epth beside the wall and was reflected back in broken rays from the
rippling water. Then he moved the lantern slowly, until the light
rested upon the bank and shone on Pepe's body stretched upon the
ground--on Pepe's face upturned toward them piteously! And Pepe knew
them. Up through the darkness came faintly the words, "Pancha! Padre!"

When, going very quickly, they passed to the end of the causeway, and
so down the bank of the _arroyo_ to where he lay, he clasped feebly
their hands as they knelt beside him: the lantern throwing a weird,
uncertain light upon the three, upon the dark stone wall, upon the
dark water of the pool.

"It was a trap, my father; we were betrayed," he said brokenly. "But
we made a brave fight, and I can die without shame."

He felt the quiver that passed through Pancha's body as he spoke.

"Yes, I must die, my Pancha. It is very near. All is ended that we
planned--that we planned on this very spot, not yet a little week ago.
It is hard, my little one--but--it--must--be." Then he was silent, and
clenched his teeth--this brave Pepe--that his face might not show to
Pancha his mortal agony.

Manuel held Pepe's hand and wept: the silent, forlorn weeping of an
utterly desolate old man. Pancha could not weep. She clutched Pepe's
hand in both of hers, as though forcibly she would hold him back to
life. Pepe understood her thought.

"It may not be, my Pancha, my Panchita. It is very, very near now.
Give me one little kiss, my heart,"--it was almost in a whisper that
Pepe spoke,--"one little kiss to tell me of your love before I go."

And so, for the first and the last time in her life, Pancha kissed
Pepe upon the lips: a kiss in which was all the passionate love that
would have been his in the long years to come; a kiss that was worth
dying for, if only by dying it could be gained; a kiss that for a
moment thrilled Pepe with the fullest, gladdest life that he had ever
known--and that, being ended, left him dead.

Then Pancha, kneeling where the holy fathers, far back in the
centuries, had sung their _Te Deum laudamus_, kneeling where but five
little days before her life had been filled with a love so perfect as
to be beyond all power of thankfulness in words of praise, looked down
upon her dead lover and felt her heart break within her in the
utterness of her despair.

* * * * *

Standing amidst the dead upon the causeway above, a dim shadow against
the star-l