DON TOMAS DIGS A GRAVE
No Cristino bullet that ever was moulded could have stopped the man more
completely. He stood again on the floor of the paven hall, pale, shaking
like an aspen leaf, his whole live soul upturned and aghast within him.
And above the youngling blared like a trumpet.
El Sarria was outside now. His knife was hidden in his breast. There was
no need of it, at least for the present. He looked out of the gate upon
the white and dusty highway. Like the hall, it was vague and empty,
ankle-deep too in yet warm dust, that felt grateful to his feet after
the sharp stones of the _arroyo_ out of which he had climbed.
Under the barn a woman crouched by a fire near a little tent pitched in
a corner, evidently taking care of the _tan_ in the absence of her
companions. Gipsies they were, as he could see, and strangers to the
place. Perhaps she could tell him something. She called aloud to him,
and he went and sat down beside her, nothing loth.
"You are a Gallegan, I see!" said the woman, while she continued to stir
something savoury in a pot without appearing to pay Ramon much
attention.
"A Gallician from Lugo--yes--but I have been long in these parts,"
answered El Sarria, mindful of his accent.
"And we of Granada--as you may both see and hear!" said the old gipsy,
tossing her head with the scorn of the Romany for the outlander.
"What is going on up there?" he said, indicating the mill-house with his
thumb. And as he spoke, for the first time the woman ceased stirring the
pot and turned her eyes upon him.
"What is that to thee?" she inquired with a sudden fiery thrill in her
speech.
As fierce and strong beat the passion in the heart of El Sarria, but
nevertheless he commanded himself and answered, "Naught!"
"Thou liest!" she said; "think not to hide a heart secret from a hax, a
witch woman. Either thou lovest to the death or thou hatest to the
death. In either case, _pay_! Pay, and I will tell thee all thy desire,
according to the crossing of my hand!"
El Sarria drew a gold double _duro_ from his pouch and gave it into her
withered clutch.
"Good," she said, "'tis a good crossing! I will tell you truth that you
may take oath upon, whether kissing or slaying be in your thought. A
woman is sick to the death or near by. A babe little desired is born.
The Tia Elvira is with her. Whether the woman live or die, the Tia will
decide according to the crossing of _her_ hand. And the babe--well, when
the mother is soon to be a bride, its life is not like to be long! A
rough crossing for so short a sojourn, I wot. Good morning, brave man's
son! And to you, sir, a safe journey till the knife strikes or the lips
meet!"
The cryptic utterance of the witch woman sitting crooning over her pot
affected El Sarria greatly. He did not doubt for a moment that Dolores
lay within the house of Luis Fernandez, and that he had heard the
crying of his own first-born son. He arose uncertainly, as if the solid
earth were swaying beneath him.
Leaving her pot simmering on the wood-ashes, the gipsy woman came after
Ramon to the corner of the garden. The broad-leaved fig-trees made a
dense green gloom there. The pale grey undersides of the olive whipped
like feathers in the light chill breeze of night.
"There--go in there!"
She pointed with her hand to a little pillared summer-house in the
garden. It was overgrown with creepers, and Luis had placed a fountain
in it, which, however, only played when the waters were high in the
Cerde.
"Whether you hate the old or love the young, bide there," she whispered;
"there is no need that Tia Elvira should have all the gold. Cross my
hand again, and I am your servant for ever."
Ramon gave her a gold _duro_.
"I am not a rich man," he said, "but for your good-will you are
welcome!"
"You run eager-hearted in the dust with bare and bleeding feet," she
said. "You carry a knife naked in your bosom. Therefore you are rich
enough for me. And I will spite Tia Elvira if I can. She would not give
me so much as an _ochavo_ of all her gettings. Why should I consider
her?"
And she gripped Ramon by the arm with claws like eagles' talons and
stood leaning against him, breathing into his ear.
"Ah, Gallego, you are strong to lean against. I love a man so," she
said. "Once you had not stood so slack and careless if La Giralda had
leaned her breast against your shoulder--ah me, all withered now is it
and hard as the rim of a sieve. But you love this young widow, you also.
She is El Sarria's widow, they tell me, he whom the Migueletes slew at
the entering in of the Devil's Canyon. A fine man that, _Caramba_! And so
you too wish to marry her now he is dead. If I were a widow and young I
would choose you, for you are of stature and thickness, yes--a proper
man through and through. Scarce can I meet my old arms about your chest.
Yet woman never knows woman, and she may chance to prefer Don Luis. But
the babe is in their way--the babe that cried to-night. Luis does not
wish it well. He longs for children of his own by this woman, and El
Sarria's brat would spoil his inheritance. The Tia let the secret out in
her cups!"
She stopped and unclasped her arms.
"Ah," she said, "you love not Don Luis. I felt it when I spoke of his
having issue by that woman. I wot well the thing will never happen. Your
knife or your pistol (of these you have two) will have conference with
him before that. But, if you wish this child to live--though I see not
why you should, save that its father was like you a proper man and the
slayer of many--stand yonder in the shadow of the summer-house, and if
any come out with the babe, smite! If it be a man, smite hard, but if it
be Aunt Elvira, the _hax_, smite ten times harder. For she is the devil
in petticoats and hath sworn away many a life, as she would do mine if
she could. I, who have never wished her any harm all the days of my
life! There, put your arm about me yet a moment--so. Now here is your
gold back. I wish it not. The other is better. Tighter! Hold me yet
closer a moment. Ay-ah, dearie, it is sweet to feel once more the grip
of a strong man's arms about one--yes--though he love another--and she
a little puling woman who cannot even deliver herself of her first-born
son without a _Sangrador_. Go--go, they are coming to the door. I see
the lights disappear from the chamber above. Remember to strike the Tia
low--in the groin is best. She wears amulets and charms above, and you
might miss your mark!"
