CHAPTER I

THE INTRUDER

Two days later, when Don Jaime was awaiting his dinner in the tower, having returned from a fishing excursion, PÈp presented himself and deposited the basket upon the table with an air of solemnity.

The rustic tried to make excuse for this extraordinary visit. His wife and Margalida had gone to the hermitage of the Cubells again, and the boy had accompanied them.

Febrer began to eat with a lusty appetite after having been on the sea since daybreak, but the serious air of the peasant at last claimed his attention.

"PÈp, you want to say something to me, but you are afraid," said Jaime, in the Ivizan dialect.

"That is true, seÑor."

Like all timid persons who doubt and vacillate before speaking, but rush into it impetuously when fear is overcome, PÈp bluntly unburdened his mind.

Yes, he had something to say; something very important! He had been thinking the matter over for two whole days, and he could keep silent no longer. He had taken it upon himself to bring the seÑor's dinner merely for the sake of speaking. Why did Don Jaime make fun of those who were so fond of him? What did he mean?

"Make fun of you!" exclaimed Febrer.

"Yes, make fun of us!" PÈp declared sadly. "How about what happened that stormy night? What caprice impelled the seÑor to present himself at the courting, taking the chair beside Margalida, as if he were a suitor? Ah, Don Jaime! The 'festeigs' are solemn occasions; men kill one another on account of them. I knew that fine gentlemen laugh at all this, and consider the peasants of the island about the same as savages; but the poor should be left to their customs, and they should not be disturbed in their few pleasures."

Now it was Febrer who assumed a serious countenance.

"But I am not making fun of you, my dear PÈp! It's all true! Listen! I am one of Margalida's suitors, like the Minstrel, like the detested Ironworker, like all other boys who gather in your kitchen to court her. I came the other night because I could bear no more, because I suddenly realized the cause of all that I have been suffering, because I love Margalida, and I will marry her if she will accept me."

His sincere and impassioned accent banished all doubt from the peasant's mind.

"Then it is really true!" he exclaimed. "The girl had told me something of this, weeping, when I asked her the motive of the seÑor's visit. I could not believe her at first. Girls are so pretentious! They imagine that every man is running mad after them; so it is really true!"

This knowledge caused him to smile, as at something unexpected and amusing.

"What a strange man you are, Don Jaime! It is very kind of you to make demonstrations of esteem for the household of Can MallorquÍ; but it is not good for the girl, for she was giving herself airs, imagining herself worthy of a prince, and will not accept any of the peasants.

"It cannot be, seÑor. Don't you understand that it cannot be? I was young myself once, and I know what it is; how one takes a notion to chase after any girl who is not ugly; but later on one reflects, he thinks about what is good and what is not good, what is proper, and in the end he does not commit a foolish deed. Have you thought it over, really, seÑor? That was a joke the other night, a caprice——"

Febrer shook his head energetically. No, neither a joke nor a caprice. He loved Margalida, the graceful Almond Blossom; he was convinced of his passion, and he would follow wherever she might lead. He intended in future to do as he pleased, laying aside scruples and prejudices. He had been a slave to them long enough. No; he would have no regret. He loved Margalida, he was one of her suitors, with the same right as any island youth. He meant every word he said.

PÈp, scandalized at these words, wounded in his most conventional and ancient ideas, raised his hands, while his simple soul showed in his eyes full of fear and surprise.

"Oh, Lord! Oh, Lord!"

He was compelled to call upon the ruler of heaven to give expression to his perturbation and astonishment. A Febrer wishing to marry a peasant of Can MallorquÍ! The world was no longer the same; it seemed as if all the laws of the universe were turned upside down, as if the sea were about to cover the island, and that in future the almond trees would put forth their flowers above the waves; but had Don Jaime realized what this desire of his signified?

All the respect engendered in the soul of the peasant during long years of servitude to the noble family, the religious veneration his parents had infounded in him when, in his childhood, he saw the gentlemen from Majorca arrive at the island, was now revived, protesting at this absurdity, as something contrary to human custom and to the divine will. Don Jaime's father had been a powerful personage, one of those who made laws over there in Madrid; he had even lived in the royal palace. He still saw him in his memory, just as he had imagined him in the credulous illusions of boyhood, bending men to his will; able to send some to the gallows and pardoning others according to his caprice; seated at the table of monarchs and playing cards with them, just as PÈp himself might do with a crony in the tavern at San JosÉ; addressing one another by the familiar "thou"; and when he was not in the court city, he was an absolute seignior in vessels of iron—the kind that spit smoke and cannon balls. How about Jaime's grandfather, Don Horacio? PÈp had seen him but few times, and yet he still trembled with respect as he recalled his regal appearance, his grave, unsmiling face, and the imposing gesture which accompanied his benevolent acts. He was a king after the ancient style, one of those kings who are good and just fathers of the poor, offering bread with one hand and holding a rod in the other.

"And do you wish to have PÈp, the poor peasant of Can MallorquÍ, become a relative of your father and of your grandfather and of all those great lords who were masters in Majorca and rulers of the world? Come, Don Jaime, I can't help thinking it all a joke; your seriousness does not deceive me. Don Horacio also used to say the funniest things without losing his judge's face."

Jaime swept his eyes around the interior of the tower, smiling at his poverty.

"But I am poor, PÈp! You are rich, compared to me. Why think of my family, when I am living on your generosity? If you were to cast me out I would not know where to go."

The gesture of incredulity with which PÈp always received such humble declarations, was renewed.

Poor? But was not this tower his? Febrer replied with a smile. Bah! Four old stones that were falling apart; an unproductive hill, which would be worth something only if the peasant should cultivate it. But the latter insisted; there was the property in Majorca, which, even though it were somewhat encumbered, was much—much!

And he extended his arms with a gesture indicating immensity, as if no one could measure the fortune of Jaime, adding convincingly:

"A Febrer is never poor. You can never be that. Better days will come."

Jaime ceased trying to make him realize his poverty. If he thought him rich so much the better. Thus those youths, who knew no broader horizon than that of the island, could not say that he was a ruined man seeking to marry into PÈp's family in order to recover the lands of Can MallorquÍ.

Why should the peasant be so surprised at his desire to marry Margalida? In the end it was nothing more than the repetition of an eternal history, that of the disguised and vagabond king falling in love with the shepherdess and giving her his hand. He was no king, neither was he in disguise, but in a situation of absolute need.

"I have heard that story," said PÈp. "It was often told me when I was a child, and I have told it to my own children. I won't say that it never happened so, but that was in other times—other times, very long ago, when animals had speech."

According to PÈp, the most remote antiquity, and also the elysian state of man, was always that joyous time "when the animals had speech."

But now—now he, although he could not read, informed himself of the doings in the world when he went to San JosÉ on Sundays and talked with the secretary of the pueblo, and other lettered persons who read the newspapers. Now-a-days kings married queens, and shepherdesses married shepherds; everyone with his kind. The good old times were over.

"But do you know whether or not Margalida loves me? Are you sure that all this seems to her a wild dream as it does to you?"

PÈp maintained a long silence, one hand beneath his hat and the silk kerchief, which he wore in womanish manner, scratching his crisp gray curls. He smiled knavishly, with an expression of scorn, as if rejoicing over the inferiority in which dwells the woman of the fields.

"Women! How can one tell what they think, Don Jaime! Margalida is like all the rest of them, fond of vanities and strange things. At her age they all dream that some count or marquis is coming to take them, away in his golden chariot, and that all her friends will die of envy. I, too, when I was a boy, used often to think that the richest girl in Iviza would come to seek my hand in marriage, some girl, I did not know who, but beautiful as the Virgin and with fields as big as half the island—dreams of youth."

Then ceasing to smile, he added:

"Yes, maybe she does care for you without realizing it. Youth and love are so strange. She cries when anything is said to her about the other night; she declares it was madness, but she won't say a word against you. Ah, would that I could see into her heart!"

Febrer received these words with a smile of joy, but the peasant quickly dispelled it, adding energetically:

"It cannot be, and it must not be! Let her think as she pleases, but I am opposed because I am her father and I desire her welfare. Ah, Don Jaime, everyone with his kind! All this reminds me of a priest who used to lead a hermit's life at Cubells, a wise man, and like many wise men, half crazy; he was trying to raise a brood from, a rooster and a seagull; a gull the size of a goose."

With the interest which the rustic displays for the breeding of animals, he described the eagerness of the peasants when they went to Cubells, gathering curiously around the great cage, where the rooster and the gull were kept beneath the vigilance of the friar.

"The good man's work lasted for years—but—not a chick! Man's efforts avail nothing against the impossible. They were of different blood and of different breed; they lived together tranquilly, but they were not of the same sort, nor could they become so. Everyone with his kind!"

As he said this, PÈp gathered the plates and the remnants of the dinner from the table and put them into the basket, preparing to take his leave.

"We are agreed, Don Jaime," he said with his rustic tenacity, "that it was all a joke, and that you will not bother the girl any more with your notions."

"No, PÈp, we are agreed that I love Margalida, and that I am going to her courting with the same right as any of the island boys. The old customs must be respected."

He smiled at the peasant's ill-humored expression. PÈp shook his head in sign of protest. No; he repeated, that would be impossible. The girls of the district would laugh at Margalida, rejoicing over this strange suitor who broke the order of customs; the malicious would perhaps lie about Can MallorquÍ, which had as honorable a past as the best family on the island; even his own friends, when he should go to mass at San JosÉ, and all gathered in the cloister of the church, would imagine him an ambitious man who desired to convert his daughter into a fine seÑorita. And this was not all. There was the anger of the rivals to be reckoned with, the jealousy of those youths, dumb with surprise when he came in that stormy night and sat down beside Margalida. Certainly by this time they had recovered from their astonishment and were talking about him, and would all join to oppose the stranger. The men of the island were as they were. They took life among themselves without disturbing the man from the outside world because they considered him foreign to their circle, and indifferent to their passions; but if the stranger meddled in their affairs, and especially if he were a Majorcan, what would happen? When had people of other lands ever disputed a sweetheart with an Ivizan?

"Don Jaime, for the sake of your father, for the sake of your noble grandfather! It is PÈp who begs you, PÈp who has known you ever since you were a boy. The farmhouse is at your service; everyone who lives in it is eager to serve you—but do not persist in this caprice! It will bring some dire misfortune upon us all!"

Febrer, who had at first listened with deference, straightened his figure when he heard PÈp's predictions. His rude nature rebelled, as if the peasant's fears were an insult. He afraid! He felt equal to fighting all the young men of the island. Not a man in Iviza could force him to change his mind. To the belligerent passion of the lover was joined the pride of race, that ancestral hatred which separated the inhabitants of the two islands. He would go to the courting; he had good companions to defend him in case of need; and he glanced at the gun hanging on the wall; then his eyes descended to his belt where his revolver was hidden.

PÈp bowed his head in despair. He had been just like this when he was young. For women the wildest deeds are done. It was useless to make further effort to convince the seÑor, who was determined and proud like all his kindred.

"Do as you please, Don Jaime; but remember what I tell you. A great misfortune awaits us—a great misfortune!"

The peasant left the tower, and Jaime watched him walking down toward the farmhouse, the points of his kerchief and the womanish mantle he wore over his shoulders fluttering in the breeze.

PÈp disappeared behind the fence of Can MallorquÍ. Febrer was about to step away from the door when he saw rise from among the groups of tamarisks on the hillside a boy, who, after glancing cautiously about to convince himself that he was not observed, ran toward him. It was the Little Chaplain. He sprang up the stairway to the tower, and when he stood before Febrer he burst out laughing, displaying his ivory teeth, surrounded by a dark rose color.

Ever since that night when Febrer had presented himself at the farmhouse the Little Chaplain had treated him with greater confidence, as if he already considered him one of the family. He did not protest at the strangeness of the event. It seemed to him quite natural that Margalida should like the seÑor and that he should wish to marry her.

"But didn't you go to Cubells?" asked Febrer.

The boy began to laugh again. He had left his mother and sister half way on the road and had hidden among the tamarisks waiting for his father to leave the tower. No doubt the old man wished to have a serious talk with Don Jaime, and so he had sent them all away, and had taken it upon himself to bring him his dinner. For two days he had talked of nothing but this interview. His timidity, and his respect for the master, had made him vacillate, but at last he had decided. He was in ill humor over Margalida's courting. Had the old man scolded very hard?

Evading these questions, Febrer asked the boy with a certain anxiety, "How is Almond Blossom? What did she say when you talked to her about me?"

The boy straightened himself petulantly, happy in being able to defend the seÑor. His sister had not said anything; sometimes she smiled when she heard Don Jaime's name mentioned, again her eyes moistened, and she almost always brought the conversation to a close, advising the Little Chaplain not to meddle in this affair and to please his father by going back to his studies in the Seminary.

"It will turn out all right, seÑor," continued the boy, possessed of a fresh sense of his own importance. "It will turn out all right, I tell you. I am sure that my sister loves you dearly—only she is rather afraid of you—she feels a kind of respect. Who would ever have thought that you would notice her! At home everybody seems to be crazy; father looks cross and goes around grumbling to himself; mother sighs and calls on the Virgin, and meantime people imagine that we are rejoicing. But it will all come out right, Don Jaime, I promise you.

"But be careful, seÑor, be on your guard," added the boy, thinking of his former friends, the youths who were courting Almond Blossom. It seemed that the boys had lost confidence in him, and were cautious of speaking in his presence; but they were certainly plotting something. A week ago they seemed to hate one another and each kept to himself, but now they had joined forces in hatred of the stranger. They said nothing; they were merely taciturn; but their silence was disquieting. The Minstrel was the only one who shouted and displayed anger like an infuriated lamb, straightened his wasted figure, and declaring, between cruel fits of coughing, his intention of killing the Majorcan.

"They have lost respect for you, Don Jaime," continued the boy. "When they saw you come in and sit down beside my sister they were astounded. Even I could hardly believe my eyes, although for some time I knew that you were not indifferent to Margalida; you asked too many questions about her. But now they have waked up, and they are planning something. They have good reason, too. Who ever heard of such a thing as a stranger coming to San JosÉ and getting a sweetheart away from a crowd of the boys, the very bravest on the island?"

Local pride spurred the Little Chaplain to adopt for a moment the opinions of the others, but soon his gratitude and affection for Febrer were revived.

"Never mind. You love her and that is sufficient. Why should my sister have to wear out her life digging in the ground when a seÑor like yourself pays attention to her? Besides," here the young rascal smiled mischievously, "this marriage suits me. You are not going to till the fields, you will take Margalida away with you, and the old man, having no one to leave Can MallorquÍ to, will let me marry and become a farmer, and, adios to the priesthood! I tell you, Don Jaime, you'll win. Here am I, the Little Chaplain, to fight half the island in your defense."

He glanced about as if expecting to encounter the severe eyes and the mustaches of the Civil Guard, and then, after a moment's hesitation, like that of a great but modest man trying to conceal his importance, he drew from his belt a knife the brilliancy and glitter of which seemed to hypnotize him.

"See that?" he asked, admiring the smoothness of the virgin steel, and looking at Febrer.

It was the knife which Jaime had presented him the day before. Jaime had been in a good humor and he had made the Little Chaplain kneel. Then, with jesting gravity, he had struck him with the weapon, proclaiming him invincible knight of the district of San JosÉ, of the whole island, and of the channels and cliffs adjacent. The little rascal, tremulous with emotion at the gift, had taken the act with all gravity, thinking it an indispensable ceremony among gentlemen.

"See that?" he asked again, looking a Don Jaime as if protecting him with all the immensity of his valor.

He passed a finger lightly along the edge, pressing the fleshy tip against the point, delighting in the sharp prick. What a jewel!

Febrer nodded his head. Yes, he recognized the weapon; it was the one he had brought from Iviza.

"Well, with this," continued the boy, "not a brave will dare to face us. The Ironworker? He is a fraud! The Minstrel and all the rest? Frauds also. I'm only waiting for a chance to use this! Anybody who attempts anything against you is sentenced to death."

Finally, with the sadness of a great man who is wasting his time without an opportunity to display his valor, he said, lowering his eyes:

"When my grandfather was my age they say that he had already killed his man, and that half the island stood in fear of him."

The Little Chaplain spent part of the afternoon in the tower talking of Don Jaime's supposed enemies, whom he now considered as his own, putting up his knife and drawing it forth again, as if he enjoyed contemplating his disfigured image in the polished blade, dreaming of tremendous battles which always terminated by the flight or death of the adversaries, and by his valorously rescuing the embattled Don Jaime, who took as a jest his appetite for conflict and destruction.

In the evening Pepet went down to the farmhouse to get Don Jaime's supper. He had found the suitors who came from a distance sitting on the porch awaiting the beginning of the festeig. "See you later, Don Jaime!"

As soon as night closed in, Febrer made his preparations, his face set, his mien hostile, his hands thrilling with an imperceptible homicidal twitch, like a primitive warrior starting on an expedition from the mountain top to the valley. Before throwing his haik over his shoulders, he drew his revolver from his belt, scrupulously examining the cartridges, and the working of the trigger. Everything all right! The first man to make an attempt against him would get all six shots in the head. He felt like a savage, implacable, like one of those Febrers, lions of the sea, who landed on hostile shores, killing to avoid being killed.

With one hand in his belt fondling the butt of his revolver, he walked down the hill among the clusters of tamarisks, which waved their undulating masses in the darkness. He found the porch of Can MallorquÍ full of young men standing about, or seated on the benches, waiting while the family finished supper in the kitchen. Febrer detected them in the dim light by the odor of hemp emanating from their new sandals, and from the coarse wool of their mantles and Arabian capes. The red sparks of cigarettes at the lower end of the porch indicated other waiting groups.

