arly in the evening the house and the
orchard were surrounded quietly. Later on the general and I left a ball
we were attending in town and rode out at an easy gallop. At some little
distance from the house we pulled up. A mounted orderly held our horses.
A low whistle warned the men watching all along the ravine, and we
walked up to the porch softly. The barricaded house in the moonlight
seemed empty.

"The general knocked at the door. After a time a woman's voice within
asked who was there. My chief nudged me hard. I gasped.

"' It is I, Lieutenant Santierra,' I stammered out, as if choked. 'Open
the door.'

"It came open slowly. The girl, holding a thin taper in her hand, seeing
another man with me, began to back away before us slowly, shading the
light with her hand. Her impassive white face looked ghostly. I followed
behind General Robles. Her eyes were fixed on mine. I made a gesture of
helplessness behind my chief's back, trying at the same time to give a
reassuring expression to my face. Neither of us three uttered a sound.

"We found ourselves in a room with bare floor and walls. There was a
rough table and a couple of stools in it, nothing else whatever. An old
woman with her grey hair hanging loose wrung her hands when we appeared.
A peal of loud laughter resounded through the empty house, very amazing
and weird. At this the old woman tried to get past us.

"'Nobody to leave the room,' said General Robles to me.

"I swung the door to, heard the latch click, and the laughter became
faint in our ears.

"Before another word could be spoken in that room I was amazed by
hearing the sound of distant thunder.

"I had carried in with me into the house a vivid impression of a
beautiful, clear, moonlight night, without a speck of cloud in the sky.
I could not believe my ears. Sent early abroad for my education, I was
not familiar with the most dreaded natural phenomenon of my native land.
I saw, with inexpressible astonishment, a look of terror in my chief's
eyes. Suddenly I felt giddy! The general staggered against me heavily;
the girl seemed to reel in the middle of the room, the taper fell out of
her hand and the light went out; a shrill cry of Misericordia! from the
old woman pierced my ears. In the pitchy darkness I heard the plaster
off the walls falling on The floor. It is a mercy there was no ceiling.
Holding on to the latch of the door, I heard the grinding of the
roof-tiles cease above my head. The s