Sometimes Segundo led them along precipitous paths cut in the living rock, bordered by walls, supporting grapevines through which the expiring rays of the sun could scarcely penetrate. Again he would take them through bare and arid woods until they reached some old oak grove, some chestnut tree, inside whose trunk, decayed and split with age, Segundo would hide himself while the girls hand in hand danced around it.
One day he took them to the stone bridge that crossed the Avieiro, under whose arches the black water, cold and motionless, seems to be dreaming a sinister dream. And he told them how in this spot, where, owing to the water being deeper there and less exposed to the sun's rays, the largest trout gathered, a corpse had been found floating last month near the arch. He took them to hear the echo also, and all the girls were wild with delight, talking all together, without waiting for the wall to repeat their cries and shouts of laughter. On another afternoon he showed them a curious lake regarding which innumerable fables were told in the country--that it had no bottom, that it reached to the center of the earth, that submerged cities could be seen under its surface, that strange woods floated and unknown flowers grew in its waters. The so-called lake was in reality a large excavation, probably a Roman mine that had been flooded with water, which, imprisoned within the chain of hillocks of argillaceous tophus heaped up around it by the miners' shovels, presented a sepulchral and fantastic aspect, the weird effect of the scene being heightened by the somber character of the marsh vegetation which covered the surface of the immense pool. When it began to grow dark the children declared that this lugubrious scene made them horribly afraid; the girls confessed to the same feeling, and started for the highroad running at the top of their speed, leaving Segundo and Nieves behind. This was the first time they had found themselves alone together, for the poet avoided such occasions. Nieves looked around uneasily and then, meeting Segundo's eyes fixed, ardent and questioning upon hers, lowered her gaze. Then the gloom of the landscape and the solemnity of the hour gave her a contraction of the heart, and without knowing what she was doing she began to run as the girls had done. She heard Segundo's footsteps behind her, and when she at last stopped, at a little distance from the highroad, she saw him smile and could not help smiling herself at her own folly.