"BÒna nit!" called Febrer in greeting.

They responded only with a careless grunt. The low-toned conversations ceased, and a painful and hostile silence seemed to settle around each man.

Jaime leaned against a pillar of the porch, his head held high, his bearing arrogant, his figure standing erect against the horizon, and it seemed as if he could feel the hostile eyes fixed on him under cover of the darkness.

He felt a certain emotion, but it was not fear. He almost forgot the enemies who surrounded him. He was thinking uneasily of Margalida. He experienced the thrill of the enamored man when he divines the proximity of the beloved woman and is in doubt as to his fate, fearing and at the same time desiring her approach. Certain memories of the past returned, causing him to smile. What would Mary Gordon say if she could see him surrounded by this rustic crowd, tremulous and vacillating as he thought of the proximity of a peasant girl? How his women friends in Madrid and in Paris would laugh if they should come upon him engaged in this rustic project, ready to take life over the conquest of a woman almost on a level with their servants!

A door opened, outlining in its rectangle of ruddy light the silhouette of PÈp.

"Come in, men!" he said, like a patriarch who understands the desires of youth and laughs good-naturedly at them.

The young men entered one after the other, greeting SeÑor PÈp and his family, taking their seats on benches or chairs like schoolboys.

As the peasant of Can MallorquÍ recognized the seÑor he started in surprise. Don Jaime there, waiting like the others, like an ordinary suitor, without venturing to enter this house, which was his own! Febrer replied with a shrug of the shoulders. He preferred to do as did the others. He imagined that thus it would be easier to accomplish his purpose. He did not wish to have his former condition recalled—he was a suitor, nothing more.

PÈp forced him to sit beside him, and tried to entertain him with conversation, but Febrer did not take his eyes off Almond Blossom, who, faithful to the ritual of such occasions, was seated in a chair in the center of the room, receiving the admiration of her suitors with the demeanor of a timid queen.

One after another took his place beside Margalida, who responded to their words in a low voice. She pretended not to see Don Jaime; she almost turned her back upon him. The suitors, awaiting their turns, were silent, not keeping up the merry chattering with which they had whiled away the time on other nights. Gloom seemed to weigh upon them, compelling them to silence, with lowered gaze and compressed lips, as if a dead man were lying in the adjoining room. It was the presence of the stranger, the intruder, foreign to their class and to their customs. Accursed Majorcan!

When all the youths had sat in the seat beside Margalida, the seÑor arose. He was the last one to present himself as a suitor, and, according to rule, it was his turn. PÈp, who had been talking to him ceaselessly to distract his attention, suddenly remained open-mouthed in surprise at seeing him move away.

He sat down beside Margalida, who seemed not to see him, her head bowed and her eyes lowered. The young men remained silent in order to catch the stranger's faintest words, but PÈp, realizing their plan, began to speak in a loud voice to his wife and son about some work to be done the next day.

"Margalida! Almond Blossom!"

Febrer's voice sounded like a caressing whisper in the girl's ear. He had come to convince her that what she had considered a caprice was love, true love. Febrer hardly knew how it had come about. He had felt ill at ease in his solitude, experiencing a vague desire for better things, which perhaps lay within his reach, but which he in his blindness could not recognize, until suddenly he had seen clearly where joy was to be found. That joy was herself. Margalida! Almond Blossom! He was not young, he was poor, but he loved her so much! Only a word, some sign to dissipate his uncertainty!

But the girl gently shook her head. "No; no. Go! I am afraid!" She raised her eyes and glanced uneasily at all the brown youths with their tragic mien, who seemed to scorch the pair with their blazing eyes.

Afraid! This word sufficed to arouse Febrer from his beseeching attitude and to cause him to stare defiantly at the rivals seated before him. Afraid? Of whom? He felt equal to fighting all those rustics and their innumerable relatives. Afraid! No, Margalida! She need not fear either for herself or for him. He begged her to answer his question. Could he hope? What did she intend to reply?

Margalida remained silent, her lips colorless, her cheeks a livid pallor, winking her eyes to conceal her tears. She was going to cry. Her efforts to restrain her tears were apparent; she sighed with anguish. Tears, suddenly bursting forth in this hostile atmosphere, might be a sign for battle; they would bring about the explosion of all that restrained anger which she divined around her. No, no! This effort of her will served only to enhance her misery, compelling her to bow her head like those sweet and gentle animals who think to save themselves from danger by hiding their heads.

Her mother who sat in a corner weaving baskets, grew alarmed. With feminine intuition she realized Margalida's suffering. Her husband, seeing the anxiety in her sad, resigned eyes, intervened opportunely.

"Half past nine!" There was a movement of surprise and protest from the youths. It was early yet; it lacked many minutes of the hour; the agreement should rule. But PÈp, with the stubbornness of the rustic, would not listen. Repeating the words, he arose and strode toward the door, opening it wide. "Half past nine!" Every man was master of his own house, and he did as he thought best in his. He had to get up early the next morning. "BÒna nit!"

He spoke courteously to each of the suitors as they filed out of the house. As Jaime passed, gloomy and crestfallen, PÈp grasped his arm. He must remain; PÈp would accompany him to the tower. He glanced uneasily at the Ironworker, who was behind him, the last to take his leave.

The seÑor did not reply, freeing his arm with a brusque movement. Accompany him! He was furious on account of Margalida's silence, which he considered crushing; on account of the hostile attitude of the young men; on account of the strange way in which the evening had been brought to a close.

The young suitors dispersed in the darkness, without shouts, or whistling, or songs, as if returning from a funeral. Something tragic seemed to be floating on the dark wings of night.

Febrer walked on until he arrived at the foot of the hill, where the tamarisk shrubs were thickest; then he turned, and stood motionless. His silhouette stood out against the whiteness of the path in the pale light of the stars. He held his revolver in his right hand, nervously clutching the breech, caressing the trigger with a feverish finger, eager to fire. Was no one following him? Did not the Ironworker or any of his other enemies lurk behind him?

Time passed, and no one appeared. The wild vegetation around him, enlarged by shadow and by mystery, seemed to laugh sarcastically at his anger. At last the fresh serenity of drowsy Nature seemed to penetrate his soul. He shrugged his shoulders scornfully, and holding his revolver before him walked on until he locked himself in his tower.

He spent the whole of the next day on the sea with TÍo Ventolera. Returning to his dwelling he found the supper, which the Little Chaplain had brought him, cold on the table.

The following day the boy of Can MallorquÍ appeared with a mysterious air. He had important things to tell Don Jaime. The afternoon before, when he had been hunting a certain bird in the pine forest near the Ironworker's forge, he had seen the man from a distance talking with the Minstrel beneath the porch of the blacksmith shop.

"And what else?" asked Febrer, wondering that the boy had no more to say.

Nothing else. Did that seem unimportant? The Minstrel was not fond of the mountains, for climbing made him cough. He always traveled through the valleys, sitting under the almond and fig trees to compose his verses. If he had gone up to the blacksmith shop it was undoubtedly because the Ironworker had sent for him. The two were talking with great animation. The Ironworker seemed to be giving advice, and the sick boy was listening with affirmative gestures.

"And what of that?" Febrer asked.

The Little Chaplain seemed to pity the seÑor's simplicity.

"Be careful, Don Jaime. You don't know the men of the island. This conversation at the forge means something. This is Saturday, courting night. I am sure they are plotting to do you harm if you come down to Can MallorquÍ."

Febrer received these words with a gesture of scorn. He would be there, in spite of everything. Did they imagine they could frighten him? The only thing he regretted was that they delayed so long in attacking him.

He spent the rest of the day in a state of nervous anger, eager for night to come. He avoided approaching Can MallorquÍ in his walks, gazing at it from a distance, in the hope of catching a glimpse of the slender figure of Margalida. Since he had become a suitor he could not present himself as a friend. A visit from him might prove embarrassing for PÈp's family, and also he feared that the girl might conceal herself on seeing him approach.

As soon as the sun had set and the stars appeared in the clear winter sky with the keenness of points of ice, Febrer descended from the tower.

During his brief walk to the farmhouse, recollections of the past returned again with ironic precision, as they had done on the former courting night.

"If Mary Gordon should see me!" he thought. "Perhaps she would compare me to a rustic Siegfried going forth to slay the dragon, which guards the treasure of Iviza. If certain cynical women I have known should see me!"

But his love immediately effaced these recollections. What if they should see him! Margalida was better than all the women he had ever known; she was the first, the only one. All his past life seemed to him false, artificial, like the life presented on the stage, painted and covered with tinsel beneath a deceptive light. He would never return to that world of fiction. The present was reality.

Arrived at the porch, he found all the suitors, who seemed to be talking in smothered voices. When they saw him they instantly became silent.

"BÒna nit!"

No one replied. They did not even receive him with the grunt of the other night.

When PÈp, opening the door, gave them entrance to the kitchen, Febrer saw that the Minstrel had a small drum hanging from one arm and was carrying the drum stick in his right hand.

It was to be an evening of music. Some of the youths smiled with a wicked expression when they took their places, as if rejoicing in advance over something extraordinary. Others, more serious, showed in their faces the noble disgust of those who fear to witness an inevitable evil deed. The Ironworker remained impassive in one of the farthest corners, shrinking down so as to remain unnoticed among his comrades.

A few of the youths had talked with Margalida, when suddenly, the Minstrel, seeing the chair unoccupied, approached and took his seat in it, holding the drum between his knee and his elbow, and resting his forehead in his left hand. He slowly beat the drum, while a prolonged hissing demanded silence. It was a new song; every Saturday the Minstrel came with fresh verses in honor of the daughter of the house. The charm of wild and barbarous music, admired since childhood, compelled all to listen. The sacred emotion of poesy made these simple souls thrill in advance.

The poor consumptive began to sing, accompanying each verse with a final clucking which shook his chest and reddened his cheeks. Tonight, however, the Minstrel seemed to have more strength than usual; his eyes had an extraordinary brilliancy.

An outburst of laughter greeted the first verses, hailing the sarcastic cleverness of the rural poet.

Febrer did not understand much of it. When he heard this monotonous and neighing music, which seemed to recall the primitive songs scattered over the Mediterranean by the Semitic sailors, he took refuge within his thoughts to pass away the time, and to be less bored by the extraordinary length of the ballad.

The loud laughter of the young men attracted his attention as something which he vaguely comprehended as directed against himself with hostile intent. What was that angry lamb saying? The singer's voice, his rustic pronunciation, and the continual clucking with which he ended the verses, were scarcely intelligible to Jaime, but he gradually began to realize that the ballad was directed at young women who desired to abandon the field, to marry caballeros, and who longed to wear the same ornaments as city ladies. The singer described feminine fashions in extravagant terms, which made the peasants laugh.

The simple PÈp also laughed at these jests, which flattered both his rural pride and his masculine vanity, which was inclined to see in the female nothing but a sharer of his burdens. "True! True!" And he joined his laughter to that of the boys. What an amusing fellow was that Minstrel!

After a few verses the improvisatore no longer sang of young women in general, but of a particular one, ambitious and heartless. Febrer glanced instinctively at Margalida, who remained motionless, with lowered eyes, her cheeks colorless, as if frightened, not at what she had already heard, but at what was undoubtedly yet to come.

Jaime began to stir uneasily in his chair. The idea of that rustic annoying her like that! A louder and more insolent outburst of laughter again attracted his attention to the verses. The singer was making fun of the girl, who, in order to become a lady, wished to marry a poor ruined man possessed of neither home nor family; a foreigner, who had no lands to cultivate.

The effect of this was instantaneous. PÈp, in the denseness of his dull brain, saw something like a spark of light, a luminous divination, and he extended his hands imperatively, while at the same instant he arose.

"Enough! Enough!"

But it was too late; a form interposed between himself and the candle light; it was Febrer, who had leaped forward.

He grasped the drum from the singer's knees and hurled it at his head with such force that the parchment gave way and the frame fitted itself down over the bleeding forehead like a shapeless cap.

The youths sprang impulsively from their seats, their hands reaching into their girdles. Margalida, screaming, took refuge at her mother's side, and the Little Chaplain felt that the time had come to draw his knife. His father, with the authority of his years, shouted:

"Outside! Outside!"

They all obeyed, and went out into the fields in front of the farmhouse. Febrer went also, in spite of the resistance of PÈp.

The young men seemed to be divided among themselves, and were carrying on a heated discussion. Some were protesting. The idea of striking the poor Minstrel, an unfortunate sick boy who could not defend himself! Others shook their heads. They had been expecting it. A man could not be insulted gratuitously without something happening. They had opposed the singing; they believed that when a man had something to say to another man he should say it face to face.

In the heat of their contrary opinions and in their jealous rivalry they were about to resort to blows when their attention was distracted by the Minstrel. He had removed the drum from his head and was wiping the blood from his forehead, weeping with the fury of a weak man who longs to wreak direct vengeance, and yet realizes himself a slave to his impotence.

"I'll settle with him!" he cried. Suddenly stooping to pick up stones in the darkness, he began to throw them at Febrer, each time receding a few steps as if to defend himself against a new aggression. The stones, flung by his forceless arms, fell into the shadows or rebounded against the porch.

The Minstrel's friends surrounded him and led him away. His cries could be heard in the distance, shouting defiance, swearing vengeance. He would kill the stranger! He alone would put an end to the Majorcan!

Jaime stood motionless among his enemies, with one hand in his belt. He was overcome with shame at having lost his temper, and having struck the poor consumptive. To stifle his remorse he muttered arrogant threats. He only wished it had been another man who had done the singing. His eyes sought the Ironworker, as if defying him; but the dreaded man-slayer had disappeared.

Half an hour afterward, when the tumult had subsided and Febrer returned to his tower, he stopped on the way several times, revolver in hand, as if expecting someone.

Nobody!

CHAPTER II

LOVE AND PISTOLS

The next morning just after sunrise the Little Chaplain ran in search of Don Jaime, revealing in his manner as he entered the tower, the importance of the news which he was bearing.

In Can MallorquÍ they had all passed a bad night. Margalida wept; her mother lamented the occurrence; what would the people of the district think of them when they heard that men had come to blows in her house as in a tavern? What would the girls say about her daughter? But Margalida gave little heed to the opinion of her friends. Something else seemed to worry her, something of which she said nothing, but which caused her to shed copious tears. SeÑor PÈp, after closing the door on the suitors, had paced up and down the kitchen for an hour muttering to himself and clenching his fists. "That Don Jaime! Why should he persist in trying to obtain the impossible? Obstinate, like all his kindred!"

The Little Chaplain had not slept either. In the mind of the young savage, astute and sagacious, a suspicion tad gradually assumed the reality of fact.

On entering the tower he immediately communicated his thoughts to Don Jaime. Whom did he imagine had conceived the offensive song? The Minstrel? No, seÑor; it was the Ironworker! The Minstrel had made the rhymes, but the theme originated with the malicious man-slayer. He it was who had conceived the idea of insulting Don Jaime in the presence of all the suitors, relying on the certainty that he would not let the affront pass unheeded. Now the boy understood the reason for the interview between the two suitors which he had surprised in the mountain.

Febrer received this news, to which the Little Chaplain attached great importance, with a gesture of indifference. What of that? He had already punished the insolent Minstrel, and as for the man-slayer, he had sneaked off when he had challenged him at the door of the farmhouse. He was a coward.

Pepet shook his head incredulously.

"Be careful, Don Jaime! You do not know the ways of the braves around here, the cunning they employ to avoid being caught when wreaking vengeance. You must be on your guard now more than ever. You know what the jail-bird is, and he doesn't want to get sent back to prison. What he has just done is a trick which other man-slayers have played before."

Jaime lost patience at the boy's mysterious air and confused words.

"Why don't you speak out? Come!"

At last the Little Chaplain gave voice to his suspicions. Now the Ironworker could attempt anything he liked against Don Jaime; he could lie in ambush for him among the tamarisks at the foot of the tower and shoot him as he passed. Suspicion would at once be directed against the Minstrel, in view of the quarrel at the farmhouse and his threats of vengeance. With this, and with the man-slayer establishing an alibi by taking a short cut to some distant place where he could be seen by many persons, it would be easy for him to avenge himself with impunity.

"Ah!" exclaimed Febrer seriously, as if suddenly realizing the importance of these words.

The boy, delighting in his superior knowledge, continued giving advice. Don Jaime must be more careful; he must lock the door of his tower and pay no attention to calls from outside after dark. Surely the man-slayer would try to induce him to come out by challenging cries, with howls of defiance.

"If you hear any cries of challenge during the night, Don Jaime, you must keep still. I know their ways," continued the Little Chaplain with the importance of a hardened man-slayer. "They hide in the bushes, with weapon aimed, and if their man comes out, they fire without ever showing themselves. You must stay in after dark."

This advice was for the night. By day the seÑor could go abroad without fear.

"Here am I to accompany you wherever you wish."

The boy straightened himself with an aggressive air, moving one hand to his belt to convince himself that his knife had not disappeared, but he was immediately undeceived by Febrer's mocking expression of gratitude.

"Laugh, Don Jaime; make fun of me if you will; but I can be of some use to you. See how I warn you of danger! You must be on your guard. The Ironworker planned that singing with evil intent."

He glanced about like a chieftain preparing for a long siege. His eyes encountered the gun hanging on the wall among the decorations of shells. Very good; both barrels must be loaded with ball, and on top of this a good handful of lead slugs or coarse bird-shot. It would be no more than prudent. Thus his glorious grandfather had done. Seeing Jaime's revolver lying on the table, he frowned.

