Sarrion and Marcos were on the terrace smoking.
The small new moon was nearing the west. The
night would be dark after its setting. They were
silent, listening to the voice of their ancestral river
as it growled, heavy with snow, through the defile.
Presently a servant brought coffee and told Marcos
that a messenger was waiting to deliver a note.
After the manner of Spain the messenger was invited
to come and deliver his letter in person. He
was a traveling knife-grinder, he explained, and had
received the letter from a man on the road whose horse
had gone lame. One must be mutually helpful on
the road.
The letter was from Zeneta at the end of the valley;
written hastily in pencil. The Carlists were
in force between him and Pampeluna; would Marcos ride
down to the camp and hear details?
Marcos rose at once and threw his cigarette away.
He looked towards the lighted windows of the drawing-room.
“No good saying anything about it,” he
said. “I shall be back by breakfast time.
They will probably not notice my absence.”
He was gone—the sound of his horse’s
feet was drowned in the voice of the river—before
Juanita came out to the terrace, a slim shadowy form
in her white evening dress. She stood for a minute
or two in silence, until, her eyes becoming accustomed
to the darkness, she perceived Sarrion and an empty
chair. Perro usually walked gravely to her and
stood in front of her awaiting a jest whenever she
came. She looked round. Perro was not there.
“Where is Marcos?” she asked, taking the
empty chair.
“He has been sent for to the valley. He
has gone.”
“Gone!” echoed Juanita, standing up again.
She went to the stone balustrade of the terrace and
looked over into the darkness.
“I heard him cross the bridge a few minutes
ago,” Sarrion said quietly.
“He might have said good-bye.”
Sarrion turned slowly in his chair and looked at her.
“He probably did not wish his comings and goings
to be talked of by Cousin Peligros,” he suggested.
“Still, he might have said good-bye ... to me.”
She turned again and leaning her arms on the gray
stone she stood in silence looking down into the valley.
Juanita grows up Marcos’ horse,
the Moor, had performed the journey to Pampeluna once
in the last twelve hours. He was a strong horse
accustomed to long journeys. But Marcos chose
another, an older and staider animal of less value,
better fitted for night work.
He wished to do the journey quickly and return by
breakfast-time; he was not in a mood to spare his
beast. Men who live in stirring times and meet
death face to face quite familiarly from day to day,
as Englishmen meet the rain, soon acquire the philosophy
which consists in taking the good things the gods
send them, unhesitatingly and thankfully.
