Chapter 9

IX

WITH movements of mechanical care and an air of abstraction old
General Santierra lighted a long and thick cigar.

"It was a good many hours before we could send a party back to the
ravine," he said to his guests. "We had found one-third of the town
laid low, the rest shaken up; and the inhabitants, rich and poor,
reduced to the same state of distraction by the universal disaster.
The affected cheerfulness of some contrasted with the despair of
others. In the general confusion a number of reckless thieves, without
fear of God or man, became a danger to those who from the downfall of
their homes had managed to save some valuables. Crying 'Misericordia'
louder than any at every tremor, and beating their breasts with one
hand, these scoundrels robbed the poor victims with the other, not
even stopping short of murder.

"General Robles' division was occupied entirely in guarding the
destroyed quarters of the town from the depredations of these inhuman
monsters. Taken up with my duties of orderly officer, it was only in
the morning that I could assure myself of the safety of my own family.

"My mother and my sisters had escaped with their lives from that ball-
room, where I had left them early in the evening. I remember those two
beautiful young women--God rest their souls--as if I saw them this
moment, in the garden of our destroyed house, pale but active,
assisting some of our poor neighbours, in their soiled ball-dresses
and with the dust of fallen walls on their hair. As to my mother, she
had a stoical soul in her frail body. Half-covered by a costly shawl,
she was lying on a rustic seat by the side of an ornamental basin
whose fountain had ceased to play for ever on that night.

"I had hardly had time to embrace them all with transports of joy,
when my chief, coming along, dispatched me to the ravine with a few
soldiers, to bring in my strong man, as he called him, and that pale
girl.

"But there was no one for us to bring in. A land-slide had covered the
ruins of the house; and it was like a large mound of earth with only
the ends of some timbers visible here and there--nothing more.

"Thus were the tribulations of the old Royalist couple ended. An
enormous and unconsecrated grave had swallowed them up alive, in their
unhappy obstinacy against the will of a people to be free. And their
daughter was gone.

"That Gaspar Ruiz had carried her off I understood very well. But as
the case was not foreseen, I had no instructions to pursue them. And
certainly I had no desire to do so. I had grown mistrustful of my
interference. It had never been successful, and had not even appeared
creditable. He was gone. Well, let him go.