Back of her the
peona hovered, hysterical, useless. Luis, half dressed and a good deal
dazed yet from sleep and the suddenness of his waking, knelt beside his
mother, patting her shoulder in futile affection, staring down
bewilderedly at Estan.
So Starr found them. Scenes like this were not so unusual in his life,
which had been lived largely among unruly passions. He spoke quietly to
Luis and knelt to see if the man lived. The senora took comfort from his
calm presence and with dumb misery watched his deft movements while he
felt for heartbeats and for the wound.
"But is he then dead, my son?" she wailed in Spanish, when Starr gently
laid down upon Estan's breast the hand he had been holding. "But so
little while ago he lived and to me he talked. Ah, my son!"
Starr looked at her quietingly. "How, then, did it happen? Tell me,
senora, that I may assist," he said, speaking easily the Spanish which
she spoke.
"Ah, the good friend that thou art! Ah, my son that I loved! How can I
tell what is mystery? Who would harm my son--my little Estan that was so
good? Yet a voice called softly from the dark--and me, I heard, though to
my bed I had but gone.
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