Concha clattered down the stairs, and Raquel slapped water upon Lois’ temples and wrists. Her own sore foot was forgotten. It was the second time Lois had fainted, and Raquel was not accustomed to such things. She pulled off the poor child’s boots, and laid her head on the soft pillow. When Lois had a few sips of the wine that Concha brought, she revived. “So sorry I’m such a bother, Raquel,” she said weakly. “Perhaps I can do better from now on.” “Hush, dear.” Raquel, who had never been demonstrative, even with Mom, whom she loved so dearly and loyally, took this girl in her arms as if she had been a sister. “You are going to be all right.” And she knew that the last bit of hurt and hatred had melted away. “I must go down to the old Don Nestor, who is ill in the cellar of his house,” she explained to Lois then. “Concha will stay right here and I’ll be back as soon as I can.” Then she slipped out, though her foot was still burning and swollen, not stopping even to wipe her face, but only to take a deep draft from the stone water jar hanging in the shade of the _galeria_. Down in the wine cellar, which had but a single window high up, a barred affair opening on some hidden inner court, lay Don Nestor on a freshly made pallet. Raquel spoke to him from the trapdoor above. “It is I, Raquela,” she said. “I have returned safely, Don Nestor. “_Gracias a Dios_,” replied a fervent voice from below. “Come down at once, my child, I have worried terribly about you. That I could have sent you off with that rascal Manuel whom I trusted so! I have lain here worrying. Had anything happened to you, I could never have forgiven myself.” He seized her hand as, stepping from the ladder-like stairs, she limped towards his cot. “Myself? It is nothing. We will speak of that later. But the lad?” Questions flew back and forth as Don Nestor heard from Raquel her experiences of that night, of her subsequent adventures and the finding of Lois. Always, in spite of herself, Raquel returned to the fact that it had been agreed between Georgie and herself that they would make their way back to El Escondido if they became separated. She was near tears at not finding Georgie there. “But there is no occasion, yet, to despair, for the _muchachito_ would undoubtedly be obliged to stay with the soldiers for a while. But I am sure they would not harm him,” Don Nestor reassured her. He listened with interest to the account of their experiences with Manuel, upon whose head he invoked frequent holy imprecations.