Yet that very morning poor Demetria's
appeal had deeply stirred my heart, and I was now embarked on a most
Quixotic and perhaps perilous adventure! Possibly the very fact of
that adventure being before me had produced an exhilarating effect on
my mind, and made it impossible for me to be sad, or even decently
composed.
After spending a couple of hours in the pleasant shade, the blue smoke
ascending from the _rancho_ before me gave notice of the
approaching breakfast hour; so, saddling my horse, I went to make my
morning call, the cuckoos hailing my departure with loud mocking shouts
and whistling calls, meant to inform all their feathered friends that
they had at last succeeded in making their haunt too hot for me.
At the _rancho_ I was received by a somewhat surly-looking young
man, with long, intensely black hair and moustache, and who wore in
place of a hat a purple cotton handkerchief tied about his head. He
did not seem to be over-pleased at my visit, and invited me rather
ungraciously to alight if I thought proper. I followed him into the
kitchen, where his little brown-skinned wife was preparing breakfast,
and I fancied, after seeing her, that her prettiness was the cause of
his inhospitable manner towards a stranger. She was singularly pretty,
with a seductive, soft brown skin, ripe, pouting lips of a rich
purple-red, and when she laughed, which happened very frequently, her
teeth glistened like pearls.
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