"O no,—with you I am safe," she replied with a delightful smile of entire confidence, which caused a thrill to pass through Ronald’s heart as she placed her arm in his. "_O amigo mio!_ what a terrible morning this has been! How terrified I have felt since the roar of the cannon roused me from bed. And you have escaped! Praise be to the Virgin for it! she heard my prayers. Ah! how I trembled for you, when I saw from a loop-hole the black plumes of your regiment." Ronald pressed the little hand which lay on his arm, but he knew not what to say. A tremor of softness and joy filled his heart, causing him to turn with disgust from the objects of bloodshed and strife that lay every where around, and his eyes rested on the donna’s radiant features with a pleasure which he had never known till then. How agreeable it was to hear the frank girl talking in this way! "_O santa Maria!_" she exclaimed with a shudder, after a pause, "I can scarcely look around me, so many fearful sights present themselves everywhere to my eye,—sights of which we knew nothing at happy Merida, before the false Napoleon crossed the Pyrenees." "With God’s help, and our good steel, Catalina, we will drive his legions back again,—or into the sea at Bayonne; and then again at Merida the fandango, the bolero and waltz—" "_Amigo mio_, senor! you speak as might become the Cid Rodrigo; but although your hand may be as stout, and your sword as long as his, why be so rash? How you leaped over the parapet, among the horrid bayonets of the French—" "You saw me, then," said Ronald with delight. "And trembled for you." "How fortunate I am to have your good wishes! I dare say you are very happy at being freed from this place?" "O very—very! But surely it was not on my account that all this frightful work has been made. Perhaps you have heard how I was carried off from Merida?" "Yes; and I cannot express the uneasiness the relation gave me." "A French officer, a Major D’Estouville, carried me off across his saddle a captive maiden, by force, as any fierce Moor of Grenada would have done long ago. I have been since a prisoner here." "Well, but this D’Estouville—" "Such a gay cavalier he is! But I was very tired of him, and longed to be at pleasant Merida with its sunny Prado and orange groves, instead of this dull, guarded fort, with its bulwarks and ditches, cannon and gates. I was much annoyed by Monsieur D’Estouville’s speeches and protestations; but ’tis all at an end now, and I trust he has escaped, though I wish not to see his face again. Do you know if he is safe?" "I saved his life but an hour since," replied Ronald, the pique which he felt at her first observations disappearing. "But I do not see him among the prisoners," he added, examining the sullen and disarmed band as they marched past out of the fort, surrounded by their armed escort commanded by Louis Lisle, from whose cheek the blood was trickling from a sabre wound, which he heeded not.