From one brown hand, now drooping listlessly,
a few wild flowers had scattered, and her slim figure was clad
once more in the stiff, coarse denim dress of blue. Her other hand
was toying with her beads mechanically, as if the fingers had
learned their task from long practice. Her dusky eyes were fast
upon the lights that wavered in the pool.
As if to prove that the spot was really peopled by kind spirits, a
gentle voice seemed to whisper the news to her, and she turned to
find him smiling at her. She rose and met him with her hands
outstretched, her face transfigured.
After a time she leaned backward in his arms, and said, gravely:
"You see! When one says many, many prayers, the good saints always
answer. The padre told me that I should never cease until you
came, but I grew very tired, senor."
"And you never doubted me?"
"Oh no!"
"I'm free, you know."
"Of course! What else were my prayers for? Had my father allowed,
I would have gone to your prison, but he forbade it, so I had no
choice. But every hour I prayed that he might give me leave, and I
think his heart was yielding."
"I'm sure of that," he told her, "for I have just come from him."
It was some time later, when the sun was dipping, that voices
sounded outside the wall of verdure, and Kirk heard Andres Garavel
saying:
"Of a certainty I shall try that experiment, senor, for the ticks
in this country are a pest to cattle.
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