All became still inside.  Gaspar Ruiz lost the hope of being admitted, and lay down under the porch just outside the door.  He was utterly careless of what was going to happen to him.  All his consciousness seemed to be concentrated in his neck, where he felt a severe pain.  His indifference as to his fate was genuine.  The day was breaking when he awoke from a feverish doze; the door at which he had knocked in the dark stood wide open now, and a girl, steadying herself with her outspread arms, leaned over the threshold.  Lying on his back, he stared up at her.  Her face was pale and her eyes were very dark; her hair hung down black as ebony against her white cheeks; her lips were full and red.  Beyond her he saw another head with long grey hair, and a thin old face with a pair of anxiously clasped hands under the chin.

VI

“I knew those people by sight,” General Santierra would tell his guests at the dining-table.  “I mean the people with whom Gaspar Ruiz found shelter.  The father was an old Spaniard, a man of property ruined by the revolution.  His estates, his house in town, his money, everything he had in the world had been confiscated by proclamation, for he was a bitter foe of our independence.  From a position of great dignity and influence on the Viceroy’s Council he became of less importance than his own negro slaves made free by our glorious revolution.  He had not even the means to flee the country, as other Spaniards had managed to do.  It may be that, wandering ruined and houseless, and burdened with nothing but his life, which was left to him by the clemency of the Provisional Government, he had simply walked under that broken roof of old tiles.  It was a lonely spot.  There did not seem to be even a dog belonging to the place.  But though the roof had holes, as if a cannon-ball or two had dropped through it, the wooden shutters were thick and tight-closed all the time.

“My way took me frequently along the path in front of that miserable rancho.  I rode from the fort to the town almost every evening, to sigh at the window of a lady I was in love with, then.  When one is young, you understand. . . .  She was a good patriot, you may believe.  Caballeros, credit me or not, political feeling ran so high in those days that I do not believe I could have been fascinated by the charms of a woman of Royalist opinions. . . .”

Murmurs of amused incredulity all round the table interrupted the General; and while they lasted he stroked his white beard gravely.

“Senores,” he protested, “a Royalist was a monster to our overwrought feelings.  I am telling you this in order not to be suspected of the slightest tenderness towards that old Royalist’s daughter.  Moreover, as you know, my affections were engaged elsewhere.  But I could not help noticing her on rare occasions when with the front door open she stood in the porch.