I felt myself turning hot and cold by turns.  I was horrified, and—­and I blundered.  “And who was the other figure?” I gasped.

“Who?” repeated Enriquez, with a pause, a fixed look at me, and a sublime gesture.  “Who should it be, but myself, Enriquez Saltillo?”

A terrible premonition that this was a chivalrous lie, that it was not himself he had seen, but that our two visions were identical, came upon me.  “After all,” I said, with a fixed smile, “if you could imagine you saw your wife, you could easily imagine you saw yourself too.  In the shock of the moment you thought of her naturally, for then she would as naturally seek your protection.  You have written for news of her?”

“No,” said Enriquez quietly.

“No?” I repeated amazedly.

“You understand, Pancho!  Eef it was the trick of my eyes, why should I affright her for the thing that is not?  If it is the truth, and it arrive to me, as a warning, why shall I affright her before it come?”

“Before what comes?  What is it a warning of?” I asked impetuously.

“That we shall be separated!  That I go, and she do not.”

To my surprise, his dancing eyes had a slight film over them.  “I don’t understand you,” I said awkwardly.

“Your head is not of a level, my Pancho.  Thees earthquake he remain for only ten seconds, and he fling open the door.  If he remain for twenty seconds, he fling open the wall, the hoose toomble, and your friend Enriquez is feenish.”

“Nonsense!” I said.  “Professor—­I mean the geologists—­say that the centre of disturbance of these Californian earthquakes is some far-away point in the Pacific and there never will be any serious convulsions here.”

“Ah, the geologist,” said Enriquez gravely, “understand the hoss that rear in the mine, and the five thousand dollar, believe me, no more.  He haf lif here three year.  My family haf lif here three hundred.  My grandfather saw the earth swallow the church of San Juan Baptista.”

I laughed, until, looking up, I was shocked to see for the first time that his dancing eyes were moist and shining.  But almost instantly he jumped up, and declared that I had not seen the garden and the corral, and, linking his arm in mine, swept me like a whirlwind into the patio.  For an hour or two he was in his old invincible spirits.  I was glad I had said nothing of my visit to Carquinez Springs and of seeing his wife; I determined to avoid it as long as possible; and as he did not again refer to her, except in the past, it was not difficult.  At last he infected me with his extravagance, and for a while I forgot even the strangeness of his conduct and his confidences.  We walked and talked together as of old.  I understood and enjoyed him perfectly, and it was not strange that in the end I began to believe that this strange revelation was a bit of his extravagant acting, got up to amuse me.  The