once till we got across the road. Then, clinging
to each other, we beheld the house change suddenly into a heap of
formless rubbish behind the back of a man, who staggered towards us
bearing the form of a woman clasped in his arms. Her long black hair
hung nearly to his feet. He laid her down reverently on the heaving
earth, and the moonlight shone on her closed eyes.

"senores, we mounted with difficulty. Our horses, getting up, plunged
madly, held by the soldiers who had come running from all sides. Nobody
thought of catching Gaspar Ruiz then. The eyes of men and animals shone
with wild fear. My general approached Gaspar Ruiz, who stood motionless
as a statue above the girl. He let himself be shaken by the shoulder
without detaching his eyes from her face.

"'Que guape!' shouted the general in his ear. 'You are the bravest man
living. You have saved my life. I am General Robles. Come to my quarters
to-morrow, if God gives us the grace to see another day.'

"He never stirred--as if deaf, without feeling, insensible.

"We rode away for the town, full of our relations, of our friends, of
whose fate we hardly dared to think. The soldiers ran by the side of
our horses. Everything was forgotten in the immensity of the catastrophe
overtaking a whole country."

Gaspar Ruiz saw the girl open her eyes. The raising of her eyelids
seemed to recall him from a trance. They were alone; the cries of terror
and distress from homeless people filled the plains of the coast, remote
and immense, coming like a whisper into their loneliness.

She rose swiftly to her feet, darting fearful glances on all sides.
"What is it?" she cried out low, and peering into his face. "Where am
I?"

He bowed his head sadly, without a word.

"... Who are you?"

He knelt down slowly before her, and touched the hem of her coarse black
baize skirt. "Your slave," he said.

She caught sight then of the heap of rubbish that had been the house,
all misty in the cloud of dust. "Ah!" she cried, pressing her hand to
her forehead.

"I carried you out from there," he whispered at her feet.

"And they?" she asked in a great sob.

He rose, and taking her by the arms, led her gently towards the
shapeless ruin half overwhelmed by a land-slide. "Come and listen," he
said.

The serene moon saw them clambering over that heap of stones, joists and
tiles, which was a grave. They pressed their ears to the interstices,
listening for the sound of a groan, for a si