le from the interior, in their quaint
dialect.

_"Munta!"_ answered the river dwellers.

And the water was indeed slowly rising, already threatening the city
that had so audaciously taken root in the very middle of its bed.

But despite the danger, the townspeople seemed to be feeling nothing
more than uneasy curiosity. No one thought of moving across the bridges
to take refuge on the high land. Nonsense! The Jucar was always
flooding. You had to expect something of the sort every once in a while.
Thank heaven there was something to break the monotony of life in that
sleepy town! Why complain at a week's vacation? It was hard to disturb
the placid complacency of those descendants of the Moors. Floods had
been coming since the days of their fathers, their grandfathers and
their great-grandfathers, and never had the town been carried off. A few
houses at the worst. Why suppose the catastrophe would be due now?...
The Jucar was a sort of husband to Alcira. As happens in any decent
family, there would be a quarrel now and then--a thrashing followed by
kisses and reconciliation. Just imagine--living seven or eight centuries
together! Besides,--and this the lesser people thought--there was Father
San Bernardo, as powerful as God Himself in all that concerned Alcira.
He was able, single-handed, to tame the writhing monster that wound its
coiling way underneath the bridges.

It rained day and night; and yet the city, from its animation, seemed to
be having a holiday. The young ones, sent home from school because of
the bad weather, were all on the bridges throwing branches into the
water to see how swift the current was, or playing along the lanes close
to the river, planting sticks in the banks and waiting for the
ever-broadening torrent to reach them.

Under the shelter of the projecting eaves, whence broken water-spouts
were belching streams as thick as a man's arm, loungers in the cafes
would slip along the streets toward the river-front; and after glancing
at the flood from the scant protection of their umbrellas, would make
their way proudly back, stopping in every drinking place to offer their
opinions on the rise that had taken place since their previous
inspection.

The city from end to end was one seething storm of heated, typically
"Southern" argument and prophecy. Friendships were being made and
broken, over questions as to whether the river had risen four inches the
past hour, or only one, and as to whether