They'll stand a fair chance of being famished."

"No fear of that," puts in Don Prospero.

"Why do you say so, doctor?"

"Because of the rifle I gave to Senor Gualtero. With it he will be able
to keep both provisioned. 'Tis marvellous how he can manage it. He has
killed bits of birds without spoiling their skins or even ruffling a
feather. I'm indebted to him for some of my best specimens. So long as
he carries a gun, with ammunition to load it, you need have no fear he
or his companion will perish from hunger, even on the Llano Estacado."

"About that," rejoins Miranda, "I think we need have no uneasiness.
Beyond lies the thing to be apprehended--not on the desert, but amid
cultivated fields, in the streets of towns, in the midst of so-called
civilisation. There will be their real danger."

For some time the three are silent, their reflections assuming a sombre
hue, called forth by the colonel's words.

But the doctor, habitually light-hearted, soon recovers, and makes an
effort to imbue the others with cheerfulness like his own.

"Senorita," he says, addressing himself to Adela, "your guitar, hanging
there against the wall, seems straining its strings as if they longed
for the touch of your fair fingers. You've been singing every night for
the last month, delighting us all I hope you won't be silent now that
your audience is reduced, but will think it all the more reason for
bestowing your favours on the few that remain."

To the gallant speech of pure Castilian idiom, the young lady answers
with a smile expressing assent, at the same time taking hold of her
guitar. As she reseats herself, and commences tuning the instrument, a
string snaps.

It seems an evil omen; and so all three regard it, though without
knowing why. It is because, like the strings of the instrument, their
hearts are out of tune, or rather attuned to a presentiment which
oppresses them.

The broken string is soon remedied by a knot; this easily done. Not so
easy to restore the tranquillity of thought disturbed by its breaking.

No more does the melancholy song which succeeds. Even to that far land
has travelled the strain of the "Exile of Erin." Its appropriateness to
their own circumstances suggesting itself to the Mexican maiden, she
sings--

Sad is my fate, said the heart-broken stranger,
The wild deer and wolf to the covert can flee,
But I have no refuge from famine and danger,
A home and a country remain not