irting a precipice, she
looked at me with such a white, troubled face that I felt a great pity
for her.

"'Senor officer,' she said, 'I am weak, I tremble. It is an insensate
fear.' And indeed her lips did tremble while she tried to smile,
glancing at the beginning of the narrow path which was not so dangerous
after all. 'I am afraid I shall drop the child. Gaspar saved your life,
you remember. . . . Take her from me.'

"I took the child out of her extended arms. 'Shut your eyes, senora, and
trust to your mule,' I recommended.

"She did so, and with her pallor and her wasted, thin face she looked
deathlike. At a turn of the path where a great crag of purple porphyry
closes the view of the lowlands, I saw her open her eyes. I rode just
behind her holding the little girl with my right arm. 'The child is all
right,' I cried encouragingly.

"'Yes,' she answered, faintly; and then, to my intense terror, I saw her
stand up on the foot-rest, staring horribly, and throw herself forward
into the chasm on our right.

"I cannot describe to you the sudden and abject fear that came over me
at that dreadful sight. It was a dread of the abyss, the dread of the
crags which seemed to nod upon me. My head swam. I pressed the child to
my side and sat my horse as still as a statue. I was speechless and cold
all over. Her mule staggered, sidling close to the rock, and then went
on. My horse only pricked up his ears with a slight snort. My heart
stood still, and from the depths of the precipice the stones rattling in
the bed of the furious stream made me almost insane with their sound.

"Next moment we were round the turn and on a broad and grassy slope. And
then I yelled. My men came running back to me in great alarm. It seems
that at first I did nothing but shout, 'She has given the child into my
hands! She has given the child into my hands!' The escort thought I had
gone mad."

General Santierra ceased and got up from the table. "And that is all,
senores," he concluded, with a courteous glance at his rising guests.

"But what became of the child. General?" we asked.

"Ah, the child, the child."

He walked to one of the windows opening on his beautiful garden, the
refuge of his old days. Its fame was great in the land. Keeping us back
with a raised arm, he called out, "Erminia, Erminia!" and waited. Then
his cautioning arm dropped, and we crowded to the windows.

From a clump of trees a woman had come upon the broad walk borde