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Gaspar Ruiz saw the girl open her eyes. The raising of her eyelids seemed to recall him from a trance. They were alone; the cries of terror and distress from homeless people filled the plains of the coast remote and immense, coming like a whisper into their loneliness.

She rose swiftly to her feet, darting fearful glances on all sides. “What is it?” she cried out low, and peering into his face. “Where am I?”

He bowed his head sadly, without a word.

“. . . Who are you?”

He knelt down slowly before her, and touched the hem of her coarse black baize skirt. “Your slave,” he said.

She caught sight then of the heap of rubbish that had been the house, all misty in the cloud of dust. “Ah!” she cried, pressing her hand to her forehead.

“I carried you out from there,” he whispered at her feet.

“And they?” she asked in a great sob.

He rose, and taking her by the arms, led her gently towards the shapeless ruin half overwhelmed by a landslide. “Come and listen,” he said.

The serene moon saw them clambering over that heap of stones, joists and tiles, which was a grave. They pressed their ears to the interstices, listening for the sound of a groan, for a sigh of pain.

At last he said, “They died swiftly. You are alone.”

She sat down on a piece of broken timber and put one arm across her face. He waited — then approaching his lips to her ear: “Let us go,” he whispered.

“Never — never from here,” she cried out, flinging her arms above her head.

He stooped over her, and her raised arms fell upon his shoulders. He lifted her up, steadied himself and began to walk, looking straight before him.

“What are you doing?” she asked, feebly.

“I am escaping from my enemies,” he said, never once glancing at his light burden.

“With me?” she sighed, helplessly.

“Never without you,” he said. “You are my strength.”

He pressed her close to him. His face was grave and his footsteps steady. The conflagrations bursting out in the ruins of destroyed villages dotted the plain with red fires; and the sounds of distant lamentations, the cries of Misericordia! Misericordia! made a desolate murmur in his ears. He walked on, solemn and collected, as if carrying something holy, fragile, and precious.

The earth rocked at times under his feet.

IX

WITH movements of mechanical care and an air of abstraction old General Santierra lighted a long and thick cigar.

“It was a good many hours before we could send a party back to the ravine,” he said to his guests. “We had found one-third of the town laid low, the rest shaken up; and the inhabitants, rich and poor, reduced to the same state of distraction by the universal disaster. The affected cheerfulness of some contrasted with the despair of others. In the general confusion a number of reckless thieves, without fear of God or man, became a danger to those who from the downfall of their homes had managed to save some valuables. Crying ‘Miseri-cordia’ louder than any at every tremor, and beating their breast with one hand, these scoundrels robbed the poor victims with the other, not even stopping short of murder.

“General Robles’ division was occupied entirely in guarding the destroyed quarters of the town from the depredations of these inhuman monsters. Taken up with my duties of orderly officer, it was only in the morning that I could assure myself of the safety of my own family. My mother and my sisters had escaped with their lives from that ballroom, where I had left them early in the evening. I remember those two beautiful young women — God rest their souls — as if I saw them this moment, in the garden of our destroyed house, pale but active, assisting some of our poor neighbours, in their soiled ball-dresses and with the dust of fallen walls on their hair. As to my mother, she had a stoical soul in her frail body. Half-covered by a costly shawl, she was lying on a rustic seat by the side of an ornamental basin whose fountain had ceased to play for ever on that night.