ht at its contents.

"A _detente_!" he cried. "Manuela! and the most beautiful that has been
seen upon the earth. This is not for me! No! Impossible! The General
alone is worthy to wear this object of an elegance so resplendent."

Reassured on this point, he proceeded to pin the emblem on his jacket,
and contemplated it with delighted pride. It was a simple thing enough;
a square of white flannel the size of an ordinary needlebook, neatly
scalloped around the edge with white silk. In the centre was embroidered
a crimson heart, and under it the words, "_Detente! pienso en ti!_" ("Be
of good cheer! I think of thee!")

"And did you really think of me, Manuela?" cried the delighted Pepe.
"Did you, bright and gay, in the splendid city, think of the lonely
soldier?"

"Yes, I did," said Manuela, "when I had nothing else to do. And now you
may go away, Pepe, I am busy; I cannot attend to you any longer."

"But," said Pepe, bewildered, "you called me, Manuela."

"Yes; to strap my bag. It is done; I thank you. It is finished."

"And--you have given me the _detente_, moon of my soul!"

"Then you cannot complain that I never gave you anything. And now I give
you one thing more,--leave to depart. _Adios,_ Don Pepe!" and she
actually shut the door of the hut in the face of her astonished adorer,
who departed muttering strange things concerning the changeableness of
all women, and of Manuela in particular.

Meanwhile, Rita and Carlos were wandering about the camp, and Rita was
seeing, as her brother promised, some things that were new to her, even
after a stay of nearly a week. She saw the kitchen, or what passed for a
kitchen,--a pleasant spot under a palm-tree, where the cook was even
then toasting long strips of meat over the _parilla_, a kind of
gridiron, made by simply driving four stakes, and laying bits of wood
across and across them, then lighting a fire beneath.

"But why does it not burn up, your _parilla_?" asked Rita of the long,
lean, coffee-coloured soldier, picturesque and ragged, who was turning
the strips with a forked stick.

"Pardon, gracious senorita, it does burn up; not the first time, nor
perhaps the second, but without doubt the third."

"And then?"

"And then,--it is but to build another. An affair of a moment,
senorita."

"But does not the meat often fall into the fire when it breaks?"

"Sufficiently often, most noble. What of that? It imparts a flavour of
its own; one brushes off the ashes-