"Sacra Dio! I trust you have not lost your way! Holy Mother, preserve us if we have gone wrong."
"I knew we must be near the place: it is under yonder tree; fear nothing Señora, come on:" and a few more steps brought them to the designated spot.
A shallow excavation had been made, sufficient to admit with ease the body of a full-grown man; and on its margin they softly laid their burden down. Every object shone in the clear moonlight, and stranger scene never moon shone upon. A dreary waste stretched away in the distance, and sighingly the wind swept over it. Inez knelt beside the grave, her wan yet still beautiful features convulsed with the secret agony of her tortured soul; the long raven hair floating like a black veil around the wasted form. Just before her stood the old woman, weird-like, her wrinkled, swarthy face exposed to full view, while the silver hair, unbound by her exertion, streamed in the night breeze. Loosely her clothes hung about her, and the thin, bony hands were clasped tightly as she bent forward and gazed on the marble face of the dead. Wonder, awe, fear, pity, all strangely blended in her dark countenance.
Inez groaned, and rocked herself to and fro, as if crushed in body and spirit. She could not lay him to rest forever without the bitterest anguish, for in life she had worshiped him, and in death her heart clung to the loved form. Again and again she kissed the cold hand she held.
"Señorita, we must make haste to lay him in, and cover him closely. Don't waste time weeping now; you cannot give him life again. Have done, Señorita Inez, and let us finish our work."
"I am not weeping, Señora! I have not shed a single tear; yet be patient: surely there is yet time."
Inez straightened the cloak in which Frank Bryant was shrouded, placed the hands calmly by his side, and softly smoothed the dark hair on his high and noble brow. She passionately kissed the cold lips once, then covered forever the loved, loved features, and they carefully lowered the still form into its last resting-place.
They stood up, and the old dame pointed to the earth piled on either side. Inez shuddered and closed her eyes a moment, as if unequal to the task.
Her companion stooped, and was in the act of tossing forward a mass of earth; but Inez interposed: "Señora, softly! I will do this: remember there is no coffin."