Plastered fronts. All dark and gray. No soul stirring.
Sightless windows stared out upon emptiness. The plaza bared its
desolation to the pitiless moonlight. Only from an unseen window a
guitar hummed and tinkled. All vanished. Open country again. The
solitude of the fields again; the moonlight sleeping on the vast sweep
of the ranchos. Calpella past.
Felipe rose in his stirrups with a great shout.
At Calpella he knew he had crossed the divide. The valley lay beneath
him, and the moon was turning to silver the winding courses of the Rio
Esparto, now in plain sight.
It was between Calpella and Proberta that Pepe stumbled first. Felipe
pulled him up and ceased to urge him to his topmost speed. But five
hundred yards farther he stumbled again. The spume-flakes he tossed from
the bit were bloody. His breath came in labouring gasps.
But by now Felipe could feel the rising valley-mists; he could hear the
piping of the frogs in the marshes. The ground for miles had sloped
downward. He was not far from the river, not far from Caliente, not far
from the Convent of Santa Teresa and Buelna.
But the way to Caliente was roundabout, distant. If he should follow the
road thither he would lose a long half-hour. By going directly across
the country from where he now was, avoiding Proberta, he could save much
distance and precious time. But in this case Pepe, exhausted, stumbling,
weak, would have to swim the river.
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