So, much astonished, and with his gold pieces in his hand, Ramon found
him in the little roughly finished lath-and-plaster temple. He sat on
the dry basin of the fountain and parted the vine leaves with his hands.
He was scarce a dozen yards from a door in the wall--a door recently
broken, which by two stone steps gave direct access to the garden.
Behind him were the wall and the fig-tree where he had spoken with the
gipsy. As he looked he fancied a figure still there, dark against the
sky, doubtless the woman La Giralda waiting to see if his knife struck
the Tia in the proper place.
Ramon listened, and through the darkness he could discern the keen,
insistent, yet to his ear sweet crying of the babe, presently broken by
a series of pats on the back into a staccato bleat, and finally stilling
itself little by little into an uncertain silence.
Then the door into the garden was cautiously opened, and a man clumsily
descended. He shut the door softly behind him and stood a while gazing
up at the lighted room. Then shaking his fist at the illuminated panes,
he moved towards the summer-house. El Sarria thought himself discovered,
and with a filling of his lungs which swept his breast up in a grand
curve, he drew his knife and stood erect in the darkest corner.
Stumbling and grumbling the man came to the aperture. He did not descend
the step which led to the interior, but instead groped through one of
the open windows for something behind the door.
"May holy San Isidro strike my brother with his lightnings!" he
muttered. "He gives me all the ill jobs, and when I have done them but
scant thanks for my pains!"
His hand went groping blindly this way and that, unwitting of what
lurked in the further gloom.
"From Ramon Garcia's knife at the Devil's Gorge to this young one's
undoing, all comes to poor Tomas. And now, when he might have left me
the mill-house he must needs marry this widow Garcia and set to work
forthwith to chouse me out of my inheritance! A foul pest on him and on
his seed!"
This mutter of discontent he interspersed with yet more potent
anathemas, as he groped here and there in the darkness for what he
sought. By-and-by he extracted a spade, a mattock, and a skin-covered
corn measure holding about the quarter of an _arroba_.
With these he went grumbling off towards the deep shade of the fig-tree
where Ramon had talked with the gipsy woman. With great impartiality he
cursed his brother Luis, El Sarria and his knife, the widow Dolores and
her child.
Ramon heard him laugh as he stumbled among the vine roots.
"It is a blessing that such puling brats need no iron collar when
sentenced to the garotte. It will not be pleasant, I suppose--a nasty
thing enough to do. But after all, this little trench under the fig-tree
will be an excellent hold over my good brother Luis. Many a stout
'ounce' of gold shall he bleed because of the small squalling bundle
that shall be hushed to sleep under this garden mould!"
Nothing was heard for the next ten minutes but the measured stroke of
the mattock, and the deep breathing of the night workman. But a broad
shadow had drifted silently out from the corner of the little temple
summer-house, and stood only a yard or two from the hole Don Tomas was
making in the ground under the fig-tree.
El Sarria knew his man by this time, though he had not seen him for many
years. The grave-digger was Don Tomas, Luis Fernandez's ne'er-do-well
brother, who had been compelled to flee the country the year of
Angouleme's French invasion, for giving information to the enemy. He it
was whom he had seen at his old tricks by the Devil's Canyon. Not but
what Luis must all the same have set him on, for he alone knew of the
secret way of retreat.
Presently with many puffs and pants Tomas finished the work to his
satisfaction. Then he shook a handful of grass and leaves into the
bottom of the excavation.
"There," he muttered with a cackle of laughter, "there is your
cradle-bed cosily made, young Don Ramon! Would that your father were
lying cheek by jowl with you! Would not I cover you both up snugly. Holy
Coat of Treves, but I am in a lather! This it is to labour for others'
good! I wonder how soon that hell-hog Tia Elvira will be ready to do her
part. The _Sangrador_ must have gone home hours ago. She is to bring the
youngling out and then go back to tell her story to the mother how
sweetly it passed away--ah, ah--how heavenly was its smile. So it will
be--so it will! Tomas Fernandez knows the trick. He has quieted many a
leveret the same way!"
The garden door opened again, this time very slightly, a mere slit of
light lying across the tangled green and yellowish grey of the garden.
It just missed El Sarria and kindled to dusky purple a blossom of
oleander that touched his cheek as he stooped. The whites of his eyes
gleamed a moment, but the digger saw him not. His gaze was fixed on his
brother in the doorway.
"The signal," he muttered, "I am to go and wait outside for the Tia. Of
course, as usual, my good and respectable brother will not put a finger
to the job himself. Well, _toma_! he shall pay the more sweetly when all
is done--oh yes, Luis shall pay for all!"
He was standing leaning upon his mattock at the head of the little grave
which he had destined for the child of Dolores Garcia. He had been
whistling a gay Andalucian lilt of tune he had learned on his long
travels. A devil of a fellow this Tomas in his day, and whistled
marvellously between his teeth--so low that (they said) he could make
love to a Senorita in church by means of it, and yet her own mother at
her elbow never hear.
"Well, better get it over!" he said, dropping his mattock and starting
out towards the door. "Here comes the Tia!"
But at that moment the heavens fell. Upon the head of the midnight
workman descended the flat of his own spade. El Sarria had intended the
edge, but Tomas's good angel turned the weapon at the last moment or
else he had been cloven to the shoulder-blade. For it was a father's arm
that wielded the weapon. Down fell the digger of infant graves, right
athwart the excavation he himself had made. His mouth was filled with
the dirt he had thrown out, and the arm that threw it swung like a
pendulum to and fro in the hole.