gypsy lassie here,
And not the Gypsy man."
She came to him from out the trees, the wench Paquita. She was clad in a dress of vermilions and yellows, those vermilions and yellows now bedusked by the soft light of the night. In her hair was wound a green scarf. And, as she approached, she sang the answering quatrain:
"At midnight, when the moon began
To show her silver flame,
There came to him no Gypsy man,
The Gypsy lassie came."
Impulsively he ran to meet her. They were like shadows that merged together and became one. They trembled, they swayed; they swayed as the wild olive swayed in the wind of the night. They kissed long and ardently. Then she drew herself away, throwing her head back and holding him off with arms rigidly extended.
"Ah, Miguel, my caballero of the impetuous lips," she sighed, "I could love you with all my heart and soul, but for one little thing!"
"Carajo! what is that?" he asked, his voice sharp with anxiety and eagerness. "Have I not always been the most adoring and tender of lovers—aye, and the most voracious and headlong, too? Did I not hurry pellmell for this meeting, the moment you sent word to me by that Gypsy brat? What have I done to make you think dismally of me? How have I displeased you? Tell me; I burn to know!"