"Very bad! Small arms should be worn on one's person at all hours. I sleep with my knife on my breast. What if an enemy should rush in suddenly without giving a man time to look for his weapon?"

The tower, which, in former centuries, had been the scene of executions and battles between pirates, a stone vault suggestive of tragedies, the walls covered by gleaming whitewash, then claimed the boy's attention.

He cautiously made his way to the door as if an enemy were lying in wait for him at the foot of the stairway, and concealing his body behind the thick wall, he advanced, nothing but an eye and part of his forehead being visible. Then he shook his head with despair. If one looked out at night, even with these precautions, the enemy, lying in ambush below, could see him, could aim at him with the greatest facility, resting his arms on a branch or on a stone with no fear of missing him. It would be even worse to step outside the door and venture to go down. No matter how dark the night, the enemy could point his gun at a cluster of leaves, at a star on the horizon, at anything standing out conspicuously in the dusk near the stairway, and when a dark form should pass before it, momentarily obscuring the object sighted at—bang! It was sure game! He had heard grave men tell of having spent whole months crouching behind a hillock or a tree trunk, the butt-end of a musket close to the cheek and the eyes fixed on the end of the barrel, from sunset till daybreak, lying in wait for some old-time enemy.

No, the Little Chaplain did not like this door with its stairway in the open. He must find another exit, and he inspected the window, opened it, and looked out. With simian agility, laughing with joy at his discovery, he sprang over the embrasure and disappeared, seeking with feet and hands the irregularities of the rubble-work, the deep, stair-like sockets left by the stones when they had fallen loose from the mortar. Febrer looked out and saw him picking up his hat and waving it with a triumphant expression. Then the boy ran around the base of the tower, and soon his steps resounded, trotting noisily up the wooden stairs.

"That's easy enough!" he shouted, as he entered the room, red with excitement over his discovery. "That's a stairway fit for a gentleman!"

Realizing the importance of his discovery, he assumed a grand air of mystery. This must be kept between them—not a word to anyone. It was a precious means of exit, the secret of which must be jealously guarded.

The Little Chaplain envied Don Jaime. How he longed to have an enemy himself to come and call a challenge to him in the tower during the night! While the Ironworker lay howling in ambush, his eyes glued upon the stairway, he would descend by means of the window, at the rear of the tower, and, creeping cautiously around, he would hunt the hunter. What a stroke! He laughed with savage glee, as if on his dark red lips trembled the ferocity of his glorious ancestors who considered the hunting of man the most noble of exercises.

Febrer seemed to be infected by the boy's exhilaration. He would try going down by the window route himself! He flung his legs over the sill, and carefully, clumsily, began feeling with his toes for the irregularities in the wall until he found the holes which served as steps. He slowly made his way down, loose stones slipping beneath his feet, until he reached the ground, giving a sigh of satisfaction. Very good! The descent was easy; after a few more trials he would be able to get down as nimbly as the Little Chaplain. Pepet, who had followed him agilely, almost hanging over his head, smiled, like a master pleased at the lesson, and repeated his advice. Don Jaime must not forget! When he heard the challenge he must climb out of the window and down the wall, getting around behind his adversary.

At noon when Febrer was left alone he felt himself possessed of a warlike ferocity, of an aggressiveness which caused him to look long at the wall on which hung his gun.

At the foot of the promontory, from the shore where TÍo Ventolera's boat was beached, rose the voice of the old fisherman singing mass. Febrer looked out the door, carrying both hands to his mouth in the form of a trumpet.

TÍo Ventolera, with the help of a boy, was shoving his boat into the water. The furled sail trembled aloft on the mast. Jaime did not accept the invitation. "Many thanks, TÍo Ventolera!" The old fisherman insisted in his puny voice, which, wafted in on the wind, sounded like the plaintive crying of a child. The afternoon was fine; the wind had changed; they would catch fish in abundance near the VedrÁ. Febrer shrugged his shoulders. No, no, many thanks; he was busy.

He had scarcely ceased speaking when the Little Chaplain presented himself at the tower for the second time, carrying the dinner. The boy seemed gloomy and sad. His father, choleric over the scene of the previous night, had chosen him as the victim on whom to vent his displeasure. An injustice, Don Jaime! PÈp had been striding up and down the kitchen, while the women, with tearful eyes and cringing air, shrank away from his gaze. Everything that had happened he attributed to the weakness of his character, to his good nature, but he intended to apply a remedy at once. The courting was to be suspended; he would no longer receive suitors nor visits. And as for the Little Chaplain—this bad son, disobedient and rebellious, he was to blame for everything!

PÈp did not know for a certainty how the presence of his son had brought on the scandal of the night before, but he remembered his resistance against becoming a priest, his running away from the Seminary, and the recollection of these annoyances inflamed his anger and caused it to be concentrated on the boy. Monday next he was going to take him back to the seminary. If he tried to resist, and if he should run away again, it would be better for him to embark as a cabin boy and forget that he had a father, for in case he returned home PÈp would break his two legs with the iron bar which fastened the door. To let off steam, to get his hand in, and to give a sample of his future temper, he gave him a few blows and kicks, getting even in this way for the wrath he had felt when he saw the boy appear as a fugitive from Iviza.

The Little Chaplain, submissive and shrinking through habit, took refuge in a corner behind the defense of skirts and petticoats which his weeping mother opposed to PÈp's fury; but now, up in the tower, recalling the event with glaring eyes, livid cheeks and clenched fists, he gnashed his teeth.

What injustice! Should a man stand being beaten like that, for no reason whatever except that his father might work off his ill humor! The idea of his having to take a beating, he who carried a knife in his belt, and was not afraid of anyone on the island. Paternity and filial respect seemed to the Little Chaplain at the moment the inventions of cowards, created only to crush and mortify brave-hearted men. Added to the blows, humiliating to his dignity as a man of mettle, the thought of being shut up in the Seminary, dressed in a black cassock, like a woman in petticoats, with shaven head, losing forever those curls which peeped arrogantly beneath his hat brim; having a tonsure which would make the girls laugh, and—farewell to dancing and courting! Farewell to the knife!

Soon Jaime would see him no more. Within a week the trip to Iviza was to be taken. Others would bring his dinner up to the tower. Febrer saw a ray of hope. Perhaps then Margalida would come as in former days! The Little Chaplain, in spite of his grief, smiled maliciously. No, not Margalida; anyone but her. PÈp was in no mood to consent to that. When the poor mother, to plead her son's cause, had timidly suggested that the boy was needed in the house to wait on the seÑor, PÈp burst forth into fresh raving. He would carry Don Jaime's meals up to the tower every day himself, or else his wife should do so, and if need be they would get a girl to act as servant for the seÑor since he was determined to live near them.

The Little Chaplain said no more, but Febrer guessed the words which the good peasant had doubtless hurled against him, forgetting all respect in his anger, enraged over the trouble brought upon the family by his presence.

The boy returned to the ranchhouse with his basket, muttering revenge, swearing that he would not return to the Seminary, although he knew no means of avoiding it. His resistance took the turn of knightly valor. Abandon his friend Don Jaime now that he was surrounded by dangers! Go and shut himself up in that house of gloom, among black-skirted gentlemen who spoke a strange language, now that out in the open, in the light of the sun, or in the mystery of night, men were going to kill one another! Should such extraordinary events occur, and he not witness them!

When Febrer was left alone he took down his gun, and stood near the door for a long time examining it absent-mindedly. His thoughts were far away, much farther than the ends of the barrels, which seemed to point toward the mountain. That miserable Ironworker! That insufferable bully! Something had stirred within him, an irresistible antipathy, the first time he had seen him. Nobody in the island aroused his ire as did that gloomy jail-bird.

The cold steel weapon in his hand brought him back to reality. He resolved to go into the mountains hunting. But what should he hunt? He extracted two cartridges from the barrels, cartridges loaded with small shot, suitable for the birds which crossed the island returning from Africa. He introduced two other cartridges into the double barrel and filled his pockets with more, which he took from a pouch. They were loaded with buckshot. He was going hunting for big game!

Slinging his gun over his shoulder, he walked with arrogant step down the stairway of the tower building, as if his resolution filled him with satisfaction.

As he passed Can MallorquÍ the dog leaped out to meet him, barking joyously. No one peeped out of the door, as in the past. Surely he had been seen, but no one came out of the kitchen to greet him. The dog followed for some time, but turned back when he saw him take the road to the mountain.

Febrer strode hurriedly between the stone walls which retained the sloping terraces, following the walks paved with blue pebbles, converted by the winter rains into high-banked ravines. Then he passed beyond the lands furrowed by the plow. The compact soil was covered with wild and spiny vegetation. Fruit trees, the tall almonds and the spreading fig trees, were succeeded by junipers and pines, twisted by the winds blowing from the sea. As Febrer stopped for a moment and looked behind, he saw at his feet the buildings of Can MallorquÍ, like white dice shaken from the great rocks by the sea. The Pirate's Tower stood like a fortress on its hill. His ascent had been swift, almost at full speed, as if he feared to arrive too late at some meeting-place with which he was unfamiliar. He continued on his way. Two wild doves rose from the shrubbery with the feathery swish of an opening fan, but the hunter seemed not to see them. Stooping black figures in the bushes caused him to lift his right hand to the stock of his gun to sling it from his shoulder. They were charcoal burners piling wood. As Febrer passed near them they stared at him with fixed eyes, in which he thought he noticed something extraordinary, a mixture of astonishment and curiosity.

"Good afternoon!"

The grimy men replied, but they followed him a long time with their eyes, which shone with a transparency of water in their soot-blackened faces. Evidently the lonely mountain dwellers had heard of the events of the evening before at Can MallorquÍ and were surprised at seeing the seÑor of the tower alone, as if defying his enemies and believing himself invulnerable.

Now he no longer met people along his path. Suddenly, above the murmur of dry leaves caressed by the wind, he heard the faint ring of beaten iron. A slender column of smoke was rising from among the verdure. It was the blacksmith's forge.

Jaime, with his gun half supported on his shoulder, as if the weapon were about to slip off, stepped into a clearing, which formed a broad square in front of the smithy. It was a miserable little adobe hut of a single story, blackened by smoke and covered by a hip roof, which, in places, sunk in as if about to collapse. Beneath a shed gleamed the flaming eye of a forge and near it stood the Ironworker beside the anvil, beating with his hammer on a bar of red-hot iron, which looked like the barrel of a carbine.

Febrer was not displeased with his theatrical entrance into the open square. The man-slayer raised his eyes on hearing the sound of steps in the interval between two blows. He stood motionless, with raised hammer as he recognized the seÑor of the tower, but his cold eyes conveyed no impression.

Jaime passed by the forge, staring at the Ironworker, giving a look of challenge which the other seemed not to understand. Not a word, not a greeting! The seÑor walked on, but once outside the square he stopped near one of the first trees and sat down on a projecting root, holding the gun between his knees.

The pride of virile arrogance invaded the soul of Febrer. He was rejoiced at his own assurance. That bully could easily see that he had come to seek him in the solitude of the mountain, at his own house; he must be convinced that he was not afraid of him.

To better demonstrate his serenity, he drew his tobacco box from his belt and began to roll a cigarette.

The hammer had begun to ring upon the metal again. From his seat on the tree trunk Jaime saw the Ironworker, his back turned with careless confidence, as if ignorant of his presence and intent on nothing but his work. This calmness disconcerted Febrer somewhat. Vive Dios! Had the man not guessed his intention?

The Ironworker's coolness was exasperating, but at the same time his calmly turning his back, confident that the seÑor of the tower was incapable of taking advantage of this situation to fire a treacherous shot, inspired a vague gratitude.

The hammer ceased ringing. When Febrer looked again in the direction of the shed he did not see the Ironworker. This caused him to pick up his gun, fingering the trigger. Undoubtedly he was coming with a weapon, annoyed by this provocation of one who came to seek him in his own house. Perhaps he was going to shoot out of one of the miserable windows which gave light to the blackened dwelling. He must be prepared against stratagem, and he arose, trying to conceal his body behind a tree trunk, leaving nothing but an eye visible.

Someone was stirring inside the hut; something black cautiously peeped out. The enemy was coming forth. Attention! He grasped his gun, intending to fire as soon as the muzzle of the hostile weapon should appear, but he stood motionless and confused on seeing that it was a black skirt, terminated by naked feet in worn and tattered sandals, and above it a withered bust, bent and bony, a head coppery and wrinkled, with but one eye, and thin gray hair, which allowed the gloss of baldness to shine between its locks.

Febrer recognized the old woman. She was the Ironworker's aunt, the one-eyed woman of whom the Little Chaplain had told him, the sole companion of the Ironworker in his wild solitude. The woman stood near the forge, her arms akimbo, thrusting forward her abdomen, bulky with petticoats, focusing her single eye, inflamed by anger, on the intruder who came to provoke a good man in the midst of his work. She stared at Jaime with the fiery aggressiveness of the woman who, secure in the respect produced by sex, is more audacious and impetuous than a man. She muttered threats and insults which the seÑor could not hear, furious that anyone would venture to oppose her nephew, the beloved whelp on whom, in her sterility, she had lavished all the ardor of frustrated motherhood.

Jaime suddenly realized the odiousness of his behavior in coming to antagonize another in his own house in broad daylight. The old woman was right in insulting him. It was not the Ironworker who was the bully; it was himself, the seÑor of the tower, the descendant of so many illustrious dons, he, so proud of his origin.

Shame intimidated him, overcoming him with stupid confusion. He did not know how to get away, nor which way to escape. At last he flung his gun across his shoulder, and, gazing aloft, as if pursuing a bird which sprang from branch to branch, wandered among the trees and through thickets, avoiding the forge.

He walked down toward the valley, escaping from the forest to which a homicidal impulse had drawn him, ashamed of his former purpose. Again he passed the grimy men making charcoal.

"Good afternoon!"

They replied to his greeting, but in their eyes which shone peculiarly white in their blackened faces, Febrer felt something like hostile mockery of objectionable strangeness, as if he were of a different race and had committed an unheard of deed which forever placed him beyond friendly contact with the islanders.

Pines and junipers were left behind on the skirt of the mountain. Now he walked between terraces of ploughed ground. In some fields he saw peasants at work; on a sloping bank he met several girls stooping over the ground gathering herbs; coming along a path he met three old men traveling slowly beside their burros.

Febrer, with the humility of one who feels repentant for an evil deed, greeted them pleasantly.

"Good afternoon!"

The peasants who were working in the field responded to him with a low grunt; the girls turned away their faces with a gesture of annoyance so as not to see him; the three old men replied to his greeting gloomily, looking at him with searching eyes, as if they found something extraordinary about him.

Under a fig tree, a black umbrella of interlaced boughs, he saw a number of peasants listening intently to someone in the center of the group. As Febrer approached there was a movement among them. A man arose with angry impulse, but the others held him back, grasping his arms and trying to restrain him. Jaime recognized him by the white kerchief under his hat. It was the Minstrel. The robust peasants easily overpowered the sickly boy, but, although he could not get away, he vented his fury by shaking his fist in the direction of the roadway, while threats and insults gurgled from his mouth. No doubt he had been telling his friends of the events of the night before when Febrer appeared. The Minstrel shouted and threatened. He swore that he would kill the stranger; he promised to come to the Pirate's Tower some night and set it on fire and rend its owner into shreds.

Bah! Jaime shrugged his shoulders with a scornful gesture and continued on his way, but he felt depressed and almost desperate on account of the atmosphere of repulsion and hostility, growing steadily more apparent round about him. What had he done? Where had he thrust himself? Was it possible that he had fallen so low as to fight with these islanders, he, a foreigner, and, moreover, a Majorcan?

In his gloomy mood he thought that the entire island, together with all things inanimate, had joined in this mortal protest. When he passed houses they seemed to become depopulated, their inhabitants concealing themselves in order not to greet him; the dogs rushed into the road, barking furiously, as if they had never seen him before.

The mountains seemed more austere and frowning on their bare, rocky crests; the forest more dark, more black; the trees of the valleys more barren and shriveled; the stones in the road rolled beneath his feet as if fleeing from his touch; the sky contained something repellant; even the air of the island would finally shrink away from his nostrils. In his desperation Febrer realized that he stood alone. Everyone was against him. Only PÈp and his family were left to him, and even they would finally draw away under the necessity of living at peace with their neighbors.

The foreigner did not intend to rebel against his fate. He was repentant, ashamed of his aggressiveness of the night before and of his recent excursion to the mountain. For him there was no room on the island. He was a foreigner, a stranger, who, by his presence, disturbed the traditional life of these people. PÈp had taken him in with the respect of an old time retainer, and he paid for his hospitality by disturbing his house and the peace of his family. The people had received him with a somewhat glacial courtesy, but tranquil and immutable, as if he were a foreign gran seÑor, and he responded to this respect by striking the most unfortunate one among them, the one who, on account of his illness, was looked upon with a certain paternal benevolence by all the peasants in the district. Very well, scion of the Febrers! For some time he had wandered about like a mad man, talking nothing but nonsense. All this for what reason? On account of the absurd love for a girl who might be his daughter; for an almost senile caprice, for he, despite his relative youth, felt old and forlorn in the presence of Margalida and the rustic girls who fluttered about her. Ah, this atmosphere! This accursed atmosphere!

