While they were talking, I observed the face of Mariquilla, which seemed in the darkness as if modelled of white wax, and of the soft tone and finish of ivory. From her black eyes, whenever she raised them to the heavens, swift lights flashed; her black pupils seemed to reflect the clearness of the sky; in their depths two points of brightness shone or were hidden, according to the changeful mood expressed in her glance. It was curious to observe the passionate creature telling of that stormy crisis which had moved and exalted her sensibilities to the heights of courage. Her languorous attitude, her dove-like cooing, the warm affection which radiated in her atmosphere, did not associate themselves readily with manifestations of heroism in defence of her insulted father. Attentive observation easily discovered that both currents flowed from the same source.

"I admire your noble filial affection," said Augustine. "But you must think of this. I do not exonerate those who maltreated your father. But you must not forget that he is the only one who has not given anything for the war. Don Jeronimo is an excellent person, but he has not an atom of patriotism in his soul. The misfortunes of the city are of no consequence to him, and he even seems to rejoice when we do not come out victorious."

Mariquilla sighed, lifting her eyes to heaven.

"It is true," she said; "every day and every hour I beseech him to give something for the war. I am able to get nothing; although I exaggerate the necessities of the poor soldiers, and the bad record that he is making in Saragossa. He only gets angry with me, and says that the one who brought on the war is the one to pay for it. In the other siege I was delighted at news of a victory. The fourth of August I went out into the street all alone, unable to resist my curiosity. One night I was at the house of the Urries, and they were celebrating the battle of that day, which had been very brilliant. I also began to rejoice, and show enthusiasm. An old woman who was present said to me in a high voice, and a very unpleasant tone, 'My child, instead of indulging in these emotions, why do you not carry to the hospital an old sheet to stanch blood? In the house of SeÑor Candiola, whose cellars are full of money, is there not some old rag to give to the wounded? Your miserable papa is the only one, the only one of all the citizens of Saragossa who has not given anything for the war.' Everybody laughed on hearing this; but I was dumb with shame, not daring to speak. I remained in a corner of the room until the end of the party, and nobody spoke another word to me. My few girl friends who used to love me so much did not come near me. I could hear people speak from time to time the name of my father, with harsh comments and ugly nicknames. Oh, it was heartbreaking! When I started to come home, they hardly told me good-bye. The host and hostess dismissed me very abruptly. I came home and went to bed, and cried all night. The shame of it seemed burning in my blood."

"Mariquilla," cried Augustine, lovingly, "your goodness is so great that because of it God will forget the cruelties of your father."

"A few days afterwards," she went on, "on the fourth of August, those two wounded men came that my father's enemy spoke of this morning. When we heard that the committee had assigned two wounded men to our house to be taken care of, Guedita and I were delighted, and, wild with pleasure, began to prepare beds, bandages, and lint. We were waiting for them anxiously, running to the window every minute to see if they were coming. At last they came. My father, who had just come in from the street in a very black mood, complaining that many of his debtors had been killed, losing him all hope of collecting from them, received the wounded soldiers very badly. I embraced him, weeping, and begged him to take them in; but he would not listen to me and in his blind anger, he pushed them down into the gutter, barred the door, and went upstairs, saying, 'Let their own parents take care of them!' It was night. Guedita and I were in perfect despair. We did not know what to do. We could hear the moans of those two poor fellows, dragging themselves along in the street, begging for help. My father shut himself up in his room to make up his accounts, caring nothing for them or for us. We went softly, so that he would not hear us, to the front window, and threw them cloths for bandages; but they could not reach them. We spoke to them, and they held out their hands to us. We fastened a little basket to the end of a cane, and passed them out some food; but one of them was dying, and the other suffering so much that he could not eat. We said what we could to encourage them, and prayed to God for them. At last we resolved to come down and go out to help them, if only for a moment. My father caught us here in the balcony, and was furious. That night, what a night! O Holy Virgin! one of them died in the street, and the other one dragged himself on to find pity elsewhere."

Augustine and I were silent, reflecting upon the monstrous contradictions of that house.

"Mariquilla," my friend said, presently, "how proud I am of loving you! Saragossa does not know your heart of gold, and it must be known. I wish to tell the whole world that I love you, and prove to my parents when they know it that I have made a good choice."

