a convent garden for it,"
confessed Don Ruy--"if the wishing ring were mine you would be wafted
there before that star goes pale."

"Oh!"--and the secretary strove to assume a lightness not to be
honestly felt in that chorus of wails. "You would make me a messenger
to your lady of the tryst--and I would tell her that since luck with
the pagan maids has not been to your fancy, you may please to walk
past her balcony and again cast an eye in that direction!"

"And at the same time you might whisper to her that I would not now
need to glance at her the second time to know her," he added. "Even
the armor of a Bradamante could not mask her eyes, or dull for me the
music of her voice."

"Excellency!"

"It is a most strange place to make words for the wooing of a lady, is
it not?"--asked Don Ruy looking up at the slender form wrapped in the
blanket.--"But new worlds are in making when earth quakes come,--and
our to-morrows may be strange ones, and--sweetheart comrade, I have
lain at your door each night since your head rested on my shoulder
there in the arroyo."

Someway Don Ruy made his arm long enough to reach the blanket and draw
the hesitating figure to him, and rested his cheek against the russet
sandals, and then a very limp Master Chico was on the ground beside
him, and was hearing all the messages any lady of any balcony would
like Love to send her.

"I cannot forgive you letting me carry all that water for a fainting
fit--and there was no fainting fit!" she protested at last,--"all
these days I've lived in terror;--not quite certain!"

"Think you nothing of the uncertain weeks you have given me?"--he
retorted.--"I had my puzzled moments I do assure you! And now that I
think of it--I'm in love with a lady whose actual name I have not been
told!"

"Are we not equal in that?" she whispered, and he laughed and held her
close as a bandaged throat would allow.

"Ruy Sandoval is a good enough name to go to the priest with," he
said, "and if 'Dona Bradamante' has no other I'll give her one if
she'll take it."

"Despite the Indian grandmother, and the madness of longing for life
in the open--and--."

"And the Viceroy and court of Spain to boot!" he declared recklessly.
"Sweetheart, I must have the right to guard you in a new way if need
be, for these are strange days."

Even while they spoke the stars were shot over by the green light of a
promised dawn, and against the faint sky line of the mesa a strange
p