In his days of prosperity, when he still dwelt in the palace in Palma, had Margalida been one of his mother's servants, no doubt he would have felt for her only the appetite inspired by the freshness of her youth, experiencing nothing which resembled love. Other women dominated him then with the seduction of their artifices and refinements, but here, in his loneliness, seeing Margalida surrounded by the brown and rural prettiness of her companions, beautiful as one of those white goddesses which inspire religious veneration among peoples of coppery skin, he felt the dementia of desire, and all his acts were absurd, as if he had completely lost his reason.

He must leave; there was no place on the island for him. Perhaps his pessimism deceived him in rating so high the importance of the affection which had drawn him to Margalida. Then again perhaps it was not desire, but love, the first real love of his life; he was almost sure of it, but even if it were, he must forget and go. He must go at once!

Why should he remain here? What hope held him? Margalida, as if overcome by surprise on learning of his love, avoided him, concealed herself, and did nothing but weep, yet tears were not an answer. Her father, influenced by a lingering sentiment of traditional veneration, tolerated in silence this caprice of the gran seÑor, but at any moment he might openly rebel against the man who had so disarranged his life. The island, which had accepted him courteously, seemed to rise up now against the foreigner who had come from afar to disturb their patriarchal isolation, their narrow existence, the pride of a people apart, with the same fierceness with which it had risen in former centuries against the Norman, the Arab, or the Berber, when disembarking on their shores.

It was impossible to resist; he would go. His eyes lovingly beheld the enormous belt of sea lying between two hills, as if it were a blue curtain concealing a rent in the earth. This strip of sea was the saving path, the hope, the unknown, which opens to us its arms of mystery in the most difficult moments of existence. Perhaps he would return to Majorca, to lead the life of a respectable beggar beside the friends who still remembered him; perhaps he would pass on to the Peninsula and go to Madrid in search of employment; perhaps he would take passage for America. Anything was preferable to staying here. He was not afraid; he was not intimidated by the hostility of the island and its inhabitants; his keenest feeling was remorse, shame over the trouble he had caused.

Instinctively his feet led him toward the sea, which was now his love and his hope. He avoided passing Can MallorquÍ, and on reaching the shore he walked along the beach where the last palpitation of the waves was lost like a slender leaf of crystal among the tiny pebbles mixed with potsherds.

At the foot of the promontory of the tower he climbed up the loose rocks and seated himself on the wave-worn and almost detached cliff. There he had sat lost in thought one stormy night, the same on which he had presented himself as suitor at the house of Margalida.

The afternoon was calm. The sea had an extraordinary and deep transparency. The sandy bottoms were reflected like milky spots; the submarine reefs and their dark vegetation seemed to tremble with the movement of mysterious life. The white clouds floating on the horizon traced great shadows as they passed before the sun. One portion of the blue expanse was a glossy black, while beyond the floating mantle the luminous waters seemed to be seething with golden bubbles. Now and again the sun, concealed behind these curtains, flung beneath its border a visible strip of light, like a lantern ray, a long triangle of hoary splendor, resembling a Holland landscape.

Nothing in this appearance of the sea reminded Febrer of that stormy night, and yet, from the association which forgotten ideas form in our minds with old places when we return to them, he began to think the same thoughts, only that now, in place of progressing, they passed in an inverse direction with a confusion of defeat.

He laughed bitterly at his optimism then, at the confidence which had caused him to scorn all his ideas of the past. The dead command; their power and authority are indisputable. How had it been possible for him, impelled by the enthusiasm of love, to repudiate this tremendous and discouraging truth? Clearly do the dark tyrants of our lives make themselves felt with all the overwhelming weight of their power. What had he done that this corner of the earth, his ultimate refuge, should look upon him as an alien? The innumerable generations of men whose dust and whose souls were mingled with the soil of their native isle had left as a heritage to the present the hatred of the stranger, the fear and the repulsion of the foreigner with whom they had lived at war. He who came from other lands was received with a repellant isolation, decreed by those who no longer exist.

When, scorning his old-time prejudices, he had thought to join his life with that of a native woman, the woman had shrunk away, mysterious, frightened at the idea, while her father, in the name of servile respect, opposed such an unheard of union. Febrer's idea was that of a mad man; the mingling of the rooster and the gull, the vagary of the extravagant friar which so amused the peasants. Thus had men willed in former times when they founded society and divided it into classes, and thus it must ever be. It is useless to rebel against the established order. The life of man is short, and it is not enough to contend with hundreds of thousands of lives before it and which spy upon it unseen, crushing it between material fabrications which are tokens of their passage over the earth, weighting it down with their thoughts, which fill the atmosphere, and are taken advantage of by all those who are born without will power to invent something new.

The dead command, and it is useless for the living to refuse obedience. All rebellions to escape this servitude, to break the chain of centuries, all are lies! Febrer recalled the sacred wheel of the Hindoos, the Buddhist symbol which he had seen in Paris once when he attended an oriental religious ceremony in a museum. The wheel is the symbol of our lives. We think we advance because we move; we think we progress because we go forward, but when the wheel makes the complete turn we find ourselves in the same place. The life of humanity, history, are but an interminable "recommencement of things." Peoples are born, they grow, they progress; the cabin is converted into a castle and afterward into a mart; enormous cities of millions of men are formed; then catastrophes come, the wars for bread which people lack, the protests of the dispossessed, the great massacres; then the cities are depopulated and are laid waste. Weeds invade the proud monuments; the metropoli gradually sink into the earth and sleep beneath hills for centuries and centuries. The untamed forest covers the capital of remote epochs; the savage hunter stalks over ground where in other times conquering chieftains were received with the pomp of demigods; sheep graze and the shepherd blows his reed above ruins which were tribunes of dead laws; men group together again, and the cabin rises, the village, the castle, the mart, the great city, and the round is repeated over and over, with a difference of hundreds of centuries, as identical gestures, ideas, conceptions, are repeated in man succeeding man throughout the course of time. The wheel! The eternal recommencement of things! And all the creatures of the human flock though changing the sheep-fold, never change shepherds; the shepherds are ever the same, the dead, the first to think, whose primordial thought was like the handful of snow which rolls and rolls down the hill-slopes, growing larger, bearing along everything which clings to it in its descent!

Men, proud of their material progress, of the mechanical toys invented for their well-being, imagine themselves free, superior to the past, emancipated from original servitude, yet all that they say has been said hundreds of centuries before in different words; their passions are the same; their thoughts, which they consider original, are scintillations and reflections of other remote thoughts; and all acts which were held to be good or bad are considered as such because they have been thus classified by the dead, the tyrannical dead, those whom man would have to kill again if he desired to be really free!

Who would be courageous enough, to accomplish this great liberating act? What paladin would there be with sufficient strength to kill the monster which weighs upon humanity, as the enormous and overwhelming dragons of legend guarded useless treasures beneath their mighty forms?

Febrer remained motionless on the rock for a long time, his elbows on his knees and his forehead in his hands, lost in thought, his eyes appearing hypnotized by the gentle rise and fall of the fluctuating waters.

When he aroused himself from this meditation the afternoon was waning. He would fulfill his destiny! He could live only on the heights, although it might be as a proud mendicant. All descending paths he found barred. Farewell to happiness which might be found by retrocession to a natural and primitive life! Since the dead did not wish him to be a man, he would be a parasite.

His eyes, wandering over the horizon, became fixed on the white clouds massed above the rim of the sea. When he was a little lad and Mammy Antonia used to accompany him in his walks along the beach at Soller, they had often amused themselves by indulging their imagination in giving form and name to the clouds which met or scattered in an incessant variety of shapes, seeing in them now a black monster with flaming jaws, now a virgin surrounded by blue rays.

A group of clouds, dense and snowy as white fleece, attracted his attention. This luminous whiteness resembled the polished bones of a cranium. Loose tufts of dark vapor floated in the mist. Febrer's imagination pictured in it two frightful, black holes; a dark triangle like that which the wasted nose leaves in the skull of the dead; and below it an immense gash, tragic, identical with the mute grin of a mouth devoid of lips and teeth.

It was Death, the great mistress, empress of the world, displaying herself to him in broad daylight in her white and dazzling majesty, defying the splendor of the sun, the blue of the sky, the luminous green of the sea. The reflection of the sinking orb imparted a spark of malignant life to the bony countenance of wafer-like pallor, to the gloom of her dark eye-sockets, to her terrifying grin. Yes, it was she! The mist clinging to the surface of the sea was as plaits and folds of a garment which concealed her enormous frame; and other clouds which floated higher formed the ample sleeve from which escaped vapors more subtle and vague, making a bony arm terminating in an index finger, dry and crooked, like that of a bird of prey, pointing out far, far away, a mysterious destiny.

The vision disappeared with the rapid movement of the clouds, obliterating the hideous figure, assuming other capricious forms, but as it vanished from his sight Febrer did not awake from his hallucination.

He accepted the command without rebellion; he would go! The dead command, and he was their helpless slave! The late afternoon light brought out objects in strange relief. Strong shadows seemed to palpitate with life, imparting animation and giving animal shapes to the rocks along the coast. In the distance a promontory resembled a lion crouching above the waves, glaring at Jaime with silent hostility. The rocks on a level with the water raised and lowered their black heads, crowned with green hair, like giant amphibia of a monstrous humanity. In the direction of Formentera he saw an immense dragon which slowly advanced across the horizon, with a long tail of clouds, to treacherously swallow the dying sun.

When the red sphere, fleeing from this danger, sank into the waters, enlarged by a spasm of terror, the depressing gray of twilight aroused Febrer from his hallucination.

He arose, picked up his gun, and started for the tower. He was mentally arranging the programme of his departure. He would not say a word to anyone. He would wait until some mail steamer from Majorca should touch at the port of Iviza, and only at the last moment would he tell PÈp of his resolution.

The certainty of soon forsaking this retreat caused him to look with interest around the tower by the glow of a candle he had lighted. His shadow, gigantically enlarged, and vacillating in the flickering light, moved about on the white walls, eclipsing objects which decorated them, or glinting from the pearly shells or from the gleaming metal of the gun on its rack.

A familiar grating sound attracted the attention of Febrer, who looked down the stairway. A man, wrapped in a mantle, stood on the lower steps. It was PÈp.

"Your supper," he said shortly, handing him a basket.

Jaime took it. He saw that the peasant did not wish to talk, and he, for his part, felt a certain fear of breaking the silence.

"Good-night!"

PÈp started on his return journey after this brief salutation, like a respectful but angry servant who only allows himself the indispensable words with his master.

Jaime set the basket upon the table and closed the door. He had no appetite; he would eat his supper later. He caught up a rustic pipe, carved by a peasant from a branch of cherry, filled it with tobacco and began to smoke, following with distracted eyes the winding spirals, whose subtle blue assumed a rainbow transparency before the candle.

Then he took a book and tried to fix his mind upon it, but he could not concentrate his attention.

Outside this husk of stone night reigned, a night dark and filled with mystery. This solemn silence, which fell from on high, and in which the slightest sounds seemed to acquire terrifying proportions, as if the murmur were listening to its own self, appeared to filter through the very walls.

Febrer thought he heard the circulation of his blood in this profound calm; from time to time he caught the scream of a gull, or the momentary swaying of the tamarisks in a gust of wind, a rustling like that of theatrical mobs concealed behind the wings. From the ceiling resounded at intervals the monotonous cric-cric of a wood-borer gnawing the beams with incessant toil which passed unheeded during the day. The sea filled the darkness with a gentle moan whose undulations broke on all the projections and windings of the coast.

Suddenly, Febrer, who sat silently listening with a quiet resembling that of timid children who are afraid to turn over in bed in order not to augment the mystery which surrounds them, stirred in his chair. Something extraordinary rent the air, dominating with its stridor the confused sounds of night. It was a cry, a howl, a whinny, one of those hostile, mocking voices with which vengeful youths call one another in the shadows.

Jaime felt an impulse to arise, to run to the door, but something held him motionless. The traditional cry of challenge had sounded some distance away. They must be young bloods of the district who had chosen the vicinity of the Pirate's Tower to meet, weapon in hand. That was not intended for him; in the morning the event would be explained.

He opened his book again, intending to amuse himself by reading, but after a few lines he sprang from his chair, flinging the volume and his pipe upon the table.

A-u-u-u-Ú! The whinny of challenge, the hostile and mocking cry, had resounded again, almost at the foot of the stairway, prolonged by the strong draft of a pair of bellows-like lungs. At the same instant the harsh noise of opening wings whistled in the dark; the marine birds, aroused from sleep, flew out from among the rocks to seek a new shelter.

This call was meant for him! Someone had come to challenge him at his very door! He glanced at his gun; with his right hand he felt the steel of the revolver in his belt, warmed by contact with his body; he took two steps toward the door, but he stopped and shrugged his shoulders with a smile of resignation. He was no native of the island; he did not understand this language of yells, and he considered himself superior to such provocations.

He returned to his chair and picked up his book, making an effort to smile.

"Yell, my good fellow, shriek, howl! My sympathy is with you, you may catch cold in the night air while I am here in my house taking things easy!"

This mocking complacency, however, was only on the surface. The howl rent the air again, not at the foot of the stairway now, but farther off, perhaps among the tamarisks which grew around the tower. The challenger seemed to have settled down to wait for Febrer to come out.

Who could it be? Perhaps the miserable Ironworker—the man-slayer, whom he had been seeking that afternoon; perhaps the Minstrel, who had publicly sworn to kill him immediately. Night and cunning, which equalize the forces of enemies, might have given courage to the sick boy to appear against him. It was also possible that there might be two or more lying in wait for him.

Another howl sounded, but Jaime shrugged his shoulders again. His unknown challenger might howl as long as he wished.

Reading was now out of the question! It was useless to pretend tranquillity!

The challenges were repeated fiercely now, like the crowing of an infuriated rooster. Jaime imagined the neck of the man, swollen, reddened, the tendons vibrating with anger. The guttural cry gradually acquired the inflection and the significance of language. It was ironic, mocking, insulting; it taunted the foreigner for his prudence; it seemed to call him a coward.

He tried not to hear. A mist formed before his eyes; it seemed as if the candle had gone out; in the intervals of silence the blood hummed in his ears. He remembered that Can MallorquÍ was not far away, and that perhaps Margalida stood trembling at her little window, listening to the cries near the tower, wherein was a timid man, hearing them also, but with barred door, as if he were deaf.

No; it was enough! This time he flung his book definitively upon the table, and then, as by instinct, scarcely knowing what he did, he blew out the candle. He took a few steps, with hands outstretched, completely forgetting the plans of attack he had hastily conceived a few moments before. Anger transformed his ideas. In this sudden blindness of spirit he had but one thought, like a final splutter from a vanishing light. Now he touched the gun with palpitating hands, but he did not pick it up. He must have a less embarrassing weapon; perhaps he would need to go down and make his way through the bushes.

He tugged at his belt, and his revolver slipped out of its hiding place with the ease of a warm and silky animal. He groped in the dark toward the door and cautiously opened it, barely wide enough to get his head through, the heavy hinges creaking faintly.

Emerging suddenly from the darkness of his room to the diffused clarity of the sidereal light, he saw the clump of bushes near the tower, and farther on, the dim white farmhouse, and opposite stood the black hump of the mountains piercing the sky, in which flickered the stars. This vision lasted but an instant; he could see no more. Suddenly two tiny flashes, two serpents; of fire leaped from the bushes, one after the other, cutting luminous streaks through the dark, followed by two almost simultaneous reports.

Jaime perceived an acrid odor of burnt powder. At the same time he felt just above his scalp a numbing, violent shock, something abnormal, which seemed to touch him, and yet not touch him, the sensation of a blow from a stone. Something dropped upon his face like a light, impalpable shower. Blood? Earth?

The surprise lasted only an instant. Someone behind the bushes close to the stairway had fired at him. The enemy was there—there! In the darkness he saw the point from which the flashes had emerged, and, reaching his right arm outside the door, he fired, one, two, five times; all the cartridges contained in the cylinder.

He fired almost blindly, uncertain of his aim in the dark, and trembling with anger. A faint sound of crashing branches, an almost imperceptible undulation in the bushes, filled him with savage joy. He had hit the enemy undoubtedly, and he raised his hand to his head to convince himself that he was not wounded.

As he passed his fingers over his face something small and granulated fell from his cheeks. It was not blood; it was sand, dust, and mortar. He felt along the wall just above his head and discovered two small, funnel-like holes, still warm. The two balls had grazed his scalp, and had lodged in the wall, an almost imperceptible distance above his head.

Febrer was rejoiced at his good luck. He, safe, unharmed; but his enemy, how about him? Where was he at that moment? Ought he to go down and search among the tamarisks for him, to taunt him in his agony? Suddenly the shout was repeated, the savage howl, far, very far away, somewhere near the farmhouse; a howl triumphant, mocking, which Jaime interpreted as an announcement of an early return.

The dog of Can MallorquÍ, aroused by the gunshots, was barking dismally. Other dogs in the distance answered. The howling of the man moved farther away, with incessant repetitions, steadily growing more remote, more faint, merging into the mysterious night.

CHAPTER III

THE CHALLENGE IN THE NIGHT

No sooner had day dawned than the Little Chaplain appeared at the tower.

He had heard everything. His father, who was a heavy sleeper, had perhaps not yet been informed of the event. The dog might bark, and a fierce battle might rage near the farmhouse, but good old PÈp, when he went to bed, tired out with his day's work, became as insensible as a dead man. The other members of the family had spent a night of anguish. His mother, after several attempts to arouse her husband, with no better success than to draw forth incoherent mumbling, followed by yet louder snoring, had spent the night praying for the soul of the seÑor of the tower, believing him dead. Margalida, who slept near her brother, had called him in a stifled and agonized voice when the first shots rang out: "Do you hear, Pepet?"

