Page:The Valley of Adventure (1926).pdf/41

 The stranger, seeing a woman' before him, removed his hairy head cover, hat or cap or whatever it might be, revealing his long hair in tangled ringlets over his ears.

"Look!" said Magdalena, touching the soldier's arm; "his hair is bright as an angel's. There is no harm in him."

"Who knows?" said Sergeant: Olivera, still feeling his chin like a man who, trammeled in meditation, puts his finger in his beard.

"What is this?" Don Geronimo inquired, standing well within the door, hand lifted a little as if to guard a sudden assault. "Who are you? What do you want?"

The stranger replied, with courtesy and gentleness, aS was apparent to all, but in a tongue that none of them could understand.

"What savage!" said Borromeo. "If he prays, God can't understand such a tongue."

"He makes a sign that he is hungry," said Magdalena, compassion in her soft voice. "Bring him in, Geronimo; there is no harm in his face."

"He is carrying a rifle; it is forbidden," said Don Geronimo. "But how to make such a wild animal understand?"

"Ha! he understands Spanish after all," said Borromeo. "See? he is giving Don Geronimo his gun. How admirable! what a little man with hair on him this one is!"

"He is as gentle as a dove," said Magdalena, rising to place a chair for the stranger at the great