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of the rain they could see the tall, sheer palms shaking
in the wind, opening out like fans before the tempest.
Everywhere mountains, heaving hills, and beyond more
hills, locked amid mountains, more mountains encircled
in the wall of the sierra whose loftiest peaks vanished in
the sapphire of the sky.
"Demetrio, please. For God's sake, don't go away! My
heart tells me something will happen to you this time."
Again she was wracked with sobs. The child, frightened,
cried and screamed. To calm him, she controlled
her own great grief.
Gradually the rain stopped, a swallow, with silver
breast and wings describing luminous charming curves,
fluttered obliquely across the silver threads of the rain,
gleaming suddenly in the afternoon sunshine.
"Why do you keep on fighting, Demetrio"
Demetrio frowned deeply. Picking up a stone absentmindedly,
he threw it to the bottom of the canyon. Then
he stared pensively into the abyss, watching the arch of
its flight.
"Look at that stone; how it keeps on going. . . ."
VII
It was a heavenly morning. It had rained all night,
the sky awakened covered with white clouds. Young wild
colts trotted on the summit of the sierra, with tense
manes and waving hair, proud as the peaks lifting their
heads to the clouds.
The soldiers stepped among the huge rocks, buoyed
up by the happiness of the morning. None for a moment
dreamed of the treacherous bullet that might be awaiting
him ahead; the unforeseen provides man with his greatest
joy. The soldiers sang, laughed, and chattered away.