The poor girl had arisen and lighted the candle, by the dim radiance of which the boy had seen her pale face and terrified eyes. Forgetting everything, she had flung her arms about, lifting her hands to her head. "They have killed Don Jaime! My heart tells me that they have!" She trembled at the echo of the fresh shots. "A regular rosary of reports," according to the Little Chaplain, had answered the first discharges.

"That was you, wasn't it, Don Jaime?" continued the boy. "I recognized your pistol at once, and so I said to Margalida. I remember that afternoon you shot off your revolver on the beach. I have a good ear for such things."

Then he told of his sister's despair; how she had gathered her clothing, intending to dress so that she might rush to the tower. Pepet would accompany her. Then, suddenly becoming timid, she refused to go. She did nothing but weep, and she would not allow the boy to make his escape by climbing over the barnyard fence.

They had heard the howling near the farmhouse, some time after the shooting, and, as he spoke of this war-cry, the boy smiled mischievously. Then Margalida, suddenly tranquilized by her brother's words, had become silent, but during the whole night the Little Chaplain heard sighs of anguish and a gentle whispering as of a low voice murmuring words and words with tireless monotony. She was praying.

Then, when daylight came, everyone arose except his father, who continued his placid sleep. As the women timidly peeped out from the porch, full of gloomy thoughts, they expected to behold a terrifying picture—the tower in ruins, and the Majorcan's corpse lying above the wreck. But the Little Chaplain had laughed on seeing the door open, and near it, as on other mornings, Don Jaime, with naked chest, splashing in a tank which he himself brought from the beach filled with sea water.

He had not been mistaken when he laughed at the women's terror. No one living could kill his Don Jaime—that was what he said, and he knew something of men.

Then, after Jaime's brief account of the events of the night before, screwing up his eyes with the expression of a very wise person, Pepet examined the two holes made in the wall by the bullets.

"And your head was here, where mine is? Futro!"

His eyes reflected admiration, devout idolatry, for this wonderful man, whose life had just been saved by a veritable miracle.

Trusting in his knowledge of the people of the country, Febrer questioned the boy about the supposed aggressor, and the Little Chaplain smiled with an air of importance. He had heard the war-cry. It was the Minstrel's manner of howling; many might have imagined it was he. He howled that way at the serenades, at the afternoon dances, and on coming away from a wooing.

"But it was not he, Don Jaime; I am sure! If anyone should ask the Minstrel he would be free to say 'Yes,' just to give himself importance. But it was the other, the Ironworker; I recognized his voice, and so did Margalida!"

In continuation, with a grave expression, as if he wished to test the Majorcan's mettle, he spoke of the silly fear of the women, who declared that the Civil Guard of San JosÉ must be notified.

"You won't do that, will you, Don Jaime? That would be foolish. The police are only needed by cowards."

The deprecatory smile, and the shrug of the shoulders with which Febrer answered him, reassured the boy.

"I was certain of that; it's not the custom on the island—but, as you are a foreigner—you are right; every man should defend himself; that's what he's a man for; and in case of need, he counts on his friends."

As he said this, he strutted about, as if to call attention to the powerful aid on which Don Jaime might count in moments of danger.

The Little Chaplain wished to work this situation to his own advantage, and he advised the seÑor that it would be a good idea to have him come and live in the tower. If Don Jaime were to ask SeÑor PÈp, it would be impossible for his father to refuse. It would be well for Don Jaime to have him near; then there would be two for the defense; and, to strengthen his petition, he recalled his father's anger and the certainty that he intended to take him to Iviza at the beginning of next week, to shut him up in the Seminary. What would the seÑor do when he found himself deprived of his best friend?

In his desire to demonstrate the value of his presence, he censured Febrer's forgetfulness of the night before. Who would think of opening the door and looking out when someone was there with weapon prepared, challenging him? It was a miracle that he had not been killed. What about the lesson he had given him? Did he not remember his advice about climbing down from the window, at the back of the tower, to surprise the enemy?

"That is true," said Jaime, really ashamed at his forgetfulness.

The Little Chaplain, who was proudly enjoying the effect of this advice, started with surprise as he looked through the doorway.

"My father!"

PÈp was slowly climbing the hill, his arms clasped behind his back, seemingly in deep meditation. The boy became alarmed at the sight of him. Undoubtedly he was very cross over the latest news; it would not be well for them to meet just now, and repeating once again the advisability of Febrer's having him as a companion, he flung his legs out of the window, turning upon his belly, resting a second on the sill, and disappeared down the side of the wall.

The peasant entered the tower and spoke without emotion of the happenings of the night before, as if this were a normal event which but slightly altered the monotony of country life. The women had told him—he was such a heavy sleeper——. So it had not amounted to anything?

He listened, with lowered eyes, twiddling his thumbs, to the brief tale. Then he went to the door to examine the two bullet holes.

"A miracle, Don Jaime, a genuine miracle."

He returned to his chair, remaining motionless a long time, as if it cost him a great effort to make his dull mind operate.

"The devil has broken loose, seÑor. It was sure to happen; I told you so. When a man makes up his mind to have the impossible, everything goes wrong, and there's an end to peace."

Then, raising his head, he fixed his cold, scrutinizing eyes on Don Jaime. They would have to notify the alcalde; they must tell the whole business to the Civil Guard.

Febrer made a negative gesture. No, this was an affair between men, which he would handle himself.

PÈp sat with his eyes fixed enigmatically on the seÑor, as if struggling with opposing ideas.

"You are right," said the phlegmatic peasant.

Foreigners usually had other notions, but he was glad that the seÑor said the same as would his poor father (may he rest in peace!). Everyone on the island thought the same; the old way was the best way.

Then PÈp, without consulting the seÑor, exposed his plan for helping in the defense. It was a duty of friendship. He had his gun at home. He had not used it for some time, but when he was young, during the lifetime of his famous father (may he rest in peace!) he had been a fair shot. He would come and spend the nights in the tower, to keep Don Jaime company, so that he should not be taken unaware.

Neither was the peasant surprised at the firm negative of the seÑor, who seemed to be offended by the proposition. He was a man, not a boy, needing companionship. Let everyone sleep in his own house, and let happen what fate decreed!

PÈp assented also with nods of his head to these words. The same would his father have said, and like him all good people who followed ancient customs. Febrer seemed a true son of the island. Then, softened by the admiration this courage of Don Jaime's inspired in him, he proposed another arrangement. Since the seÑor did not wish company in his tower, he might come down to Can MallorquÍ to sleep. They could fix him up a bed somewhere.

Febrer felt tempted by the opportunity to see Margalida, but the tone of weakness in which the father gave the invitation, and the anxious glance with which he awaited a reply, caused him to refuse.

"No, thank you very much, PÈp. I will stay here in the tower. They might think I had moved down to your house because I was afraid."

The peasant nodded assent. He understood. He would do the same in a like situation. But PÈp would try to sleep less at night, and if he heard shouts or shots near the tower he would come out with his old fire-lock.

As if this self-imposed obligation of sleeping on guard, ready to expose his skin in defense of his old-time patron broke the calm in which he had maintained himself until then, the peasant raised his eyes and clasped his hands.

"Oh, Lord! Oh, Lord!

"The devil is let loose!" he repeated, "there will be no more peace; and all for not believing what I told you, for going against the current of old customs, which have been established by wiser people than those of the present day. And what is all this leading to?"

Febrer tried to reassure the peasant, and a thought escaped him which he had intended to keep concealed. PÈp might rejoice. He was going to leave forever, not wishing to disturb the peace of himself and family.

Ah! was the seÑor really going away? The peasant's joy was so keen, and his surprise so lively that Jaime hesitated. He seemed to see in the peasant's little eyes a certain malice. Did the islander imagine that his sudden determination was caused by fear of his enemies?

"I am going," he said, looking at PÈp with hostility, "but I am not sure when. Later—when it suits my convenience. I can't leave here until the man who is looking for me finds me."

PÈp made a gesture of resignation; his gladness vanished, but he was about to assent to these words also, adding that thus would his father have done, and thus he himself thought best.

When the peasant arose to take his leave, Febrer, who was standing near the door, saw the Little Chaplain by the farmhouse, and this recalled the boy's desire to his mind. If the request would not put PÈp out, he might let the youngster keep him company in the tower.

But the father received this suggestion with displeasure.

No, Don Jaime! If he needed company, here he was himself, a man! The boy must study. The devil was let loose, and it was high time to impose his authority so that order should be maintained in the family. Next week he intended taking him back to the Seminary. That was final.

On being left alone Febrer went down to the beach. Uncle Ventolera was caulking the seams of his beached boat with tow and pitch. Lying in it as if it were an enormous coffin, with his weak eyes he sought out the leaks, and on finding one he would begin singing his Latin jargon in a loud voice.

Feeling the boat move and seeing the seÑor leaning over the edge, the old man smiled with amusement, and ended his canticles.

"Holloa, Don Jaime!"

Uncle Ventolera was informed of everything. The women of Can MallorquÍ had told him the news, and by this time it had circulated all over the district, but only from ear to ear, as these things must be spoken in order to keep them from the police who muddle everything. So someone had come after him the night before, challenging him to step outside the tower? He, he, he! The same thing had happened to him in times gone by, when, between voyages, he was making love to the girl he married. A certain comrade who had become a rival had howled at him; but he had gotten the girl, because he was the more clever; to sum it all up, he had given his friend a stab in the breast, which held him for a long time between life and death. Then he had lived on his guard whenever he was in port, to avoid the vengeance of his enemy; but the years pass, old grudges are forgotten, and finally the two comrades took up the smuggling trade together, sailing from Algiers to Iviza, or along the Spanish main.

Uncle Ventolera laughed with a childish giggle, enjoying these recollections of his youth, recalling the memory of shooting scrapes, stabbing affrays, and provocations in the night. Alas! No one challenged him any more! This was only for young bloods. His accent betrayed melancholy at being no longer mixed up in these affairs of love and war, which he judged indispensable to a happy existence.

Febrer left the old man singing mass as he went on with his task of repairing the boat. In the tower he found the basket containing his supper upon the table. The Little Chaplain had left it without waiting, obeying, no doubt, some urgent call of the ill-humored father. After eating, Jaime went out again to examine the two holes which the projectiles had made in the wall. Now that the excitement of the danger was over, and he coldly appreciated the gravity of the situation, he felt a vengeful anger, more intense than that which had impelled him to rush to the door the night before. Had his enemy aimed a few millimeters lower, he would have rolled into obscurity, at the foot of the steps, like a hunted beast. Cristo! And could a man of his class die thus, the victim of treachery, ambushed by one of these rustics!

His anger assumed a vengeful impulse; he felt the necessity of taking the offensive, of making his appearance, serene and threatening, in the presence of the men among whom were numbered some of his adversaries.

He took down his gun, examined the action, slung it over his shoulder and descended from the tower, taking the same road as on the previous afternoon. As he passed Can MallorquÍ the barking of the dog brought Margalida and her mother to the door. The men were in a distant field which PÈp was cultivating. The mother, tearful, and with her words broken by sobs, could only grasp the seÑor's hands.

"Don Jaime! Don Jaime!"

He must be very careful, he must stay close in his tower, and be constantly on guard against his enemies. Margalida, silent, her eyes extraordinarily wide open, gazed at Febrer, revealing admiration and anxiety. She did not know what to say; her simple soul seemed to shrink humbly within itself, finding no words to express her thoughts.

Jaime continued on his way. Several times he turned and saw Margalida standing on the porch, looking after him anxiously. The seÑor was going hunting, as he had done before, but, ay! he was taking the mountain trail; he was going to the pine forest where stood the forge.

During his walk Febrer thought over plans of attack. He was determined to try conclusions at once. The moment that the man-slayer should appear at the door of his house, he would let him have the two shots from his gun. He, Jaime Febrer, carried on his business in the light of day, and he would be more fortunate; his balls would not lodge in the wall!

When he arrived at the forge he found it closed. Nobody at home! The Ironworker had disappeared; neither was the old woman there to receive him with the hostile glare of her single eye.

He seated himself at the foot of the tree as before, his gun ready, sheltered behind the trunk, in case this apparent desertion of the premises was only a trick. A long time passed. The wild doves, emboldened by the stillness of the surrounding forge, fluttered about in the little clearing unheeding the motionless hunter. A cat crept cautiously over the rickety roof, and crouched like a tiger, trying to capture the restless sparrows.

Delay and inaction calmed Febrer. What was he doing here, far from home, in the heart of the forest, twilight about to fall, lying in wait for an enemy of whose active hostility he had only vague suspicions? Perhaps the Ironworker had locked himself in his house on seeing him approach, so that further waiting would be useless. It might be that he and the old woman had gone on some long excursion and might not return until night. He must go!

Gun in hand, ready to attack in case he should meet the enemy, he began his return to the valley.

Once more he passed the fields and again he met the peasants and the girls, who looked at him with eager curiosity, barely replying to his greeting. Again, in the same place as before, he met the Minstrel with his bandaged head, surrounded by friends to whom he was talking with violent gesticulations. When he recognized the seÑor of the tower, before his comrades could prevent him, he bent down to the hardened furrows of the earth and picked up two stones and flung them at him. These missiles, thrown by a forceless arm, did not make half their intended journey. Then, exasperated by the contemptuous serenity of Febrer, who continued on his way, the boy broke into threats. He would kill the Majorcan; he declared it at the top of his voice! Let them all hear that he had sworn to destroy this man!

Jaime smiled gloomily. No; the angry lamb was not the one who had come to the Pirate's Tower to kill him. His outrageous boasting was enough to prove that.

The seÑor spent a peaceful evening. After supper, when Margalida's brother had said good night, depressed by the certainty that his father would never desist from his determination of taking him back to the Seminary, Jaime closed the door, piling the table and chairs against it. He did not intend to be surprised while he was asleep. He blew out the light and sat smoking in the dark, amusing himself by watching the tiny brand on the end of his cigar widen and shrink as he drew upon it. His gun was near him and his revolver was in his belt ready for use at the slightest sound at the door. His ear was habituated to the murmurs of the night and to the surging of the sea, but he sought beyond them for some sound, some evidence that in this lonely retreat there were other human beings than himself.

Finally he looked at the face of his watch by the light of his cigar. Ten o'clock! Far away he heard barking, and Jaime thought he recognized the dog of Can MallorquÍ. Perhaps it indicated the passing of someone on his way to the tower. Now the enemy might be near. It was not unlikely that he was dragging himself cautiously outside the path among the tamarisks.

He arose, reaching for his gun, feeling in his belt for his revolver. As soon as he should hear a cry of challenge, or a voice near the door, he would climb out of the window, make his way cautiously around the tower, and get behind the enemy.

More time passed. Still nothing! Febrer wished to look at his watch, but his hands would not obey his will. The ruddy point no longer glowed on the end of his cigar. His head had at last fallen back upon the pillow; his eyes closed; he heard cries of challenge, shots, curses, but it was in his dreams, as if in another world, where insults and attacks do not arouse one's sensibilities. Then—nothing! A dense shadow, a night of profound sleep. He was awakened by a ray of sunshine which filtered through a crack in the window and shone upon his eyes. The morning light again brought into relief the whiteness of the walls which during the night seemed to sweat the shadows and barbaric mysteries of former centuries.

Jaime arose in good spirits, and as he removed the barricade of furniture which obstructed the doorway, he laughed, somewhat ashamed of his precautions, considering them almost a sign of cowardice. The women of Can MallorquÍ had worked upon his nerves with their fears. Who would be likely to seek him in his tower, knowing that he was on the alert and would meet a trespasser with shots! The Ironworker's absence when Jaime had presented himself at the forge, and the calm of the night before, gave food for thought. Was the man-slayer wounded? Had some of Jaime's balls reached their mark?

He spent the morning on the sea. TÍo Ventolera took him to the VedrÁ, praising the lightness and other merits of his boat. He repaired it year after year, not a splinter of its original construction being left in it. They fished in the shelter of the rocks until mid-afternoon. On their way back Febrer saw the Little Chaplain running along the beach waving something white.

Before landing, while the prow of the boat was scraping along the gravel, the boy called to him with the impatience of one who has great news:

"A letter, Don Jaime!"

A letter! Actually, in that remote corner of the world, the most extraordinary event that could disturb the everyday life was the arrival of a letter. Febrer turned it over in his hands, examining it as something strange and rare. He looked at the seal, then at the address on the envelope.... He recognized it—it aroused in his memory the same impression as a familiar face with which we cannot associate a name. From whom was it?

Meanwhile the Little Chaplain gave detailed explanations of the great event. The letter had been brought by the foot postman in the middle of the morning. It had come by the mail steamer from Palma, arriving in Iviza the night before. If he wished to answer it he must do so without loss of time. The boat would return to Majorca the following day.

On his way to the tower Jaime broke the seal and looked for the signature. Almost at the same moment his recollection grew clear and a name surged to his mind—Pablo Valls! Captain Pablo had written to him after a year of silence, and his letter was long, several sheets of commercial paper covered with close writing!

At the first few lines the Majorcan smiled. The captain himself seemed there in those written words, with his vigorous and exuberant personality, turbulent, kindly, and aggressive. Febrer almost saw in the page before him his enormous, heavy nose, his gray whiskers, his eyes the color of oil speckled with flecks of tobacco color, his dented, chambergo hat thrust on the back of his head.

The letter began, "Dear, shameless, fellow;" and the opening paragraphs continued in the same style.

"Something worth while," he murmured, smiling. "I must read this leisurely."

He put it in his pocket with the eagerness of one who sharpens a pleasure by deferring it. Jaime climbed to the tower, after taking leave of the boy.

