Many men and women were running up and down, back and forth in the broad avenue. All of a sudden a woman came running swiftly to us and embraced Augustine, speechless, deep emotion choking her.
“Mariquilla, Mariquilla of my heart!” exclaimed Montoria, embracing her joyously. “How is it that you are here? I was just now going in search of you.”
Mariquilla could not speak, and, without the sustaining arm of her lover, her weak and wavering body would have fallen to the ground.
“Are you ill? What is the matter? Is it true that the bombs have destroyed your house?”
It was even so, and the young girl’s whole aspect showed her great distress. Her clothing was that which we saw on her the night before. Her hair was loosened, and we could see burns upon her poor bruised arms.
“Yes,” she said, at last, in a stifled voice. “Our house is gone. We have nothing. We have lost everything. This morning, soon after you had gone, a bomb destroyed the house, then two others fell.”
“And your father?”
“My father is there, and will not abandon the ruins of the house. I have been looking for you all day, for you to help us. I have been under fire. I have been in all the streets of the suburb. I have entered several houses. I was afraid that you were dead.”
Augustine seated himself in a gateway, and, sheltering Mariquilla with his military cloak, he held her in his arms as one holds a child. Freed thus from her terror, she could talk; and she told us that she had not been able to save a single thing. They had scarcely had time to get out of the house. The unhappy girl was trembling with cold, and, putting my cloak over Augustine’s, we tried to take her to the house where we were on duty.