Both the eye and the ear were thus warned of the threatening danger; and, as the people moved around the blazing fires, their shadows, magnified to gigantic proportions, were projected far out upon the savanna. The moments passed slowly, amidst fearful and ominous sounds. The muffled roar of the inundation was every instant heard more distinctly, as the exasperated flood came rolling onward. Already it resembled the noise of the loudest thunder, when the mass of dense waters was seen glistening under the light of the fires, only a few hundred paces distant from the western wall of the hacienda! "Oh, sister!" cried Gertrudis, in a voice of despair, "look again! Is no one in sight? O mercy!" Marianita still stood by the window, eagerly directing her glance over the plain, and endeavouring to penetrate the obscure gleam outside the circle lighted by the glare of the fires. "No--no one," replied she; and then her tone suddenly changing into one of terror, she shrieked out--"O mercy! I see two horsemen--yes; they are horsemen. _Madre de Dios_! they are flying like the wind! Alas! alas! they will be too late!" As she spoke, loud shouts were heard from above--from the _azotea_ of the house--to which Don Mariano and a crowd of servants had ascended. Other men, mounted on horseback, galloped along the terrace upon which the house stood, waving long lazoes around their heads, and ready to fling them out as soon as the two travellers should approach within reach. The men below were also uttering loud cries, unable to restrain their voices at the sight of the two horsemen thus desperately struggling to anticipate the approach of the mass of roaring waters. Already the flood was rushing forward upon the walls of the hacienda, approaching like waves of fire under the glare of the flaming beacons. The sisters within the chamber heard the cries, without seeing those that gave utterance to them, or knowing aught of the movements that were being made for rescuing the two horsemen from their perilous position. "Oh, Gertrudis!" cried Marianita, now leaning out from the window, and clinging convulsively to one of the iron bars, "come hither and see them! You can tell whether it be Don Rafael. I do not know him. If it be he, your voice might encourage him." "I cannot--I cannot!" replied Gertrudis, in a voice quivering with emotion. "Oh, sister! I dare not look upon such a spectacle. 'Tis he--too well my heart tells me it is he--oh, I can only pray for him!" "They are both mounted on dark-coloured horses. One of them is a little man. He is in the costume of an arriero. That cannot be Don Rafael!" "The other? the other?" cried Gertrudis in a low but anxious tone.