He seated himself near the window, his chair tilted back against the table, and began to read. An explosion of mock fury, of affectionate insults, of indignation over events Jaime had actually forgotten, filled the first pages. Pablo Valls overflowed with amusing incoherency, like a charlatan condemned for a long time to silence who suffers the torture of his repressed verbosity. He flung into Febrer's face his origin and his pride, which had impelled him to run away without telling his friends good-bye. "In the last analysis you are descended from a race of inquisitors." His ancestors had burned the ancestors of Valls; let him not forget that! But the good must distinguish themselves from the bad in some way, and so he, the reprobate, the Chueta, the heretic hated by everybody, had responded to this lack of friendship by busying himself with Jaime's affairs. Very likely he had already heard about this through his friend Toni ClapÉs, whose business was thriving, as usual, although he had suffered some set-backs of late. Two of his vessels carrying cargoes of tobacco had been captured.

"But—to the gist of the matter! You know that I'm a practical man, a regular Englishman, an enemy to the wasting of time."

And the practical man, the "Englishman," in order to waste no words, covered two pages more with the explosions of his indignation at everything around him; at his racial brothers, timid and humble, who covered the hand of the enemy with kisses; at the descendants of the old-time persecutors; at the ferocious Padre Garau, of whom not even dust remained; against the whole island, the famous Roqueta, to which his people were held in subjection through love for its soil, a love returned with ostracism and insults.

"But let us not waste words; order, method, and clarity! Above all let us write practically. Lack of practical character is our ruination."

Finally he came to the Popess Juana, that imposing seÑora, whom Pablo Valls had only seen at a distance, as he seemed to her the personification of all the revolutionary impieties and of all the sins of his race. "There is no hope for you in that direction." Febrer's aunt remembered him only to lament his bad end and to praise the justice of the Lord, who punishes those who travel crooked paths, and depart from sacred family traditions. Sometimes the good lady thought him in Iviza; again she declared she knew for a certainty that her nephew had been seen in America, engaged in the meanest employments. "Anyway, whelp of an inquisitor, your pious aunt will not remember you, and you need not expect the slightest assistance from her." It was now being whispered about the city that, definitely renouncing the pomps of this world and perhaps even the pontifical Golden Rose, which never arrived, she was about to turn over all her property to the priests of her court, going to shut herself up in a convent, with all the advantages of a privileged lady. The Popess was going away forever; it was impossible to expect anything from her. "And here is where I come in, young Garau: I, the reprobate, the Chueta, the long-tailed, who desire to be reverenced and adored by you as if you were Providence himself."

Finally the practical man, the enemy of useless words, fulfilled his promise, and the style of the letter became concise, with a commercial dryness. First a long statement of the properties still possessed by Jaime at the time of his leaving Majorca, burdened with all manner of incumbrances and mortgages; then a list of his creditors, which was longer than that of his properties, followed by lists of interest due and other obligations, an entangled skein in which Febrer's mind became wholly confused, but through which Valls made direct headway, with the confidence of those of his race for disentangling jumbled business affairs.

Captain Pablo had allowed half a year to pass without writing to his friend, but he had occupied himself daily over his affairs. He had haggled with the most ferocious usurers of the island, insulting some, outwitting others in finesse, resorting to persuasion or to bravado, advancing money to satisfy the more urgent creditors, who threatened attachment. In conclusion, he had left his friend's fortune free and sound, but it emerged from the terrible battle shrunken and comparatively insignificant. There only remained to Febrer some thousands of duros; perhaps it would not amount to fifteen thousand, but this was better than to live in his former position as a gran seÑor without anything to eat, and subjected to the persecution of his creditors. "It is time that you come home! What are you doing there? Are you going to spend the rest of your life like a Robinson Crusoe, in that pirate's tower?" He could live modestly; living is cheap in Majorca. Besides, he could solicit an office from the Government. With his name and pedigree it would not be difficult to accomplish that. He might devote himself to commerce under the direction and advice of a man like himself. If he wished to travel it would not be difficult for Valls to secure him a position in Algiers, in England, or in America. The captain had friends everywhere. "Come back soon, young Garau, dear old inquisitor. I have no more to say."

Febrer spent the rest of the afternoon reading the letter or strolling about the environs of the tower, deeply stirred by this news. Recollections of his past existence, dimmed by his rural and solitary life, stood out now with the same vividness as if they were the events of yesterday. The cafÉs on the Borne, his friends in the Casino! How strange to return there, passing at a bound into city life after his half savage seclusion in the tower! He would go at once! His mind was made up! He would start the next morning, taking advantage of the return trip of the same steamer which had brought the letter.

The memory of Margalida rose in his mind as if to detain him on the island. She appeared in his imagination with her white face, her adorable figure, her timid and lowered eyes, which seemed to conceal the dark ardor of her pupils as if it were a sin. Should he leave her? Never see her again? Then she would become the wife of one of those rough peasants who would make no better use of her beauty than to waste it in daily tasks in the field, gradually converting her into a farm animal, black, calloused, and wrinkled!

A pessimistic thought soon aroused him from this cruel doubt. Margalida did not love him; she could not love him. Disconcerting silence and mysterious tears were the only response he had succeeded in eliciting by his declarations of love. Why should he persist in trying to conquer that which seemed to everybody to be impossible? Why continue the senseless struggle against the whole island for a woman he was not as yet sure loved him?

The joy of the recent news turned Febrer into a skeptic. "Nobody dies of love." Yet it would cost him a great effort to abandon this country on the morrow; he would experience profound sorrow when the African whiteness of Can MallorquÍ should fade from his view, but, once he had shaken himself free of the atmosphere of the island, no longer living among rustics, and had gone back to his old life, perhaps Margalida would linger only as a vague memory, and he would be the first to laugh at this passion for a peasant girl, the daughter of a former retainer of his family.

He hesitated no longer. He would spend the night in the solitude of his tower, like a primitive man, one of those who live lying in ambush against danger, ready to kill. Tomorrow night he would be seated at a table in a cafÉ beneath the light of an electric chandelier, seeing carriages beside the pavements, and gazing at women more beautiful than Margalida strolling along the Paseo del Borne. Back to Majorca, then! He would not live in a palace; the Febrer mansion he would lose forever, according to the arrangement made by his friend Valls; but he would not fail to have a neat little house in the ward of Terreno or somewhere near the sea, and in it the motherly care of Mammy Antonia. No sorrow, no shame would await him there. He would even be rid of the presence of Don Benito Valls and his daughter, from whom he had so discourteously fled, without a word of excuse. The rich Chueta, according to his brother's letter, now lived in Barcelona for the sake of his health, so he said; but undoubtedly, as Captain Pablo believed, this journey was taken for the purpose of finding a son-in-law unhampered by the prejudices which persecuted those of his race on the Island.

As night closed in the Little Chaplain came with his basket of supper. While Febrer was greedily eating, with the appetite aroused by his gladsome news, the boy's eager eyes roved about the room to see if he could discover the letter which had so piqued his curiosity. Nothing was in sight. The seÑor's good spirits finally enlivened him also, and he laughed without knowing why, feeling obliged to be in a good humor since Don Jaime was so.

Febrer joked him about his approaching return to the Seminary. He was thinking of making him a present, an extraordinary gift, he could never guess what; compared to it the knife would be worthless. As he said this his eyes traveled toward the gun hanging on the wall.

When the boy took his leave Febrer closed the door and diverted himself by taking an inventory and making a distribution of the objects which filled his dwelling. Within an old crudely carved wooden chest, laid away between fragrant herbs, was the clothing carefully folded by Margalida in which he had come to Majorca. He would put them on in the morning. He thought with a kind of terror of the torture of the boots and the torment of the stiff collar after his long season of rustic freedom, but he intended to leave the island as he had come to it. Everything else he would present to PÈp, except the gun, which would go to his son; he smiled as he thought of the expression of the young seminarist when he should receive this gift, which came rather late. By the time he could go hunting with it he would be a priest of one of the island districts.

He drew Valls' letter from his pocket again, taking pleasure in reading it over and over, as if each time he found fresh items of interest. While reading these paragraphs, which were already familiar, his mind was dwelling on the good news. His loyal friend Pablo! How timely was his advice! It called him from Iviza at the most opportune instant, when he was in open war with all these rude people, who were eager for the death of the stranger. The captain was right. What was he doing there, like a new Robinson Crusoe, and one who could not even enjoy the peace of solitude? Valls, opportune, as ever, delivered him from his danger.

His life of a few hours before, when he had not yet received the letter, seemed to him absurd and ridiculous. He was a new man now. He smiled with shame and pity for that mad man who, the day before, with his gun across his shoulder, had journeyed up the mountain to seek a former prisoner, challenging him to a barbarous duel in the solitude of the forest, as if all the life of the planet were concentrated on this little island and one must kill in order to live! As if there were no life nor civilization beyond the sheet of blue which surrounded this bit of land, with its primitive-souled inhabitants clinging to the customs of former centuries! What folly! This was to be the last night of his savage existence. On the morrow everything which had occurred would be but an interesting recollection, with tales of which he could entertain his friends on the Borne.

Febrer suddenly cut the trend of these thoughts, raising his eyes from the paper. As his gaze encountered half the room in shadow and the other half in a ruddy glow, which made objects flicker and tremble, he seemed to return from the long journey on which his imagination had drawn him. He was still living in the Pirate's Tower; he was still in the midst of darkness, of solitude peopled with whispers of Nature, in the interior of a cube of stone, the walls of which seemed to sweat dark mystery.

He had heard something outside; a cry, a howl, different from that of the other night, more stifled, more indistinct. Jaime received the impression that the cry came from very near, that perhaps it was uttered by someone hidden in the clusters of tamarisks.

He concentrated his attention and the howl came again. It was the same wild yell he had heard the other night, but low, repressed, hoarse, as if he who uttered it feared that the cry would scatter too much, and had placed his hands around his mouth in order to send it directly by means of this natural trumpet.

His first surprise subsided, he laughed softly, shrugging his shoulders. He did not intend to stir. What did primitive customs matter to him now, these peasant challenges? "Howl, my good man; yell until you're tired! I'm deaf!"

To divert his mind he returned to the reading of his letter, enjoying with particular zest the long list of creditors, many of whose names evoked choleric visions or grotesque recollections.

The howl continued at long intervals, and each time that the hoarse stridency pierced the silence Febrer thrilled with impatience and choler. Must he spend the whole night without sleep on account of this serenade of threats?

It occurred to him that perhaps the enemy concealed in the bushes saw his light through the cracks of the door and that this caused him to persist in his provocations. He blew out the candle and laid down on the bed, experiencing a sensation of comfort at being in the dark, with his back sunk into the soft, yielding mattress. That barbarian might howl for hours, or until he lost his voice. He did not intend to stir. What did the insults matter to him now? And he laughed with a joy of physical comfort, lying in his soft couch, while the other was making himself hoarse out there in the bushes, with his weapon ready and his eye alert. What a disappointment for the enemy!

Febrer was almost lulled to sleep by these cries of challenge. He had barricaded the door as he had done the night before. As long as the shouts continued he knew that he was in no danger. Suddenly, by a supreme effort, he sat up, flinging off a stupor which preceded sleep. He no longer heard howls. It was the mystery of silence which had awakened him, a silence more threatening and disquieting than the hostile shouts.

By listening intently he thought he could perceive a movement, a faint creaking of wood, something like the insignificant weight of a cat creeping from step to step, climbing up the stairway to the tower, with long intervals of waiting.

Jaime felt for his revolver, and he sat holding it with a tight clutch. The weapon seemed to tremble between his fingers. He began to feel the anger of the strong man who realizes the presence of an enemy at his door.

The cautious ascent ceased, perhaps half way up the stairs, and after a long silence, Febrer heard a low voice, a voice meant for him alone. It was the voice of the Ironworker. It invited him to step outside, it called him coward, uniting to this insult outrageous indignities against the detested isle of Majorca where Jaime was born.

Jaime sprang from his couch with a sudden impulse, the springs creaking loudly beneath him. As he arose to his feet in the dark, with his revolver in his hand, he began, to feel nothing but scorn for his challenger. Why heed him? It were better to go back to bed. There was a long pause, as if the enemy, when he heard the creaking springs, stood waiting for the inhabitant of the tower to come out. Time passed, and the hoarse and insulting voice once more pierced the calm of night. It called him coward again; it invited the Majorcan to come out. "Come out, you son of a——"

At this insult Febrer trembled, and thrust his revolver back into his belt. His mother, his poor mother, pale and sick, and as sweet as a saint, whose memory was evoked by the greatest of infamies in the mouth of that criminal!

He started instinctively toward the door, colliding after a few steps with the barricade of tables and chairs. No; not the door. A rectangle of blue and hazy light was framed by the dark wall. Jaime had opened the window. The starry light faintly illuminated the contraction of his countenance, a cold grin, desperate, cruel, which gave him resemblance to the knight commander Don Priamo and other navigators of war and destruction whose dust-covered portraits were hanging in the great house in Majorca.

He seated himself on the window, threw his legs over the sill, and cautiously began to descend, feeling with his toes for the hollows in the wall.

As his feet touched earth he drew his revolver from his belt, and bending low, one hand on the ground, he crept around the base of the tower. His feet became entangled in the roots of the tamarisks which the wind had bared, and which sunk in the earth like a tangled skein of black serpents. Each time that he was stopped by a mesh of roots, each time that a stone rolled down or made a sound, he stopped, holding his breath. He was trembling, not with fear, but with the eagerness of the hunter who fears he may arrive too late. He longed to fall upon the enemy, to lay hands upon him while he stood near the door muttering his deadly insults!

Dragging himself along the ground, he came to where he could see the lower end of the stairway, then the upper steps, and finally the door, which stood out white in the light of the stars. Nobody! The enemy had fled.

In his surprise he stood erect, intently watching the black and undulating spot of bushes which extended around the foot of the stairway. Suddenly a red serpent, a streak of flame, followed by a tiny cloud and a thunder clap, leapt from out the tamarisks. Jaime thought he had been struck in the breast by a stone, a hot pebble, perhaps flung into the air by the concussion from the detonation.

"It's nothing!" he thought.

But at the same instant he found himself lying on the ground flat on his back.

He turned instinctively, lying with his breast on the earth, resting on one hand, extending the other which grasped the revolver. He felt strong; he repeated to himself that it was nothing; but suddenly his body almost refused to obey his will. He seemed to be glued to the ground. He saw the bushes move, as if stirred by some dark animal, cautious and malignant. There was the enemy! It thrust out first its head, then its trunk, and finally its legs from the crackling bushes.

With the rapid vision which accompanies the drowning man, a vision in which are concentrated fleeting recollections of all his former life, Febrer thought of his youth, when he used to fire off his pistol while lying on the ground in the garden at Palma as if rehearsing for a deadly encounter. The preparation of long ago was going to stand him in good stead now.

He clearly saw the black bulk of the enemy, motionless and in the line of sight of his revolver. His vision was becoming more hazy, more indistinct, as if the night were steadily growing darker. The enemy was approaching cautiously, also with a weapon in his hand, no doubt with the intention of finishing his deadly work. Then Febrer pulled on the trigger, once, twice, and again, believing that the weapon did not work, failing to hear the detonations, telling himself in his desperation that his enemy was going to fall upon him while he was without means of defense. He no longer saw the enemy. A white haze spread before his eyes; his ears buzzed—but when he thought he felt his adversary near, the mist cleared away, he saw the calm blue light of night again, and, a few steps away, also stretched on the ground, lay a body writhing, arching itself, clawing the earth, emitting a harsh groan, a hiccough of death.

Jaime could not understand this marvel. Really was it he himself who had fired a shot?

He tried to get up, but as he touched the ground his hands dabbled in a thick, warm clay. He touched his breast and he also found it wet by something warm and thick, dripping ceaselessly in slender streams. He tried to contract his legs in order to kneel, but his legs would not obey him. Only then was he convinced that he was wounded.

His eyes lost clearness of vision. He saw the tower double, then triple, then a curtain of cubes of stone extending along the coast, sinking into the sea. An acrid taste spread from his palate to his lips. It seemed to him that he was drinking something warm and strong, but that he was drinking it wrong way about, by a caprice of the mechanism of his life, the strange liquor reaching his palate from the depths of his vitals. The black bulk which lay writhing and moaning a few steps away, seemed to grow larger every time he touched the ground in his contortions. Now he was an apoplectic animal, a monster of the night, which, as it arched its body, reached the stars.

The barking of dogs, and the voices of human beings dissolved this phantom of solitude. Out of the darkness appeared lights.

"Don Jaime! Don Jaime!"

Whose voice was this? Where had he heard it before?

He saw dark figures stirring about, bending over him, carrying red stars in their hands. He saw a man holding back another smaller one who carried in his hand a white lightning flash, perhaps a knife, with which he tried to finish the kicking monster.

He saw no more. He felt a pair of soft arms lift his head. A voice, the same one he had heard a moment ago, tremulous and tearful, sounded in his ears, thrilling him to the depths of his soul.

"Don Jaime! Alas, Don Jaime!"

He felt on his mouth a sweet touch, something which caressed him with a silky sensation; gradually the contact pressed more close, until it became a frantic kiss, desperate, mad with grief.

Before sight forsook him he smiled weakly as he recognized near his own a pair of eyes tearful with love and pain; the eyes of Margalida.

CHAPTER IV

LIFE AND LOVE COMMAND

When Febrer found himself in a room in Can MallorquÍ, lying on a white bed—perhaps Margalida's bed—he began to recall the events of a short time before.

