"Yes; her eyes are open, but she sees nothing."
"I don't like such things," the negro confessed in a shaky voice. "How can she walk if she is asleep? If her eyes are open, how can she help seeing us? You know she hates Evangelina and me."
"I tell you she sees nothing, knows nothing—" For a moment or two they watched the progress of the white-robed figure; then Esteban stirred and rose from his seat. "She's too close to that well. There is—" He started forward a pace or two. "They say people who walk at night go mad if they're awakened too suddenly, and yet—"
Dona Isabel was talking in a low, throaty, unnatural tone. Her words were meaningless, but the effect, at that hour and in those surroundings, was bizarre and fearsome. Esteban felt his scalp prickling uncomfortably. This was very creepy.
When the somnambulist's deliberate progress toward the mouth of the well continued he called her name softly. "Dona Isabel!" Then he repeated it louder. "Dona Isabel! Wake up."
The woman seemed to hear and yet not to hear. She turned her head to listen, but continued to walk.
"Don't be alarmed," he said, reassuringly. "It is only Esteban—DONA ISABEL! STOP!" Esteban sprang forward, shouting at the top of his voice, for at the sound of his name Isabel had abruptly swerved to her right, a movement which brought her dangerously close to the lip of the well.
"STOP! GO BACK!" screamed the young man.
Above his warning there came a shriek, shrill and agonized—a wail of such abysmal terror as to shock the night birds and the insects into stillness. Dona Isabel slipped, or stumbled, to her knees, she balanced briefly, clutching at random while the earth and crumbling cement gave way beneath her; then she slid forward and disappeared, almost out from between Esteban's hands. There was a noisy rattle of rock and pebble and a great splash far below; a chuckle of little stones striking the water, then a faint bubbling. Nothing more. The stepson stood in his tracks, sick, blind with horror; he was swaying over the opening when Asensio dragged him back.
Pancho Cueto, being a heavy sleeper, was the last to be roused by Esteban's outcries. When he had hurriedly slipped into his clothes in response to the pounding on his door, the few servants that the establishment supported had been thoroughly awakened. Esteban was shouting at them, explaining that Dona Isabel had met with an accident. He was calling for a lantern, too, and a stout rope. Cueto thought they must all be out of their minds until he learned what had befallen the mistress of the house. Then, being a man of action, he, too, issued swift orders, with the result that by the time he and Esteban had run to the well both rope and lantern were ready for their use. Before Esteban could form and fit a loop for his shoulders there was sufficient help on hand to lower him into the treacherous abyss.