'May be, mother, but might is the best argument at the last, for the
most cunning have a life to lose.'

'You are too ready to use your strength, son,' she said, smiling and
kissing me. 'Remember the old Spanish proverb: "He strikes hardest who
strikes last."'

'And remember the other proverb, mother: "Strike before thou art
stricken,"' I answered, and went.

When I had gone some ten paces something prompted me to look back, I
know not what. My mother was standing by the open door, her stately
shape framed as it were in the flowers of a white creeping shrub that
grew upon the wall of the old house. As was her custom, she wore a
mantilla of white lace upon her head, the ends of which were wound
beneath her chin, and the arrangement of it was such that at this
distance for one moment it put me in mind of the wrappings which are
placed about the dead. I started at the thought and looked at her face.
She was watching me with sad and earnest eyes that seemed to be filled
with the spirit of farewell.


I never saw her again till she was dead.



CHAPTER III

THE COMING OF THE SPANIARD