He had walked to the farmhouse supported by PÈp and the Little Chaplain, feeling on his back sympathetic, trembling hands. His recollections were vague, dim, surrounded by a nimbus of white haze; something resembling the confused memory of acts and words after a day of intoxication.

He recalled that his head had fallen on PÈp's shoulder with mortal weariness; that his strength was deserting him, as if his life were escaping with the warm and sticky stream trickling down his breast and his back. He recollected that behind him sounded deafening groans, broken words imploring the aid of all the celestial powers; and he, in his weakness, his temples palpitating from the buzzing that accompanied the dizziness, made strenuous efforts to steady himself, advancing step by step, with the fear of falling in the roadway and remaining there forever. How interminable seemed the journey down to Can MallorquÍ! It appeared to have lasted hours, days; in his dulled memory the walk seemed as long as the whole of his former life.

When at last friendly hands helped him climb into bed and began removing his clothing by the light of a candle, Febrer experienced a sensation of well-being and rest. He wished never to arise from this soft couch; he desired to remain here for all time!

Blood! The brilliant red of blood everywhere—on his jacket and shirt which were tossed at the foot of the bed as if they were rags, on the stiff white sheets, in the basin of water which reddened as PÈp wet a cloth to bathe Febrer's chest. Each garment removed from his body was dripping. His underclothing separated from his flesh with a wrench which made him shiver. The light of the candle, with its trembling flame, drew from the shadows a prevailing tone of red.

The women began to wail. Margalida's mother, forgetting all prudence, clasped her hands and raised her eyes with an expression of terror. Reina SantÍsima!

Febrer wondered at these exclamations. He was all right; why were the women so alarmed? Margalida, silent, her eyes enlarged by terror, moved about the room, turning over clothing, opening chests with the precipitation of fear, but never becoming confused at the furious cries of her father.

Good old PÈp, frowning, a greenish pallor on his dark countenance, attended the wounded man, while at the same time he gave orders.

"Lint! Bring more lint! Silence, women! Why so many cries and lamentations?"

He ordered his wife to go in search of a little pot of marvelous unguent treasured up ever since the times of his glorious father, the formidable man-slayer accustomed to wounds.

And when the mother, astounded at these abrupt orders, started to join Margalida in search of the remedy, her husband called her back to the bedside. She must hold the seÑor. PÈp had turned him on his side in order to examine and wash his breast and back, declaring that he had seen worse sights than this in his younger days, and that he understood something about wounds. When the blood was wiped off with a wet cloth two orifices were left exposed, one in the chest and the other in the back. Good! The ball had passed through his body; it would not have to be extracted, and this was an advantage.

With his rustic hands, to which he endeavored to impart a feminine tenderness, he tried to form tampons of lint to introduce into the wounds, which continued gently emitting the red liquid. Margalida, wrinkling her brows and turning away to avoid meeting Febrer's eyes, at last brushed PÈp aside.

"Let me do it, father. Perhaps I can do it better."

Jaime thought he felt on his bare flesh, sensitive, vibrating from the cruel wound, a sensation of coolness, of sweet calm, as the tampons were pressed into it by the girl's fingers.

Jaime remained motionless, feeling against his back and on his breast the cloths piled up by the two women in their horror at the blood.

The optimism which had animated him when he sank and fell near the tower, reappeared. Surely it was nothing, an insignificant wound; he felt better already. He was troubled by the sad expressions and the silence of those around him, and he smiled to encourage them. He tried to speak, but his first attempt at words produced extreme fatigue.

The peasant restrained him with a gesture. Silence, Don Jaime; he must keep perfectly still. The doctor would soon be here. Pepet had mounted the best horse on the place and had ridden to San JosÉ to call him.

On seeing Don Jaime's eyes opened wide in astonishment, persisting in his encouraging smile, PÈp continued speaking in order to divert Febrer's mind. He told him that he had been sound asleep when suddenly he was awakened by his wife calling him, and by the cries of the children, who made a rush for the door. Outside the farmhouse, in the direction of the tower, sounded shots. Another attack on the seÑor, the same as two nights before! When Pepet heard the two last shots he seemed to rejoice. Those were from Don Jaime; he recognized the sound of his revolver.

PÈp had lighted a lantern, his wife took the candle, and they all rushed up the hill to the tower, without giving a thought to danger. The first one they found was the Ironworker, his head streaming blood, writhing and howling like a demon.

His sinful life was ended, God have mercy on his soul! PÈp had been compelled to lay hands on his son, who had turned, furious and malignant as a monkey, when he saw who it was, and drew a great knife from his belt, with the intention of finishing him. Where had Pepet found that weapon? Boys are the very devil! A fine plaything for a seminarist!

The father glanced significantly at the knife presented to the Little Chaplain by Febrer, which was lying on a chair.

They had discovered the seÑor lying face downward near the tower stairway. Ah, Don Jaime, what a fright he and his family had! They thought him dead. In circumstances like this one realizes his affection for a person; and the good peasant glanced tenderly at Jaime, and was accompanied in this mute caress by the two women, who pressed close to the bed.

This glance of affection and of sorrowful anxiety was the last thing Febrer saw. His eyes closed, and he gradually fell into a stupor, without dreams, without delirium, in the gray softness of the void.

When he opened his eyes again the light which illuminated the room was no longer red. He saw the candle hanging in the same place with its wick black and dull. A cold, gloomy light penetrated through the little window of the sleeping room; the light of dawn. Jaime experienced a sensation of chill. The covers were being withdrawn from his body; agile hands were touching the bandages of his wounds. The flesh, numb a few hours before, now flinched at the lightest touch with the excruciating vibration of the pain, arousing an irresistible desire to groan.

Following with his clouded eyes the hands which were torturing him, Febrer saw a pair of black sleeves, then a cravat, a shirt collar different from those used by the peasants, and above all this a face with a gray mustache, a face he had often seen on the roads, but which failed to arouse in his memory a name; however, gradually he came to recognize it. It must be the doctor from San JosÉ whom he had seen frequently on horseback or driving along in a buggy; an old practitioner, wearing sandals like a peasant, and differing from them only in his cravat and his stiff collar, signs of superiority which he carefully maintained.

How the man tormented him as he touched his flesh, which seemed to have grown tense, becoming more sensitive, with a sickly and timid sensitiveness, as if it would contract at the mere contact with air! When this face was lost to his view and he no longer felt the torture of the hands he sank again into restful sleep. He closed his eyes, but his hearing seemed to be sharpened. He heard low voices in the next room, but he could only catch a few phrases. An unknown voice was congratulating himself that the ball had not remained in the body; undoubtedly in its trajectory it had passed through the lung. Here arose a chorus of exclamations of astonishment, of repressed sighs, and then of protest from the unfamiliar voice. Yes, the lung; but there was no cause for alarm.

"The lung heals readily. It is the most tractable organ of the whole body. The only thing to be feared is traumatic pneumonia."

Hearing this, Febrer persisted in his optimism. "It is nothing: it is nothing." And again he fell gently into the hazy sea of sleep, a sea immense, smooth, heavy, in which visions and sensations sank without causing a ripple or leaving a trace.

From that instant Febrer lost count of time and reality. He still lived; he was sure of it, but his life was abnormal, strange, a long life of shadow and inconsequence with short intervals of light. He opened his eyes and it was night; the little window was black and the candle flame colored everything with flickering red spots which joined the shadows in a merry jig. He opened them again, imagining that only a few moments had passed, and it was day once more; a ray of sunshine entered the room, tracing a circle of gold at the foot of the bed. In this way day and night succeeded each other with strange rapidity, as if the course of time had become forever reversed; or it seemed to remain stationary, with a maddening monotony. When the sick man opened his eyes it was night, eternally night, as if the globe were overwhelmed by unending darkness. Again it seemed that the sun were forever shining, as in the Arctic regions.

During one of his waking spells his eyes met those of the Little Chaplain. Thinking him suddenly better, the boy spoke in a low voice so as not to incur the ire of his father, who had commanded silence.

The Ironworker had already been buried. The bully lay rotting in the earth. What a true shot Don Jaime was! What a hand he had! He had broken the braggart's head.

The boy recalled what had taken place afterward with the pride of one who has enjoyed the honor of witnessing an historic event. The judge had come from the city with his tasselled staff, the chief of the Civil Guard and two gentlemen carrying papers and bottles of ink; all with an escort of men wearing three-cornered hats and carrying guns. These omnipotent personages, after a rest at Can MallorquÍ, had climbed up to the tower, examining everything, prying all around, running over the ground as if to measure it, compelling him, the Little Chaplain, to lie down in the very spot where Don Jaime had been found, adopting a similar posture. After the visit of the magistrate some pious neighbors had borne the body of the Ironworker to the cemetery of San JosÉ, and the powerful representatives of the law had come down to the farmhouse to quiz the wounded man. It was impossible to make him speak. He was sound asleep, and when they aroused him he looked at them with a vague stare, and immediately closed his eyes again. Really did not the seÑor remember? They would question him again some other time when he was well. There was nothing to worry about; the magistrates and all honorable people were in his favor. As the Ironworker had no near relatives to avenge his death and as he had made himself obnoxious, the people had no reason for keeping silent, and they all spoke the truth. The Ironworker had gone two nights in search of the seÑor in his tower, and the seÑor had defended himself. It was certain that nothing would be done to him. Thus declared the Little Chaplain, who, on account of his warlike tendencies, possessed some of the characteristics of a juris consult. "Self defense, Don Jaime——" It was the sole topic of conversation on the island. It was discussed in the cafÉs and casinos throughout the city. They had even written to Palma, giving news of the affair so that it would be published in the daily papers. By this time his friends in Majorca would have heard all about it.

The trial would be short. The only one who had been taken to Iviza and thrust into jail was the Minstrel, on account of his threats and lies. He tried to make the people believe that it was he who had gone in search of the detested Majorcan; he extolled the Ironworker as an innocent victim; but he was to be set at liberty at any time by the magistrate who was tired of his deceptions and his lying tales. The boy spoke of him with scorn. That chicken could not pride himself on having wounded a man. A mere farce!

Sometimes when the injured man opened his eyes he saw the motionless and muffled figure of PÈp's wife who sat staring at him with expressionless eyes, moving her lips as if in prayer, and giving vent to profound sighs. No sooner did she encounter the glassy gaze of Febrer than she ran to a small table covered with bottles and glasses. Her affection was manifested by an incessant desire to make him drink all the liquids ordered by the doctor.

When, in moments of turbid wakefulness, Jaime found Margalida's face bending over him, he experienced a joy which helped to dispel his drowsiness. The girl's eyes wore an adoring and timorous expression. She seemed to be imploring forgiveness with her tearful orbs outlined with blue against the nunlike delicacy of her skin. "For me! All on account of me!" she seemed to say tacitly, with a gesture of remorse.

She approached him timidly, vacillating, but without a flush of color, as if the strangeness of the circumstances had overcome her former shrinking. She arranged the disordered covers of his couch, she gave him to drink, and she raised his head to smooth his pillows. When Febrer tried to speak she raised her index finger to impose silence.

Once the wounded man grasped her hand as she passed and pressed it against his lips, caressing it with a prolonged kiss. Margalida dared not draw it away. She turned her head as if she wished to hide her tear-filled eyes. She groaned with anguish, and the sick man thought he heard expressions of remorse such as he had divined in her manner. "On account of me! It happened on account of me!" Jaime experienced a sensation of joy at her tears. Oh, sweet Almond Blossom!

Now he no longer saw the fine, pale face; he could distinguish only the flash of her eyes, surrounded by white mist, as one sees the splendor of the sun on a stormy morning. His temples throbbed cruelly, his sight grew turbid. The sweet stupor, soft and empty as nothingness, was succeeded by a sleep peopled with incoherent visions, of fiery images vibrating against a background of intense blackness, by torture which wrung from his breast groans of fear and cries of anguish. He was delirious. Often he would awake from one of his frightful nightmares for an instant, barely long enough to find himself sitting up in bed, his arms pinned down by other arms, which endeavored to hold him. Then he would sink back into that world of shadows, peopled with horrors. In this fleeting consciousness, like a hasty vision of light from a breathing-hole in the darkness of a tunnel, he recognized near his bed the sorrowful faces of the family of Can MallorquÍ. Again his eyes would encounter those of the doctor, and once he even thought he saw the gray whiskers and the oil-colored eyes of his friend, Pablo Valls. "Illusion! Madness!" he thought, as he sank once more into lethargy.

Sometimes while his eyes remained sunk in this world of gloom, furrowed by the red comets of nightmare, his ear vibrated weakly with words which seemed to come from far, very far away, but which were uttered near his bedside. "Traumatic pneumonia—delirium." These words were repeated by different voices, but he doubted that they referred to himself. He felt well. This was nothing; a strong desire to continue lying down; a renunciation of life; the voluptuosity of keeping still, of lying there until the approach of death, which did not arouse in him the slightest fear.

His brain, disordered by fever, seemed to whirl and whirl in mad rotation, and these cycles evoked in his confused mind an image which had often filled it. He saw a wheel, an enormous wheel, immense as a terrestrial sphere, its upper part lost in cloud, its lower arc merging in the sidereal dust which glittered in the darkness of the heavens. The tire of this wheel was composed of human flesh; millions and millions of human beings soldered together, welded, gesticulating, their extremities free, moving them to convince themselves of their activity and of their liberty, while the bodies were joined one to another. The spokes of the wheel attracted Febrer's attention by their diverse forms. Some were swords, their blood-stained blades wound with garlands of laurel, the symbol of heroism; others seemed golden scepters tipped by crowns of kings or emperors; rods of justice; ingots of gold formed by coins laid one upon another; shepherd's crooks set with precious stones, symbols of divine guidance ever since men grouped themselves into flocks to timidly bawl with their gaze fixed on high. The hub of this wheel was a skull, white, clean, shiny, as if made of polished ivory; a skull as big as a planet, which seemed to remain stationary while everything turned around it; a skull luminous, moon-like, which seemed to leer malignantly from its dark eye-sockets, silently mocking at all this movement.

The wheel turned and turned. The millions of human beings fastened to it in its continual revolution shouted and waved their hands, aroused to enthusiasm and enkindled with fervor by the velocity. Jaime saw that no sooner did they rise to the highest point than they began to descend head downward; but, in their illusion they imagined themselves traveling forward, admiring at each revolution new spaces, new things. They fancied the very point through which they had passed but a moment before an unfamiliar and astounding region. Ignorant of the immovability of the center around which they were turning, they believed with the best of faith that the movement was an advance. "How we are running! Where are we going to stop?" they cried. And Febrer pitied their simplicity, seeing their elation at the rapidity of their imagined progress when they were actually remaining in the same place; rejoicing in the velocity of an ascension on which they started for the millionth time and which inevitably must be followed by the downward plunge.

Suddenly Jaime felt himself pressed forward by an irresistible force. The great skull smiled at him mockingly. "You, also! Why resist your destiny?" And he found himself fastened to the wheel, jumbled with that credulous and childish humanity, but lacking the consolation of their fond delusion; and his traveling companions insulted him, spat upon him, beat him in their indignation when they learned of his absurd denial of their movement, believing him insane for holding in doubt something which was visible to all.

At last the wheel exploded, filling the black space with flames, with thousands of millions of cries and tremulous vibrations from the human beings hurled through the mystery of eternity; and he fell and fell, for years, for centuries, until he dropped upon the soft bed. Then he opened his eyes. Margalida stood near, gazing at him by the candle light with an expression of terror. It must be the early morning. The poor girl gave a gasp of fear as she grasped his arms with her trembling little hands.

"Don Jaime! Ay, Don Jaime!"

He had cried out like an insane man; he was leaning over the bed with an evident desire to fall to the floor, he had been talking about a wheel and a skull. "What is the matter, Don Jaime?"

The invalid felt the loving touch of gentle hands, which smoothed his disordered clothing, drew up the covers and tucked them around his shoulders, maternally, with the same caressing care as if he were a child.

Before sinking back into a state of mental confusion, before again passing through the fiery gateway of delirium, he saw close to his face the moist eyes of Margalida, which were ever growing more sad and tearful within their circles of blue. He felt the warm gust of her breath on his lips, and then he felt their thrill at a silky, moist contact, a light, timid caress, similar to the brushing of a wing. "Sleep, Don Jaime." The seÑor must sleep. And despite the respect with which she addressed him, her words possessed a murmur of affectionate intimacy, as if Don Jaime were to her a different man since the misfortune which had drawn them together.

The delirium of fever dragged the sick man through strange worlds, where not the slightest vestige of reality remained. He was in his solitary tower again. The gloomy fortress was no longer constructed of stone; it was formed of skulls joined like blocks of stone by a mortar of bonedust. Of bones also were the hill and the cliffs along the coast; white skeletons the lines of foam which crowned the breakers from the sea. Everything that his view embraced, trees and mountains, ships and distant islands, became an ossified, glacial landscape. Craniums with wings similar to those of cherubims in religious pictures fluttered through the heavens uttering through their fleshless jaws hoarse hymns to the great divinity who filled the whole space with the folds of his shroud, and whose bony head was lost in the clouds. He felt that invisible beings were ripping off his flesh in bleeding tatters, which, having adhered to him throughout a whole lifetime, drew from him shrieks of pain as they were torn away. Then he beheld himself a white skeleton, bleached and polished, and a far away voice seemed to murmur a horrible consecration in his ear-cavities. The moment of true greatness had arrived; he had ceased being a man to become converted into a corpse. The slave had passed through the great initiation, and had changed to a demigod. The dead command! It was only necessary to see with what superstitious respect, with what servile fear, the city dwellers saluted those who were passing into the great beyond. The powerful bare their heads in the presence of the dead beggar.

