She had determined to live
at the hotel until the days of persecution were past. The heavy sand
made it hard to proceed rapidly, but she struggled on bravely, and when
far enough from civilisation called aloud the signal-word agreed on.
But no one answered. All through the night she wandered, searching,
till within an hour of sunrise; then she gave way and sat weeping on the
sand. With daylight she rose to her feet, determined to find her lover,
but had scarcely gone twenty yards before, with a low cry of grief, she
knelt beside the body of a dead man. In the half-eaten, decayed features
she recognised Gregorio and knew she had come too late. Undeterred by
the hideous spectacle, she kissed him tenderly and lay beside him.
The sun mounted slowly in the heavens.
The living figure lay as lifeless as the dead. But after a while the
woman rose and dug with her hands a hollow in the sand. She heeded not
the heat, nor the flight of time, and by evening her work was done.
Raising the body in her arms, she carried it to the hollow and laid it
gently down, then tearfully shovelled back the sand till it was hidden.
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