picks it up.     

       “It is clear that he would tell his story to the people who gave him the shelter he needed. And he needed assistance badly. His wound was not dangerous, but his life was forfeited. The old Royalist being wrapped up in his laughing madness, the two women arranged a hiding-place for the wounded man in one of the huts amongst the fruit trees at the back of the house. That hovel, an abundance of clear water while the fever was on him, and some words of pity were all they could give. I suppose he had a share of what food there was. And it would be but little; a handful of roasted       corn, perhaps a dish of beans, or a piece of bread with a few figs. To such misery were those proud and once wealthy people reduced.”      

  

       VII     

       GENERAL SANTIERRA was right in his surmise. Such was the exact nature of the assistance which Gaspar Ruiz, peasant son of peasants, received from the Royalist family whose daughter had opened the door—of their miserable refuge to his extreme distress. Her sombre resolution ruled the madness of her father and the trembling bewilderment of her mother.     

       She had asked the strange man on the door-step, “Who wounded you?”      

       “The soldiers, senora,” Gaspar Ruiz had answered, in a faint voice.     

       “Patriots?”      

       “Si.”      

       “What for?”      

       “Deserter,” he gasped, leaning against the wall under the scrutiny of her black eyes. “I was left for dead over there.”      

       She led him through the house out to a small hut of clay and reeds, lost in the long grass of the overgrown orchard. He sank on a heap of maize straw in a corner, and sighed profoundly.     

       “No one will look for you here,” she said, looking down at him. “Nobody comes near us. We too have been left for dead—here.”      

       He stirred uneasily on his heap of dirty straw, and the 

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