The soldier’s head swam, the happiest period of his childhood, which he had not recalled for a long time, again rose before his memory; he saw his father stand before him, and the woman, the sibyl yonder, had the eyes and mouth, not of his mother, but of the Madonna he had destroyed with his maul-stick.  Scarcely able to control himself, he grasped her hand, pressing it violently, and asked in German: 

“What is my name?  And what did my mother call me?”

She lowered her eyes as if in shame, and whispered softly in German:  “Ulrich, Ulrich, my darling, my little boy, my lamb, Ulrich—­my child!  Condemn me, desert me, curse me, but call me once more “my mother.”

“My mother,” he said gently, covering his face with his hands—­but she started up, hurried back to the pale baby in the cradle, and pressing her face upon the little one’s breast, moaned and wept bitterly.

Meantime, Zorrillo had not averted his eyes from Navarrete and his companion.  What could have passed between the two, what ailed the man?

Rising slowly, he approached the basket before which the sibyl was kneeling, and asked anxiously:  “What was it, Flora?”

She pressed her face closer to the weeping child, that he might not see her tears, and answered quickly “I predicted things, things....go, I will tell you about it later.”

He was satisfied with this answer, but she was now obliged to join the Spaniards, and Ulrich took leave of her with a silent salutation.

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