I'm sorry you couldn't have known Captain Manuel instead of merely hearing about him from me, for you may get the idea that he was a good-for-nothing young reprobate, whereas he was only a gay, good-hearted boy, dissipating his splendid strength in a hundred useless ways, just because no one had ever shown him a useful one. But he was a dangerous person, with his ready tongue and tossing hair, to come prancing before the wondering eyes of that bewildered woman-child, Doña Mercedes. Dangerous, I mean, to Don Enrique's dreams of the future. For of course he fell in love with Doña Mercedes at once. He was quite sure of that, before he had walked a dozen steps with the lady, that first night.

With him, to decide that he was in love was to be there; so behold the Captain, of a morning after drill, come clanking to the little summer-house, all brave in sword and spurs, to sit and regale Doña Mercedes with weird tales of the little fights, till terrified Tia Maria crossed herself and peered anxiously up into the branches of the great mango, more than half expecting to see a naked head-hunter there ready to leap upon her venerable wig.

And Doña Mercedes, poor, little, stately Mercedes, watched this strange newcomer as she watched all others, but with a shade more interest, for she felt that she understood him. The frank, friendly smile in his eyes seemed so exactly what she felt to all the world.

Soon she began to find his presence a welcome relief to the length of the days, and missed him when he did not come. Don Enrique should have taken care then. But Don Enrique was careless. In the first place, it was rather a strenuous undertaking to keep Captain Manuel away from where he chose to be. And in the second place, any fear that he could awaken the heart in Doña Mercedes was absurd. He was a penniless youngster, without a "de" or an "Y" or a "Don" to his name, and she was Doña Mercedes, a Valdez and a Vegas; and, furthermore, she had him, Don Enrique, to fill her every want. So Don Enrique smiled and jested and talked and dreamed of an evening in the great dining-room, and was very happy with his little girl. And Captain Manuel laughed and joked and sang in the little summer-house of a morning, and was in heaven, or thought he was, which, after all, amounts to just as much while it lasts. And Doña Mercedes looked on them all with friendly, inquiring eyes.

At last one morning, the Captain was holding a skein of silk for her to wind. Tia Maria had fallen into an uneasy doze through very excess of terror at the latest tale. Several times their eyes met when the skein was tangled—such a tiny skein of golden-yellow silk to mean so much. And each time Doña Mercedes became more stately and more timid, while the Captain's cheeks burned like a boy's. Their talk died away to broken sentences, and then the hush of noontide lay over the great, hot, fragrant garden, and only the heavy droning of bees among the roses broke the stillness. Doña Mercedes put out a trembling hand to clear another snarl, and—Tia Maria popped bolt upright in her chair. "Blood of all the blessed saints!" she cried. "What was that I heard?" And she peered up into the gently stirring branches of the old tree, and made ready to flee.

"It was a wild man, perhaps," said the Captain, with a tremulous laugh; and Doña Mercedes took up the conversation quite as composedly as if she had lived in the world all her life. But when the Captain was going, she murmured: "You must tell Don Enrique for me."

Of course he told Don Enrique at once, and of course Don Enrique was quite astonished at the commonplace thing which had been going on right under his patrician nose, and quite scandalized, and very positive, in his grave, courteous way, that all such thoughts must be dropped at once—positive as only a great man who ruled a valley could be. And Captain Manuel was quite sure that he loved the lady, could not live without her, would win her in the end—sure as only a big, impetuous heart like his could make a man. So Don Enrique politely regretted that he could not have the honor of receiving the Captain in his home again, and the Captain bowed very low and clanked out under the big, gloomy arch of the gateway for almost the last time.

Now I doubt if either of them had really been in love. But they were ready to grow into it, and forced separation has been a fertile soil for propagating love, ever since the world began. The little girl was very dutiful and sat with her father every evening, merry and smiling and tender as ever; but across the big, gleaming table she may sometimes have seen a vision of a longing, boyish face. Don Enrique had seen visions across that same table, you remember. Perhaps in time Doña Mercedes might have watched the vision till it came to mean more to her than the great house and the family name and the love of her father himself.

And the Captain fell into a very fever of devotion, and for more than a month he stayed in his quarters, writing Catalan love-songs on the edges of commissary returns, and gazing gloomily at his sword and spurs. Billiards and cards knew him no more; the black horse fretted in the paddock and looked unsayable things at the frightened groom; the brown-skinned girls of the countryside lived in peace and amity with their reconciled lovers. Perhaps the Captain's devotion might have endured, and all that splendid energy of his might have been turned to good and useful things at last.

All that is mere speculation. We shall never know, and it does not matter. The day of Spain was passing in the Islands. Outside there had long been rumors of ugly things; sudden, secret death and smoldering insurrection, killing of priests and burning of towns and terror-stricken people everywhere. Now at last they penetrated even to the valley,—stories of raids on distant haciendas, and assassinations on lonely trails, and a little army massed in the foot-hills back of Santa Lucia. It was as if a chill wind swept over the sunny plains and rolling hills and busy, treacherous river, and none of the lean, bearded, sun-bronzed men could tell whence it came.