Juan broke in. "We rode straight out toward the Puerta when the retreat began, but almost immediately we saw it was no use. The _colorados_ broke over our little handfuls of men like waves of the sea. Martinez was just ahead. He never had a chance even to fire his gun—and this was his first battle, too. They hit him as he rode.... I thought how you and Martinez loved each other. You used to talk together at night so warmly, and never wished to leave each other to sleep...." Now the tall, naked tops of the trees had dulled with the passing of the light, and seemed to stand still the swarming stars in the deep dome overhead. The peddlers had kindled their tiny fire; the low, contented murmur of their gossip floated to us. Open doors of the peons’ huts shed wavering candlelight. Up from the river wound a silent line of black-robed girls with water-jars on their heads. Women ground their corn-meal with a monotonous stony scraping. Dogs barked. Drumming hoofs marked the passing of the _caballada_ to the river. Along the ledge in front of Don Pedro’s house the warriors smoked and fought the battle over again, stamping around and shouting descriptive matter. "I took my rifle by the barrel and smashed in his grinning face, just as——" some one was narrating, with gestures. The peons squatted around, breathlessly listening.... And still the ghastly procession of the defeated straggled down the road and across the river. It was not yet quite dark. I wandered down to the bank to watch them, in the vague hope of finding some of my _compadres_ who were still reported missing. And it was there that I first saw Elizabetta. There was nothing remarkable about her. I think I noticed her chiefly because she was one of the few women in that wretched company. She was a very dark-skinned Indian girl, about twenty-five years old, with the squat figure of her drudging race, pleasant features, hair hanging forward over her shoulders in two long plaits, and big, shining teeth when she smiled. I never did find out whether she had been just a peon woman working around La Cadena when the attack had come, or whether she was a _vieja_—a camp follower of the army. Now she was trudging stolidly along in the dust behind Captain Felix Romero’s horse—and had trudged so for thirty miles. He never spoke to her, never looked back, but rode on unconcernedly. Sometimes he would get tired of carrying his rifle and hand it back to her to carry, with a careless "Here! Take this!" I found out later that when they returned to La Cadena after the battle to bury the dead he had found her wandering aimlessly in the hacienda, apparently out of her mind; and that, needing a woman, he had ordered her to follow him. Which she did, unquestioningly, after the custom of her sex and country. Captain Felix let his horse drink. Elizabetta halted, too, knelt and plunged her face into the water.