besides, too great a noble to be troubled with the doings of such vermin.... And Castro began to yawn. At daybreak--he explained--he would start for the _hacienda_ early, and return with mules for Seraphina and myself. The buildings of the estate were nearly three leagues away. All this tract of the country on the side of the sea was very deserted, the sugar-cane fields worked by the slaves lying inland, beyond the habitations. Here, near the coast, there were only the herds of cattle ranging the _savannas_ and the peons looking after them, but even they sometimes did not come in sight of the sea for weeks together. He had no fear of being seen by anybody on his journey; we, also, could start without fear in daylight, as soon as he brought the mules. For the rest, he would make proper arrangements for secrecy with the husband of Seraphina’s nurse--Enrico, he called him: a silent Galician; a graybeard worthy of confidence. One of his first cares had been to grub out of his soaked clothes a handful of tobacco, and now he turned over the little drying heap critically. He hunted up a fragment of maize leaf somewhere upon his bosom. His face brightened. “_Bueno_,” he muttered, very pleased. “Señor--good-night,” he said, more humanized than I had supposed possible; or was it only that I was getting to know him better? “And thanks. There’s that in life which even an old tired man.... Here I, Castro... old and sad, Señor. Yes, Señor--nothing of mine in all the world--and yet.... But what a death! Ouch! the brute water... _Caramba!_ Altogether improper for a man who has escaped from a great many battles and the winter of Russia.... The snow, Señor....” He drowsed, garrulous, with the blackened end of his cigarette hanging from his lower lip, swayed sideways--and let himself go over gently, pillowing his head on the stump of his arm. The thin, viperish blade, stuck upwards from under his temple, gleamed red before the sinking fire. I raised a handful of flaring twigs to look at Sera-phina. A terrible night raged over the land; the inner arch of the opening growled, winking bluishly time after time, and, like an enchanted princess enveloped in a beggar’s cloak, she was lying profoundly asleep in the heart of her dominions. CHAPTER EIGHT