_Ah!_ _Dios!_" she cried. "I had forgotten; there will be
blood!" and rushing into her hut, she flung herself face downward on her
leafy bed.

The perplexed General looked after her for a moment, pulling his
grizzled moustache. "_Caramba!_" he muttered. "To understand these
feminines? Decidedly, this charming child must be sent into safety
to-morrow." And shaking his head and shrugging his shoulders, he strode
in the direction of the firing.

Ten minutes' sharp fighting, and the skirmish was over. The Spanish
"guerilla" was scattered, many of the guerilleros lying dead or wounded
at the foot of the precipice, the others scrambling and tumbling down as
best they might. Carlos and his men had so greatly the advantage in
position, if not in numbers, that not a single Cuban was killed, though
two or three were more or less seriously wounded. Among these was the
unfortunate Pedro Valdez, who had only that evening returned to camp,
having left his child and his old mother in a place of safety. His wife
had been allowed to remain for a short time in camp, at the request of
the surgeon, as she had had some experience in nursing. Now he was shot
in the arm, and his comrades lifted him gently, and carried him back.
His wife was waiting for him. She seemed to have expected something of
the kind, for she made no outcry; she followed quietly to the clump of
trees distant a little way from the rest of the camp, where good Doctor
Ferrando had the solitary rancho, the case of surgical instruments and
the few rolls of bandages that constituted his field hospital. A rough
table had been knocked together for operations; otherwise the sick and
wounded fared much as the rest did, sleeping on beds of leaves and dry
grass, and fighting the mosquitoes as best they might. Here the bearers
laid Pedro down, and Dolores took her place quietly at his side,
fanning away the insects that hovered in clouds about the wounded man,
holding the poor arm while the doctor dressed it, and behaving as if her
life had been spent in a hospital.

Doctor Ferrando spoke a few words of approval, but the woman heeded them
little; it was a matter of course that where there was suffering, she
should be at work. So, when Pedro presently dropped off to sleep, she
moved softly about among the wounded men, smoothing a blanket here,
changing a ligature there, doing all with light, swift fingers whose
touch healed instead of hurting.

She was sitting beside a lad, the l