'Estan!' called the voice, so low. And my son--ah,
my son!--to the door he went swiftly, the _lampara_ in his hand, holding
it high--so--that the light may shine into the dark.
"'Who calls?' Me, I heard my son ask--ah, never again will I hear his
voice! Out of the door he went--to see the man who called. To the
porch-end he came--I heard his steps. Ah, my son! Never again thy dear
footsteps will I hear!" And she fell to weeping over him.
"And then? Tell me, senora. What happened next?"
"Ah--the shot that took from me my son! Then feet running away--then I
came out--Ah, _querido mio_, that thou shouldst be torn from thy
mother thus!"
"And you don't know--?"
"No, no--no--ah, that my heart should break with sorrow--"
"Hush, mother! 'Twas Apodaca! He is powerful--and Estan would not come
into the Alliance. I told him it would be--" Luis, kneeling there,
beating his hands together in the dark, spoke with the heedless
passion of youth.
"Which Apodaca? Juan?" Starr's voice was low, with the sympathetic tone
that pulls open the floodgates of speech when one is stricken hard.
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