With the potent vision of his black and eyeless sockets, for which there was neither distance nor obstacle, he gazed upon the entire world. Dead, dead on every side! They filled everything. He beheld tribunals of men dressed in black, their eyes haughty and their gesture imposing, listening to the woes of their fellow creatures, while behind them stood an equal number of enormous skeletons, endowed with the grandeur of centuries, wrapped in togas, who were those who moved the hands of the judges as they wrote, and who dictated their sentences over their heads. The dead judge! He saw great halls of vertical light with concentric rows of seats, and on them hundreds of men speaking, vociferating and gesticulating, in the noisy task of making laws. Behind them crouched the real legislators, the dead, the deputies in their winding sheets, whose presence was unguessed by these men of grandiloquent vanity, who imagined that they ever spoke by their own inspiration. The dead legislate! In a moment of doubt it was sufficient for someone to recall what had been the opinion of the dead in former times in order to reËstablish calm, everyone accepting their opinion. The dead, eternal and immutable, were the only reality! Men of flesh and blood were a mere accident, an insignificant bubble bursting with ostentatious pride!

He saw white skeletons guarding like gloomy angels the gates of cities which they had built, watching the flock hemmed within, repelling as accursed the irresponsible madmen who refused to recognize their authority. He saw at the foot of great monuments, museum paintings, and shelves of books in the libraries, the mute grin of the craniums which seemed to say to men: "Admire us! This is our work, and all which you do will be after our example!" The entire world belonged to the dead. They reigned. The living, as they opened their mouths to receive food, masticated particles of those who had preceded them along the pathway of life; when they wished to feast their eyes and ears on beauty, art offered them works and precedents established by the dead. Even love suffered this servitude. Woman in modesty or in bursts of passion, which she deems spontaneous, unconsciously imitated her grandmothers, who had been temptresses with hypocritical modesty or frankly voluptuous, according to the epochs in which they lived.

In his delirium the sick man began to feel oppressed by the density and number of these beings, white and bony, with eyeless sockets and malevolent grins, skeletons of a vanished life, obstinately determined to continue to subsist, dominating everything. They were so many, so many! It was impossible to even stir. Febrer stumbled against their bare and prominent ribs, against the sharp angles of their hips; his ears vibrated with the dry creaking of their knee-pans. They overpowered him, they asphyxiated him; there were millions upon millions; all the ancestors of the human race! Finding no space whereon to set their feet, they stood in rows one upon another. They were a kind of in-coming tide of bones which rose and swelled until it reached the summit of the highest mountains and touched the clouds. Jaime was choking in this white inundation, hard and crackling. They trampled him underfoot; they weighed upon his chest with the heaviness of dead things. He was going to die! In his despair he clutched a hand which seemed to come from far away, appearing out of the shadows; the hand of a living being, a hand of flesh! He tugged at it and gradually in the fog the pale spot began to assume the form of a countenance. After his existence in a world of empty craniums and bleached bones this human face caused him the same sense of grateful surprise as that experienced by the explorer on meeting with one of his race after a long sojourn among savage tribes.

He tugged harder at the hand; the vagueness of the countenance became condensed, and he recognized Pablo Valls bending over him, moving his lips as if murmuring affectionate phrases which he could not hear. Again? The captain was always appearing in his delirium!

After this rapid vision the sick man sank back into unconsciousness. Now his stupor was more tranquil. His thirst, that horrible thirst, which had impelled him to reach his hands outside the bed and to draw his lips away from the emptied glass with a gesture of unsatisfied eagerness, now began to diminish. In his delirium he had seen clear streams, great silent rivers, which he could never reach, his limbs overcome by a painful paralysis. Now he beheld a luminous and foaming cataract rolling down against the background of his dream, and at last he could walk, he could approach it, seeing it more clearly at each step, feeling the cool caress of the moisture on his face.

From out the noise of this waterfall stifled voices reached his ears. Someone was talking of traumatic pneumonia again. "It is conquered." And a voice added joyfully: "That is good! We have a man again!" The invalid recognized this voice. Pablo Valls was ever reappearing in his delirium!

He continued on his way, attracted by the coolness of the water. He stood beneath the sonorous torrent and he thrilled with voluptuous shivers as he received on his back the force of the falling stream. A sensation of freshness overspread his body, causing him to sigh with pleasure. His limbs seemed to relax beneath the icy touch. His chest broadened, overcoming the oppression which had tortured him until a moment ago, as if the whole earth weighed upon his body. He felt the haze clearing away from his brain. He was still delirious, but his delirium was not pierced by scenes of terror and cries of anguish. It was, instead, a placid sleep, in which the body relaxed, and his thoughts took wing through pleasant horizons of optimism. The foam of the cascade was white, reflecting the colors of the rainbow on its facets of liquid diamonds. The sky was a rose tint, with distant music and mild perfumes. Something trembled mysteriously, invisible, and at the same time smiling, in this fantastic atmosphere; a supernatural force which seemed to beautify it with its contact. It was returning health!

The incessant waters falling over the cliffs, aroused in his memory former dreams. Once more the wheel, the immense wheel, the image of humanity, which turned and turned in its identical place, beginning one ascent after another, ever passing the same places.

The sick man, revived by the sensation of coolness, thought that he possessed a new sense of understanding.

Again he saw the wheel revolving through the infinite, but was it really stationary?

Doubt, the beginning of new truths, caused him to look with closer attention. Was it not a deception of his own eyes? Was it he who was mistaken, and were not those millions of beings who uttered shouts of joy in their whirling prison right in thinking that they realized a fresh advance with each whirl?

It was cruel for life to go on developing for hundreds of centuries in this deceptive agitation, concealing an actual inactivity. For what then the existence of created things? Had humanity no other purpose than to deceive itself, turning by its own effort the cylinder which imprisoned it, as birds by their springing cause the cage which is their prison to vibrate?

Now he no longer saw the wheel. Before his vision passed an enormous globe of bluish color, on which were marked the seas and continents with outlines like those he had seen on maps. It was the Earth! He, an imperceptible molecule in the immensity of space, an abject spectator of the stupendous representation of Nature, beheld the blue globe with its girdle of clouds.

It also was revolving like the fatal wheel. It turned and turned upon itself with exasperating monotony, but this movement which was the nearest, the most visible, that which all could appreciate, was insignificant. Another movement was the one of real importance. Above that of the monotonous rotation, ever around the same axis, was that of translation, which dragged the globe through the infinitude of space in eternal travel, never re-passing through the same place.

Curses on the wheel! Life was not an eternal revolution through identical situations! Only the shortsighted, seeing no farther beyond, as they contemplated this movement, could imagine that it was the only one. The earth itself was the image of life. It ever rotated through determined spaces of time; days and seasons were repeated, as, in the history of mankind, greatness and decline follow each other; but there was something more than all this; the movement of translation, which drew toward the infinite, ever forward, ever forward!

The theory of "the eternal re-beginning of things" was false. Men and events were repeated as are days and seasons on earth; but although everything seemed alike it was not really so. The outer form of objects might be similar, but the soul was different!

No; the wheel had vanished! Perish inactivity! The dead could not command! The world, in its forward movement, ran so fast that they could not sustain themselves upon its surface. They clutched at the crust with their bony claws, struggling for years, perhaps for centuries, to keep firm hold, but the velocity of the race finally cast them off, leaving in their wake a trail of broken bones, of dust, of nothing!

The world, filled with the living, traveled straight forward, never passing over the same place twice. Febrer had seen it appear on the horizon like a tear of luminous blue, then grow larger and larger, until it filled the whole of space, passing near him with the velocity of a rotating projectile; and now it was becoming smaller again, fleeing through the opposite extreme. Now it was a drop, a point, nothing—becoming lost in obscurity! Who knew whither it was bound, and why?

Futilely his ideas of a moment before, being now overcome, returned with the purpose of making a final protest, shouting that this movement of translation was equally false, and that the Earth turned like a wheel around the sun—no; neither was the sun stationary, but with all its familiar company of planets, it fell and fell, if it is possible in the infinite to fall without rising; it traveled on and on—who knows toward what destination, or for what purpose?

Definitely, abominating the wheel, he rent it to bits in his imagination, experiencing the joy of the convict who passes out through the door of his prison and breathes the air of freedom. He thought that scales fell from his eyes as from those of the Hebrew Apostle at Damascus. He beheld a new light. Man is free, and he can liberate himself from the dead by an effort, cutting the knot of slavery that has soldered him to these invisible despots.

He ceased dreaming; he sank into oblivion with the silent and intimate joy of the laborer resting after a profitable day's work.

When, after a long time, he re-opened his eyes, he found those of Pablo Valls fastened upon his. Valls was holding one of his hands, gazing at him affectionately with his amber pupils.

He could no longer doubt; it was reality! He detected the odor of English tobacco, which always seemed to float around his mouth and beard. Was it not then an illusion? Had he really seen him in the course of his delirium? Was it his actual voice which he had heard in the midst of his nightmares?

The captain burst into a laugh, displaying his long teeth, yellowed by the pipe.

"Ah, my fine fellow!" he exclaimed. "You're better, aren't you? The fever has gone; there is no longer any danger. The wounds are healed. You must feel the itching of a thousand demons in them; something as if you had a thousand wasps under the bandages. That is the formation of tissue, the new flesh which hurts as it grows."

Jaime realized the truth of these words. In the region of his wounds he felt an itching, a tension which contracted his flesh.

Valls read a supplication of curiosity in the eyes of his friend.

"Do not talk! Do not tire yourself! How long have I been here? About two weeks. I read about your accident in the Palma newspapers, and I came immediately. Your friend the Chueta will always be the same. What anxiety you have given us! Pneumonia, my boy, and in a dangerous form! You opened your eyes and you did not recognize me; you raved like a madman. But it's all over now! We have given you the best of care. Look! See who's here!"

He stepped away from the bed so that Febrer might see Margalida, hidden behind the captain, shrinking and timid, now that the seÑor could look at her with eyes free from fever. Ah, Almond Blossom! Jaime's glance, tender and sweet, brought a flush to her cheeks. She feared that the sick man might remember what she had done in the most critical moments, when she was almost sure that he was going to die.

"Now you must keep still," continued Valls. "I will stay here until we can go back to Palma together. You know me. I understand everything; I'll arrange it all. Eh? Do I make myself clear?"

The Chueta winked one eye and smiled mischievously, sure of his cleverness in guessing the desires of his friends.

Famous captain! Ever since his arrival at Can MallorquÍ the entire family seemed dependent upon his orders, admiring him as a personage of immense power, tempered by eternal joviality.

Margalida blushed at his words and winks, but she was fond of him for being so devoted to his friend. She remembered his eyes brimming with tears one night when they thought Don Jaime was going to die. Valls had wept, while at the same time he muttered curses. The Little Chaplain adored that great gentleman from Majorca ever since he saw him burst out laughing on learning that his parents intended him to be a priest. PÈp and his wife followed him like obedient and submissive dogs.

Several afternoons Pablo and the sick man discussed past events.

Valls was a man quick in his decisions.

"You know that I never tire of doing for my friends. When I landed in Iviza I went to see the judge. Everything can be satisfactorily arranged. You are in the right, and everybody knows it—self defense! A few annoyances when you get well, but they won't amount to much. The matter of your health is decided also. What else is there? Ah, yes! There is something else, but I have that about settled also."

He laughed knowingly as he said this, pressing the hands of Febrer, who, on his part, wished to ask no more; fearful of suffering a disappointment.

Once, when Margalida entered the room, Valls grasped her by the arm and drew her near the couch.

"Look at her!" he said, with burlesque gravity, turning toward the sick man. "Is this the girl you love? They haven't succeeded in changing her, have they? Then give her your hand, stupid! What are you doing there, staring at her with those frightened eyes?"

Febrer clasped Margalida's right hand with both of his. Was it really true? His eyes sought those of the girl, which remained lowered, while emotion whitened her cheeks and made her nostrils palpitate.

"Now kiss each other," said Valls, gently shoving the girl toward Febrer.

But Margalida, as if she felt threatened by a danger, freed her hands, fleeing from the room.

"Good!" said the captain. "You'll kiss each other before very long—when I'm not around."

Valls declared himself in favor of this union. Did Febrer love her? Then go ahead. This was more logical than the marriage with his niece for her father's millions. Margalida was a fine woman. He understood these things; when Jaime should take her away from the island, and accustom her to different ways and to different dress, with the adaptability of woman, it would soon be impossible to recognize the former peasant girl.

"I have arranged your future, young inquisitor. You know that your friend the Jew always accomplishes what he undertakes. You have enough left in Majorca so that you can live modestly. Don't shake your head; I know that you want to work, and now more than ever since you are in love and mean to raise a family. You will work. We'll set up a business together; we can decide on that later. I always have my head crammed with projects. That's characteristic of my race. If you prefer to leave Majorca, I'll look for a situation for you abroad. You must think it over."

In all matters relating to the family of Can MallorquÍ the captain spoke with the authority of a master. PÈp and his wife dared not disobey him. How could they argue with a seÑor who knew everything? The peasant farmer offered little resistance. Since Don Pablo desired the marriage of Margalida to the seÑor and gave his word that it would not bring misfortune to the girl, they might marry. It was a great sorrow for the two old people to see her leave the island, but they preferred this to having Febrer with them as a son-in-law, for he inspired them with a respect which they could not outlive.

The Little Chaplain was almost ready to kneel before Vall's. "And yet they say in Palma that Chuetas are bad!" he murmured. It was clear that those who said so were Majorcans—a people unjust and proud! The captain was a saint. Thanks to him, he would not have to go to the Seminary. He would be a peasant-farmer. Can MallorquÍ would be left to him. He had even received the knife from his father, at the intercession of Don Pablo, and he was counting on the gift of a modern pistol promised by the captain, one of those marvelous weapons which he had admired in Palma in the show windows along the Borne. As soon as Margalida's marriage had taken place he would go throughout the district in search of a bride, wearing in his girdle two noble companions. The race of brave men must not die out on the island. In his veins coursed the heroic blood of his grandfather!

One sunny morning Febrer, leaning on Valls and Margalida, made his way with the step of a convalescent as far as the porch of the farmhouse. Seated in a great armchair he gazed fondly upon the tranquil landscape outspread before him. Upon the summit of the headland rose the Pirate's Tower. How much he had dreamed and suffered there! Now he loved it as he remembered that within it, alone and forgotten of the world, this passion, destined to fill the rest of a once aimless life, had originated.

Enfeebled by the long weeks in bed and by the loss of blood, he breathed in the warm atmosphere of the luminous morning pierced by the breezes which blew in from the sea.

Margalida, after contemplating Jaime with loving eyes, which still held something of timidity, went into the house to prepare the morning meal.

The two men remained long in silence. Valls had taken out his pipe, filling it with English tobacco, and expelling fragrant mouthfuls.

Febrer, with his gaze fixed on the landscape, his dazzled eyes embracing the sky, the hills, the fields, and the sea, spoke in a low voice, as if talking to himself.

Life was beautiful. He affirmed it with the conviction of one arisen from the grave who returns unexpectedly to the world. Man could move freely, the same as the bird and the insect, on the bosom of Nature. There was a place for all. Why confine oneself by the bonds which others had invented, tyrannizing over the future of the men who were to come after them? The dead, ever the accursed dead, trying to meddle in everything, complicating our existence!

Vall's smiled, looking at him with mischievous eyes. Several times he had heard him in his delirium talking of the dead, waving his arms as if fighting, trying to repel them with frightful struggles. As he listened to Jaime's explanations, as he realized his respect for the past and his submission to the influence of the dead that had stultified his life, and had banished him to a remote island, Vall's remained silent and lost in thought.

"Do you believe that the dead command, Pablo?"

The captain shrugged his shoulders. For him there was nothing absolute in the world. Perhaps the dominion of the dead was tottering and was already in its decadence. In other times they commanded like despots; there was no doubt of that. It might be that now they commanded only in some places, in others losing forever all hope of power. In Majorca they still governed with a strong hand; he said it, he, the Chueta. In other lands, perhaps not.

Febrer experienced deep annoyance as he recalled his mistakes and his worries. Accursed dead! Humanity could never be happy and free until they should cast off their power.

"Pablo, let us kill the dead!"

The captain looked at his friend for an instant with a certain anxiety, but seeing the serenity of his eyes he was reassured and said, smiling:

"Kill them, for all I care!"

Then, recovering his gravity, and leaning back in his chair, while he puffed a mouthful of smoke, the Chueta added: "You are right. Let us kill the dead! Let us crush beneath our feet all useless obstacles, old things that obstruct and complicate our pathway. We live according to the word of Moses, to the word of Jesus, of Mohammed, or of other shepherds of men, when the natural and logical thing would be to live according to what we ourselves think and feel."

Jaime glanced behind him, as if his eyes would seek in the interior of the house the sweet figure of Margalida. Then he thought over all his old anxieties and all the new truths to which he had awakened, repeating the same vigorous declaration: "Let us kill the dead!"

Pablo's voice aroused him from his reflections.

"Would you have married my niece in your present state of mind, without fear or compunction?"

Febrer hesitated before replying. Yes, he would have married her, regardless of the scruples which had caused him so much suffering; yet something was lacking for the fulfillment of that union; something which was above the will of man, superior to his power, something which could not be bought and which ruled the world; something which the humble Margalida unconsciously brought with her.

His troubles had ended. Now for a new life!

No; the dead do not command! It is life that commands, and above life, love!