"What a battle, señorita!" I said to her.
Her teeth flashed as she smiled, and yet there was a puzzling vacancy about her expression. Indians have mask-like faces. Under it I could see that she was desperately tired and even a little hysterical. But she spoke tranquilly enough.
"Perfectly," she said. "Are you the Gringo who ran so many miles with the _colorados_ after you shooting?" And she laughed—catching her breath in the middle of it as if it hurt.
The _chamaco_ shambled up with an earthen jar of water and an armful of corn-ears that he tumbled at her feet. Elizabetta unwound from her shawl the heavy little stone trough that Mexican women carry, and began mechanically husking the corn into it.
"I do not remember seeing you at La Cadena," I said. "Were you there long?"
"Too long," she answered simply, without raising her head. And then suddenly, "Oh, but this war is no game for women!" she cried.
Don Felix loomed up out of the dark, with a cigarette in his mouth.
"My dinner," he growled. "Is it _pronto_?"
"_Luego, luego!_" she answered. He went away again.
"Listen, señor, whoever you are!" said Elizabetta swiftly, looking up to me. "My lover was killed yesterday in the battle. This man is my man, but, by God and all the Saints, I can’t sleep with him this night. Let me stay then with you!"
There wasn’t a trace of coquetry in her voice. This blundering, childish spirit had found itself in a situation it couldn’t bear, and had chosen the instinctive way out. I doubt if she even knew herself why the thought of this new man so revolted her, with her lover scarcely cold in the ground. I was nothing to her, nor she to me. That was all that mattered.
I assented, and together we left the fire, the Captain’s neglected corn spilling from the stone trough. And then we met him a few feet into the darkness.
"My dinner!" he said impatiently. His voice changed. "Where are you going?"
"I’m going with this señor," Elizabetta answered nervously. "I’m going to stay with him——"
"You——" began Don Felix, gulping. "You are my woman. _Oiga_, señor, this is my woman here!"
"Yes," I said. "She is your woman. I have nothing to do with her. But she is very tired and not well, and I have offered her my bed for the night."