The Cabin Part 17

And he had to drink a second gla.s.s, the gipsy's treat, but at last, cutting short his torrent of offers and flatteries, he seized the halter of his new horse and helped by the obliging Monote, mounted on the steed's bare back and left the noisy market at a trot.

He departed well satisfied with the animal; he had not lost his day. He scarcely remembered poor Morrut, and he felt the pride of owners.h.i.+p when on the bridge and on the road, some one from the _huerta_ turned around to examine the white steed.

But his greatest satisfaction came when he pa.s.sed before the house of Copa. He made the beast break into an arrogant little trot as though he were a horse of pedigree, and he saw how Pimento and all the loafers of the _huerta_ came to the door to look after him; the wretches! Now they would be convinced that it was difficult to crush him, and that by his unaided efforts, he could defend himself. Now they saw that he had a new horse. If only the trouble within the home could be as easily adjusted!

His high, green wheat formed a kind of lake of restless waves by the roadside; the alfalfa-gra.s.s grew luxuriantly and had a perfume which made the horse's nostrils dilate. Batiste could not complain of his land, but it was inside the house that he feared to meet misfortune, eternal companion of his existence, waiting to dig its claws into him.

On hearing the trotting of the horse, Batistet came out with his bandaged head, and ran to hold the animal while his father dismounted.

The boy waxed enthusiastic over the new animal. He caressed him, put his hands between his lips, and in his eagerness to get on his back, he put one foot on the hook, seized his tail and mounted with the agility of an Arab on his crupper.

Batiste entered the house. As white and clean as usual, with its s.h.i.+ning tiles and all the furniture in its place, it seemed to be enveloped in the sadness of a clean and s.h.i.+ning sepulchre.

His wife came out to the door of the room, her eyes red and swollen and her hair dishevelled, revealing in her tired aspect the long, sleepless nights she had spent.

The doctor had just gone away: as usual, little hope. His manner was forbidding, he spoke in half-words, and after examining the boy a little, he went out without leaving any new prescription. Only when he mounted his horse, he had said that he would return at night. And the child was the same, with a fever that consumed his little body, which grew thinner and thinner.

It was the same thing every day. They had grown accustomed now to that misfortune; the mother wept automatically, and the others went about their usual occupations with sad faces.

Then Teresa, who had a business head, asked her husband about the result of his journey; she wanted to see the horse; and even sad Roseta forgot her sorrows of love and inquired about the new acquisition.

All, large and small, went to the barnyard to see the horse in his stable; Batistet full of enthusiasm had brought him there. The child remained abandoned in the big bed of the bedroom where he tossed about, his eyes glazed with sickness, bleating weakly: "Mother! Mother!"

Teresa examined her husband's purchase with a grave expression, calculating in detail whether he was worth more than thirty dollars; the daughter sought out the differences between the new horse and Morrut of happy memory, and the two youngsters, with sudden confidence, pulled his tail and stroked his belly, and vainly begged their older brother to put them up on his white back.

Everybody was decidedly pleased with this new member of the family, who sniffed the manger in an odd way as though he found there some trace, some remote odour of his dead companion.

The whole family had dinner, and the excitement and enthusiasm over the new acquisition was such that several times Batistet and the little ones slipped away from the table to go and take a look in the stable, as though they feared the horse had sprouted wings and flown away.

The afternoon pa.s.sed without anything happening. Batiste had to plough up a part of the land which he was keeping uncultivated, preparing the crop of garden-truck, and he and his son put the horse in harness, proud to see the gentleness with which he obeyed and the strength with which he drew the plough.

At nightfall, when they were about to return, Teresa called them, screaming from the farm-house door, and her voice was like that of one who is crying for help.

"Batiste!--Batiste!--Come quickly!"

And Batiste ran across the field, frightened by the tone of his wife's voice and by her wild actions; for she was tearing her hair and moaning.

The child was dying; you had only to see him to be convinced of it.

Batiste entered the bedroom and leaning over the bed, felt a shudder of cold go over him, a sensation as though some one had just thrown a stream of cold water on him from behind. The poor little Bishop scarcely moved; he breathed stertorously and with difficulty; his lips grew purple; his eyes, almost closed, showed the glazed and motionless pupil; they were eyes which saw no more; and his little brown face seemed to be darkened by a mysterious sadness as though the wings of death cast their shadow on it. The only bright thing in that countenance was the blond hair streaming over the pillows like a skein of curly silk; the flame of the candle shone on it strangely.

The mother's groans were desperate; they were like the howlings of a maddened beast. Her son, weeping silently, had to check her, to hold her in order to keep her from throwing herself on the little one or das.h.i.+ng her head against the wall. Outside the youngsters were weeping, not daring to come in, as though the lamentations of the mother frightened them, and by the side of the bed stood Batiste, absorbed, clenching his fists, biting his lips, his eyes fixed on that little body, which it was costing so much anguish, so many shudders, to give up its hold on life.

The calm of that giant, his dry eyes winking nervously, his head bent down toward his son, gave an even more painful impression than the lamentations of the mother.

