to someone. The
earth shake again; the door shut. I jump from my table; I shake and
tumble to the door. I fling him open. Maravilloso! it is the room of my
wife again. She is NOT there; it is empty; it is nothing!"

I felt myself turning hot and cold by turns. I was horrified, and--and I
blundered. "And who was the other figure?" I gasped.

"Who?" repeated Enriquez, with a pause, a fixed look at me, and a
sublime gesture. "Who SHOULD it be, but myself, Enriquez Saltillo?"

A terrible premonition that this was a chivalrous LIE, that it was NOT
himself he had seen, but that our two visions were identical, came upon
me. "After all," I said, with a fixed smile, "if you could imagine you
saw your wife, you could easily imagine you saw yourself too. In the
shock of the moment you thought of HER naturally, for then she would as
naturally seek your protection. You have written for news of her?"

"No," said Enriquez quietly.

"No?" I repeated amazedly.

"You understand, Pancho! Eef it was the trick of my eyes, why should
I affright her for the thing that is not? If it is the truth, and it
arrive to ME, as a warning, why shall I affright her before it come?"

"Before WHAT comes? What is it a warning of?" I asked impetuously.

"That we shall be separated! That I go, and she do not."

To my surprise, his dancing eyes had a slight film over them. "I don't
understand you," I said awkwardly.

"Your head is not of a level, my Pancho. Thees earthquake he remain for
only ten seconds, and he fling open the door. If he remain for twenty
seconds, he fling open the wall, the hoose toomble, and your friend
Enriquez is feenish."

"Nonsense!" I said. "Professor--I mean the geologists--say that the
centre of disturbance of these Californian earthquakes is some far-away
point in the Pacific and there never will be any serious convulsions
here."

"Ah, the geologist," said Enriquez gravely, "understand the hoss that
rear in the mine, and the five thousand dollar, believe me, no more.
He haf lif here three year. My family haf lif here three hundred. My
grandfather saw the earth swallow the church of San Juan Baptista."

I laughed, until, looking up, I was shocked to see for the first time
that his dancing eyes were moist and shining. But almost instantly he
jumped up, and declared that I had not seen the garden and the corral,
and, linking his arm in mine, swept me like a whirlwind into the patio.
For an hour or two he was in his old