ng. Both engaged in the same warfare,
how could we avoid sympathizing with each other? Then, there was that
little "dash of romance" about our first meeting, so auxiliary to the
tender passion; and, again, we were wandering, side by side, in a silent
forest, with only one other near us. Would we could have disposed of him
too! I shame to say it, but, in honest truth. I often wished that he had
followed the Mexican!

We halted during the great heat of the day, and the Fra once more
"rigging" out his capote for a hammock, Donna Maria lay down for the
siesta, while I cut grass for Charry, and rubbed her down. Long fasting
had made us all more disposed to silence, so that a few monosyllables
were all that passed. When the time came to resume the road, I am proud
to say that the Fra bore his privations with less equanimity than did
we. His sighs grew heavy and frequent; any accidental interruption on
the road evoked unmistakable signs of irritation; he even expostulated
with certain saints, whose leaden images decorated his sombrero, as to
the precise reasons for which his present sufferings were incurred; and
altogether, as hunger pinched, showed a more rebellious spirit than his
holy discourses of the preceding evening could have led me to suspect.

One time, he charged his calamities to the score of having eaten turtle,
which was only half fish, on a Friday; at another, it was upon that
unlucky day the journey had been begun; then he remembered that the
Mexican was only a half-breed, who possibly, if baptized at all, was
only an irregular kind of a Christian, admitted into the fold by some
stray missionary, more trapper than priest. Then he bethought him that
his patron, Saint Michel of Pavia, was of an uncertain humor, and often
tormented his votaries, by way of trying their fidelity. These various
doubts assumed the form of open grumblings, which certainly inspired
very different sentiments in Donna Maria and myself than edification. As
evening closed in, and darkness favored us, these ghostly lamentations
afforded us many a low, quiet laugh. A soft pressure of the hand,
which now, by mere accident, of course, she had let fall near me, would
sometimes show how we concurred in our sentiments, till at length as the
thicker gloom of night fell around, such was our unanimity that her hand
remained clasped in my own, without any further attempt to remove it.

If the Fra's gratitude burst forth eloquently as we came in sight