“Well, Asensio, I thought you’d never come.  I’ll get a fever from this!” Esteban said, irritably.

“It is a long way, Don Esteban, and Evangelina made me wait until dark.  I tell you we have to be careful these days.”

“What is the news?  What did you hear?”

Asensio sighed gratefully as he seated himself.  “One hears a great deal, but one never knows what to believe, There is fighting in Santa Clara, and Maceo sweeps westward.”

Taking the unaddressed letter from his pocket, Esteban said, “I have another message for Colonel Lopez.”

“That Lopez!  He’s here to-day and there to-morrow; one can never find him.”

“Well, you must find him, and immediately, Asensio.  This letter contains important news—­so important, in fact”—­Esteban laughed lightly—­“that if you find yourself in danger from the Spaniards I’d advise you to chew it up and swallow it as quickly as you can.”

“I’ll remember that,” said the negro, “for there’s danger enough.  Still, I fear these Spaniards less than the guerrilleros:  they are everywhere.  They call themselves patriots, but they are nothing more than robbers.  They—­”

Asensio paused abruptly.  He seized his companion by the arm and, leaning forward, stared across the level garden into the shadows opposite.  Something was moving there, under the trees; the men could see that it was white and formless, and that it pursued an erratic course.

“What’s that?” gasped the negro.  He began to tremble violently and his breath became audible.  Esteban was compelled to hold him down by main force.  “Jesus Cristo!  It’s old Don Esteban, your father.  They say he walks at midnight, carrying his head in his two hands.”

Young Varona managed to whisper, with some show of courage:  “Hush!  Wait!  I don’t believe in ghosts.”  Nevertheless, he was on the point of setting Asensio an example of undignified flight when the mysterious object emerged from the shadows into the open moonlight; then he sighed with relief:  “Ah-h!  Now I see!  It is my stepmother.  She is asleep.”

“Asleep?” Asensio was incredulous.  He was still so unnerved by his first fright that Esteban dared not release him.

“Yes; her eyes are open, but she sees nothing.”

“I don’t like such things,” the negro confessed in a shaky voice.  “How can she walk if she is asleep?  If her eyes are open, how can she help seeing us?  You know she hates Evangelina and me.”

“I tell you she sees nothing, knows nothing—­” For a moment or two they watched the progress of the white-robed figure; then Esteban stirred and rose from his seat.  “She’s too close to that well.  There is—­” He started forward a pace or two.  “They say people who walk at night go mad if they’re awakened too suddenly, and yet—­”

Dona Isabel was talking in a low, throaty, unnatural tone.  Her words were meaningless, but the effect, at that hour and in those surroundings, was bizarre and fearsome.  Esteban felt his scalp prickling uncomfortably.  This was very creepy.