"I am like any other girl," said Mariquilla, with humility; "and your parents will not see in me anything but the daughter of the one whom they call the Mallorcan Jew. Oh, the shame kills me! I wish I could go away from Saragossa, somewhere that I could never again see any of these people. My father came from Palma, it is true; but he is not a Jew. He is descended from the old Christians; and my mother was a woman of Aragon, of the Rincon family. Why are we despised? What have we done?"

Mariquilla's lips quivered in a half disdainful smile. Augustine, tormented doubtless by painful feeling, remained silent, his brow leant upon the hands of his sweetheart. Gruesome shapes of dread raised themselves threateningly between them. With the eyes of the soul he and she beheld them, filled with fear. After a long pause, Augustine lifted his face.

"Mariquilla, why are you silent? Tell me."

"Why are you silent, Augustine?"

"What are you thinking about?"

"What are you thinking about?"

"I am thinking that God will protect us," said the young man. "When the siege is ended, we will marry. If you wish to leave Saragossa, I will go with you wherever you wish to go. Has your father ever spoken to you of marriage?"

"Never."

"He shall not prevent your marrying me. My parents will oppose it; but my mind is made up. I do not understand life except through you, and if I lost you I could not exist. You are the supreme necessity of my soul. Without you I should be like the universe without light. No human power shall separate us as long as you love me. This conviction is so rooted in me that if I should ever think that we must be separated in life, it would be to me as if all nature were overthrown. I without you! That seems to me the wildest of ideas. I without you! What madness, what absurdity! It is like the sea on the top of the mountains, like the snow in the depths of the ocean. It is like rivers running through the sky, and the stars made into fiery powder in the deserts of the earth. It is as if the trees should talk, and man should live among metals and precious stones in the bowels of the earth. I am a coward at times, and I tremble, thinking of the obstacles that seem overwhelming before us; but the confidence that fills my spirit, like faith in holy things, reanimates me. If sometimes for a moment I fear death, afterwards a secret voice tells me that I shall not die as long as you are alive. Do you see all the destruction made by the siege which we are enduring? Do you see how the bombs and shells shower about us, and how numbers of my companions fall never to rise? Yet, except momentarily, none of this causes me any fear. I believe that the Virgin del Pilar keeps death away from me. Your sensitiveness keeps you in constant communion with the angels of heaven. You are an angel of heaven, and loving you and being loved by you gives me a divine power against which the forces of man avail nothing."

Augustine went on for a long time in this strain, pouring out from his over-flowing fancy the love and the superstitions which held him in thrall.

"Indeed, I too have unchanging confidence, as you say," said Mariquilla. "I am often afraid that you will be killed; but I know not what voices I hear in the depths of my soul telling me that they will not kill you. It may be because I pray so much, pleading with God to preserve your life among all these horrors and in battle. I do not know. At night when I go to rest, thinking of the bombs that have fallen, and those that are falling, and those that will fall, I go to sleep and dream of battle, and never cease hearing the noise of cannon. I am very restless, and Guedita, who sleeps near me, says that I talk in my sleep, saying a thousand mad things. I must certainly say something, for I am always dreaming. I see you on the wall. I talk with you, and you answer me. The balls do not touch you; and it seems to me it is because of the prayers I say for you, waking and sleeping. A few nights ago I dreamed that I went with other girls to take care of the wounded, and that we were taking care of a great many, almost bringing them back to life by what we were doing for them. I dreamed that when I came back to the house I found you here with your father, an old man, who was smiling and talking with mine, both seated upon the sofa in the sala. Then I dreamed that your father smiled at me, and began to ask me questions. Sometimes I dream sad things. When I am awake I listen, and if I do not hear the noise of the bombardment, I ask if it can be that the French have raised the siege. If I hear a cannonading, I look at the image of the Virgin del Pilar which is in my room, and I question it in thought, and it answers me that you are not dead, without my knowing how the answer is given. I spend the day thinking about the ramparts, and I wait at the window to hear what the soldiers say who pass by in the street. Sometimes I feel tempted to ask them if they have seen you. Night comes; I see you again, and I am, oh, so contented! The next day Guedita and I occupy ourselves in cooking something good, unknown to my father. If it is successful, we save it for you; if it is not quite so nice, that little friar called Father Busto takes it to the wounded and sick. He comes after dark to get it, on the pretext of visiting DoÑa Guedita, of whom he is a kinsman. We ask him how goes the battle, and he tells us all about it, that the troops are performing deeds of great valor, and the French will be obliged to retire in good time. This news that all goes well makes us wild with joy. The noise of the bombs saddens us afterwards, but praying we recover our tranquillity. Alone in our room at night, we make lint and bandages which Father Busto also takes secretly, as if they were stolen goods. If we hear my father's steps, we hide it all quickly, and put out the light, because if he should find out what we are doing he would be very angry."

