open window of the _estudi_. The tenderness of his early days of
paternity emerged from the depths of his soul. He recalled the nights he
had spent awake in that room, walking up and down, holding in his arms
the little child that was crying from the pains of infancy's illness.
Now he lay crying, too, but without hope, in the agonies of a hell that
had come before its time, and at last ... death.
His countenance grew frightened, and he raised his hands to his forehead
as if trying to drive away a troublesome thought. Then he appeared to
deliberate.... Why not?...
"To end his suffering ... to end his suffering!"
He went back to the cabin, only to come out at once with his old
double-barrelled musket, and he hastened to the little window of the
sick room as if he feared to lose his determination; he thrust the gun
through the opening.
Again he heard the agonizing panting, the chattering of teeth, the
horrible shriek, now very near, as if he were at the victim's bedside.
His eyes, accustomed to the darkness, saw the bed at the back of the
gloomy room, and the form that lay writhing in it--the pale spot of the
face, appearing and disappearing as the sick man twisted about
desperately.
The father was frightened at the trembling of his hands and the
agitation of his pulse; he, the son of the _huerta_, without any other
diversion than the hunt, accustomed to shoot down birds almost without
aiming at them.
The wailing of the poor mother brought back to his memory other groans
of long long ago--twenty-two years before--when she was giving birth to
her only son upon that same bed.
To come to such an end!... His eyes, gazing heavenward, saw a black sky,
intensely black, with not a star in sight, and obscured by his
tears....
"Lord! To end his sufferings! To end his sufferings!"
And repeating these words he pressed the musket against his shoulder,
seeking the lock with a tremulous finger.... Bang! Bang!
* * * * *
INTERNATIONAL: POCKET: LIBRARY
1. MADEMOISELLE FIFI _Guy de Maupassant_
Introduction by Joseph Conrad
2. TWO TALES _Rudyard Kipling_
Foreword by Wilson Follett
3. TWO WESSEX TALES _Thomas Hardy_
Introduction by Conrad Aiken
4. MODERN RUSSIAN CLASSICS
Stories by Andreyev, Solgub, Gorki, Tchekov,
Babel, and Artzibashev. Foreword by Issac Goldberg
5. CANDIDE _Voltaire_
Introduction by Andre Morize
6. THE LAST LION _Vicente Blasco Ibáñez_
Introduction by Mariano Joaquin Lorente
7. A SHROPSHIRE LAD _A. E. Housman_
Preface by William Stanley Braithwaite
8. GITANJALI _Rabindranath Tagore_
Introduction by W. B. Yeats
9. THE BOOK OF FRANÇOIS VILLON
Introduction by H. De Vere Stacpoole
10. THE HOUND OF HEAVEN _Francis Thompson_
Introduction by G. K. Chesterton
11. _Coloured Stars_ Edited by _Edward Powys Mathers_
12. RUBAIYAT OF OMAR KHAYYAM _Edward Fitzgerald_
With Decorations by Elihu Vedder
OTHER TITLES IN PREPARATION
13. THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST _Oscar Wilde_
14. FIVE MODERN PLAYS _O'Neill, Schnitzler, Dunsany,
Maeterlinck, Richard Hughes_
15. THREE IRISH PLAYS J_. M. Synge, Douglas Hyde,_
and _W. B. Yeats_
Introduction by Harrison Hale Schaff
16. THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD _Henry Drummond_
Introduction by Elizabeth Towne
17. THE SYMPOSIUM OF PLATO
Introduction by _B. Jowett, M.A._
18. THE WISDOM OF CONFUCIUS
Edited by _Miles M. Dawson_
19. ALICE IN WONDERLAND _Lewis Carroll_
Illustrated by Sir John Tenniel
20. THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS _Lewis Carroll_
Illustrated by Sir John Tenniel
OTHER TITLES IN PREPARATION
* * * * *
The following typographical errors were corrected by the etext
transcriber:
There is a curious contradition=>There is a curious contradiction
Segrada threw his cards=>Sagreda threw his cards
His eyes, opened extraordinarly=>His eyes, opened extraordinarily
flocked to _Caldera's_ cavin=>flocked to _Caldera's_ cabin