Suddenly, he noticed that Batistet stood by his side; he had followed him, alarmed by his mother's cries. Batiste was angry when he found out that his son had left the horse alone in the middle of the field, and the boy, drying his eyes, ran out to bring the horse back to the stable.

In a short while, new cries awakened Batiste from his stupor.

"Father! Father!"

It was Batistet calling him from the door of the farm-house. The father, foreseeing some new misfortune, ran after him, not understanding his confused words. "The horse ... the poor white horse ... lay on the ground ... blood...."

And after a few steps he saw him lying on his haunches, still harnessed to the plough but trying in vain to rise, stretching out his neck and neighing dolorously, while from his side, near one of his forelegs, a black liquid trickled slowly, soaking the freshly opened furrows.

They had wounded him; perhaps he was going to die. G.o.d! A beast that he needed like his own life and which had cost him money borrowed from the master.

He looked around as though seeking the perpetrator of the deed. There was no one on the plain, which was growing purple in the twilight; nothing could be heard but the far-off rumbling of wheels, the rustling noise of the canebrakes, and the cries of people calling from one farm-house to another. In the nearby roads, on the paths, there was not a single soul.

Batistet tried to excuse himself to his father for negligence. While he was running toward the farm-house, he had seen a group of men coming along the road, gay people who were laughing and singing, returning doubtless from the inn. Perhaps it was they.

The father would not listen to anything more.... Pimento, who else could it be? The hatred of the district had caused his son's death, and now that thief was killing his horse, guessing how much he needed it. G.o.d!

Was that not enough to make a Christian turn to evil ways?

And he argued no more. Scarcely realizing what he was doing, he returned to the farm-house, seized his musket from behind the door, and ran out, mechanically opening the breech to see if the two barrels were loaded.

Batistet remained near the horse, trying to staunch the blood with the bandage from his own head. He was fear-stricken when he saw his father running along the road with his musket c.o.c.ked, longing to give vent to his rage by slaying.

It was terrible to see that big, quiet, slow man in whom the wild beast, tired of being daily hara.s.sed, was now awakened. In his bloodshot eyes burned a murderous light; all his body trembled with anger, that terrible anger of the peaceful man who, when he pa.s.ses the boundaries of gentleness, becomes ferocious.

Like a furious wild boar, he entered the fields, trampling down the plants, jumping over the irrigation streams, breaking off the canes; if he diverged from the road, it was only to reach Pimento's farm more quickly.

Some one was at the door. The blindness of anger and the twilight shadows prevented him from distinguis.h.i.+ng if it was a man or a woman, but he saw how the person with one leap sprang in and closed the door suddenly, frightened by that vision on the point of raising his gun and firing.

Batiste stopped before the closed door of the farm-house:

"Pimento!... Thief! Come out!"

And his voice amazed him as though it was another's.

It was a voice which was trembling and shrill, high-pitched and suffocated by anger.

No one answered. The door remained closed; closed the windows and the three loop-holes at the top which lighted the upper story, the _cambra_, where the crops were kept.

The scoundrel was probably gazing at him through some crack, perhaps even c.o.c.king his gun to fire some treacherous shot from one of the high small windows. And instinctively, with that foresight of the Moor always alert in suspecting all kinds of evil tricks of the enemy, he hid behind the trunk of a giant fig-tree which cast its shade over Pimento's house.

The latter's name resounded ceaslessly in the silence of the twilight accompanied by all kinds of insults.

"Come down! You coward! Come out, you thug!"

And the farm-house remained silent and closed, as though it had been abandoned.

Batiste thought he heard a woman's stifled cries; the noise of a struggle; something which made him suppose a fight was going on between poor Pepeta and Pimento, whom she was trying to prevent from going out to answer the insults; but after that he heard nothing, and his insults reverberated in a silence which made him desperate.

This infuriated him more than if the enemy had shown himself. He felt himself going mad. It seemed to him that the mute house was mocking him, and abandoning his hiding-place, he threw himself against the door, striking it with the b.u.t.t of his gun.

The timbers trembled with the pounding of the infuriated giant. He wished to vent his rage on the dwelling, since he could not annihilate the master, and not only did he beat the door, but he also struck his gun against the walls, dislodging enormous pieces of plaster. Several times, he even raised the weapon to his face, wis.h.i.+ng to fire his two shots at the two little windows of the _cambra_, and was deferred from this only by his fear that he would remain disarmed.

His anger increased; he roared forth insults; his bloodshot eyes could scarcely see; he staggered like a drunken man. He was almost on the point of falling to the ground in a fit of apoplexy, agonized with anger, choked by fury, when suddenly the red clouds which surrounded him tore themselves apart, his fury gave way to weakness, he saw all his misfortune, felt himself crushed; his anger, broken by the terrible tension, vanished, and Batiste, amidst the torrent of insults, felt his voice grow stifled till it became a moan, and at last he burst out crying.

And he stopped insulting Pimento. He began gradually to retreat, till he reached the road, and sat down on a bank, his musket at his feet. There he wept and wept, feeling a great relief, caressed by the shadows of night which seemed to share his sorrow, for they became deeper, deeper, hiding his childish weeping.