So she passed out into the darkness—for only a faint, hazy light beyond the Mitras showed where the young moon had sunk away behind the mountains—and walked along the path that she and Pepe had trod together but five days before. This time she did not pass beneath the arch of the causeway. Where the path forked she turned to the right and climbed the bank of the arroyo and so came out upon the causeway itself. In the darkness she tripped and nearly fell, and, looking closely, she saw at her feet the body of a man. Resolutely, yet shudderingly, she stooped still closer to see by the faint starlight the dead face, and knew it for the face of one of Pepe’s companions. Beside the dead contrabandista lay another dead body, clad in the uniform of the contraresguardo; and the two lay facing each other as they had fallen in the fight. Beyond were yet others, and a dead horse or two, and a dead burro—from which the lading of precious stuffs had been hastily removed—and carbines, and swords and pistols were lying as they fell from dead hands; for, in the joy of their victory and capture, the contraresguardo had wasted no time in bearing away their fallen comrades or in clearing off the field. And Pancha, wofully seeking for Pepe, passed back and forth among the dead.
While she searched thus, she saw slowly coming from the far end of the causeway a little point of light, and presently the old sereno wrapped in his long cloak, stood beside her. In a broken sentence or two he told her that, with Tobalito and Catalina, he had followed the contraresguardo to the barracks, and that Pepe was not among the prisoners, and so he had come back to look for him here. Pancha made him no answer in words, but she took his hand and kissed it; and, still holding it, they searched together for the dead one who had been all in all to them in the world. Along the whole length of the causeway they searched, but found him not.
“Yet he is here,” said Manuel. “My boy is not a prisoner, and if not a prisoner, he surely was struck down in the fight.”
And Pancha knew that Manuel spoke truth: Pepe could not be safe and free from harm while his men were captured or slain.
While they paused midway upon the causeway, standing upon the arch that spans the stream, a low, faint moan sounded through the still night air. The sound came up from the darkness below—from the space beside the pool. Bending together over the edge of the unguarded footway, Manuel held down his lantern so that its light fell into the depth beside the wall and was reflected back in broken rays from the rippling water. Then he moved the lantern slowly, until the light rested upon the bank and shone on Pepe’s body stretched upon the ground—on Pepe’s face upturned toward them piteously! And Pepe knew them. Up through the darkness came faintly the words, “Pancha! Padre!”
When, going very quickly, they passed to the end of the causeway, and so down the bank of the arroyo to where he lay, he clasped feebly their hands as they knelt beside him: the lantern throwing a weird, uncertain light upon the three, upon the dark stone wall, upon the dark water of the pool.
“It was a trap, my father; we were betrayed,” he said brokenly. “But we made a brave fight, and I can die without shame.”
He felt the quiver that passed through Pancha’s body as he spoke.