Mariquilla smiled almost gayly as she told of her fears and joys with divine simplicity. The peculiar charm of her voice is indescribable. Her words, like the vibration of crystal notes, left a harmonious echo in the soul. As she ceased speaking, the first splendors of dawn illuminated her face.

"The day is breaking, Mariquilla," said Augustine, "and we must go. To-day we are going to defend Las Tenerias. This will be a dreadful day, and many will be killed. But the Virgin del Pilar will protect us, and we shall live to rejoice in victory. Mariquilla, the balls will not touch me."

"Do not go yet," replied the daughter of Candiola. "Day is coming, it is true; but they do not need you yet upon the walls."

The bell in the tower sounded.

"Look how those birds cruise about in the heavens, announcing the dawn," said Augustine, with bitter irony.

One, two, three bombs traversed the sky, as yet faintly illumined.

"How frightful!" cried Mariquilla, yielding to the embrace of Montoria. "Will God keep us to-day as He preserved us yesterday?"

"We must go to the walls," I cried, rising quickly. "Do you not hear all the drums and bells sounding the call to arms?"

Mariquilla, in indescribable panic, was weeping and trying to detain Montoria. I was resolved on going at once, and endeavored to take him away with me. The noise of the drums and the bells in the belfries of the city were sounding the call to arms. And if we did not rush instantly into the lines, we ran the risk of being shot or arrested.

"I must go, I must go, Mariquilla," said my friend, with profound emotion. "Are you afraid? No, this house is sacred because you live in it, and will be respected by the enemy's fire. God will not visit your father's cruelty upon your sacred head."

The DoÑa Guedita appeared abruptly, saying that her master was up and dressing hastily. Then Mariquilla herself hurried us to the foot of the garden, ordering us to go at once. Augustine was in anguish, and at the gate, hesitated and stepped backward as if to return to the side of the unhappy girl, who, half dead of fright, her hands folded in prayer, was weeping, seeing us go from where she stood in the shade of the cypress which had sheltered us. At the moment when we opened the gate, a cry was heard from the upper part of the house, and we saw Candiola, who, half-dressed, was leaning out in a threatening attitude. Augustine wished to turn back; but I forced him forward, and we went.

"To the lines! To the lines, at once!" I cried. "They will degrade us, Augustine! Leave your future father-in-law to deal with your future wife for the present."

We ran swiftly into the Coso, where we saw that innumerable bombs were being hurled upon the unhappy city. Everybody ran as fast as possible to the various positions of defence,—some to Las Tenerias, some to the Portillo, some to Santa Engracia or to the Trinitarios. As we arrived at the arch of Cineja, we stumbled upon Don JosÉ de Montoria, who, followed by some of his friends, was running towards the Almudi. In the same moment a terrible crash behind us proclaimed that one of the enemy's projectiles had fallen upon a neighboring residence. Augustine, hearing this, turned back, longing to return to the place from whence we came.

"Where are you going, porra!" cried his father, detaining him. "To the Tenerias! Make haste! To the Tenerias!"

The people who were coming and going knew the place of the disaster, and we heard them saying,—

"Three bombs have fallen close to the house of Candiola."

"The angels of heaven certainly aimed those guns," laughed Don JosÉ de Montoria, noisily. "We shall see how the Mallorcan Jew keeps them off, if he is still alive till he puts his money in a place of safety."

"Let us run and rescue those unfortunate beings!" cried Augustine, with emotion.

"To the lines, cowards!" said his father, holding him with an iron hand. "That is the work of women; men must die in the breach."

It was necessary to make haste to our places, and we went, or rather we were carried by the impetuous surge of the people running to defend the suburb of Las Tenerias.