alone arose, covered with blood and looking more
terrible than before. His knees were still pressing heavily on the
breasts of the two fainting negroes. He arose to his feet and moved
toward the manager.

Hirsch closed his eyes.

The next moment he felt that his feet had left the ground, that he was
flying through the air--then he felt nothing; his whole body was
dashed with monstrous force into the remaining half of the door, and
he fell to the earth unconscious.

Orso wiped his face, and, coming over to Jenny, said:

"Let us go."

He took her by the hand and they went.

The whole town was following the circus procession and the steam
calliope, playing "Yankee Doodle," and the place around the circus was
deserted. The parrots only, swinging in their hoops, filled the air
with their cries. Hand in hand, Orso and Jenny went forward; from the
end of the street could be seen the immense plains, covered with
cacti. Silently they passed by the houses, shaded by the eucalyptus
trees; then they passed the slaughter-houses, around which had
gathered thousands of small black birds with red-tipped wings. They
jumped over the large irrigation ditches, entered into an orange
grove, and on emerging from it found themselves among the cacti.

This was the desert.

As far as the eye could reach these prickly plants rose higher and
higher; thick leaves growing from other leaves obstructed the path,
sometimes catching on Jenny's dress. In places they grew to such a
great height that the children seemed to be as much lost here as if
they were in the woods, and no one could find them there. So they kept
threading their way through them, now to the right and then to the
left, but careful always to go from the town. Sometimes between the
cacti they could see on the horizon the blue mountains of Santa Ana.
They went to the mountains. The heat was great. Gray-colored locusts
chirped in the cacti; the sun's rays poured down upon the earth in
streams; the dried-up earth was covered with a network of cracks; the
stiff leaves of the cacti seemed to soften from the heat, and the
flowers were languid and half-wilted. The children proceeded, silent
and thoughtful. But all that surrounded them was so new that they
surrendered themselves to their impressions, and for the moment forgot
even their weariness. Jenny's eyes ran from one bunch of cacti to
another; again she looked to the farther clusters, saying to her
friend:

"Is this the wil