"That is a d—— d lie!"

Though the Rector had also spent whole afternoons at the feet of that man of letters, he now failed to notice tio Gori at all. Respectfully and obediently, he advanced, instead, directly toward his uncle, who had gone so far as to take the pipe out of his mouth to call to his nephews with an: "Hey there, boys!" and motion to them to take the chairs he had been keeping for his influential friends. Tonet sat down with his back to his brother and uncle, so as to follow the fast game of dominoes that was rattling in a lively fashion at the next table. At times his eyes would wander off through the smoky atmosphere toward the bar, where the pretty daughter of tio Carabina—for him the principal attraction of the cafe—was serving drinks under a line of marine chromos.

Senor Mariano el Callao—though no one dared use that last epithet in his hearing—was getting on toward sixty, but was still a muscular and rather handsome man, with a weather-beaten face, blood-shot eyes, a gray mustache as stiff and long and prickly as a tom-cat's whiskers, and the general bullying air of an uneducated lout who had money enough to live on without working. People had dubbed him el Callao because at least a dozen times every day he told the story of that famous battle for the Peruvian seaport—the last that Spain relinquished in South America—which he had witnessed as an ordinary seaman on the Numancia. In these narratives he mentioned the admiral, Mendez Nunez, in every other sentence,—"and don Casto says to me, says he"—as if the hero had had him for his most intimate friend and right-hand man. What delighted his audiences invariably, however, was his description of the actual combat, with imitations of a broadside from his glorious frigate: boom! boo-oo-oo-oo—m!

In addition tio Mariano was one of the big men about town. He had been a smuggler in the happy days when revenue agents, from Captain of the Port to ordinary patrolman, had hands but never eyes. And even now, when things were not so lax, he would take a passive share in some enterprise of the sort. But his principal activity was doing charity—lending the fishermen, or their wives, advances on their pay at fifty per cent a month; and this had given him a grip on the throats of the poorest elements along shore, so that he could deliver their vote bodily in every election campaign. His nephews could hardly contain their pride when they heard him calling mayors and sheriffs by their first names, or saw him, even, going up to Valencia in his best clothes and a top hat, as member of a committee of leading citizens, to wait on the Governor.

A grasping, heartless Shylock, tio Mariano had a scent for loosening his purse strings at the right moment. He knew the inside workings of every home for miles around. The Rector and Tonet, who owed him nothing but the hope they had of inheriting something when he died, thought him the most respectable and kindly man in the whole village, though very seldom had they been admitted to his pretty house on Queen street, Calle de la Reina, where he lived alone with a good-looking housekeeper, the only person in town who dared talk back to him, and was intimate enough with his affairs even to know where he kept his "pile."

Tio Mariano listened to the Rector with eyes half closed and a vertical line knit between his eyebrows. "Be d—— d, be d—— d! Of course! Not a bad idea at all, not at all!" That's the way he liked people—with some gumption! And he seized the occasion to brag of his own biography as a fool successful in getting rich, telling how he had left the navy without a cent in his pocket, and, to get out of the rut his father and grandfather had been in as fishermen, had started off on the underground route to Gibraltar and Algiers, to do his bit toward keeping business going and to give people something else to smoke besides the stink-weed forced on the public by the government! Thanks to the Lord, who had stood by him through thick and thin, and to his own guts—don't forget that—he had made a little something—enough to keep him from worrying in his old age! But times weren't what they had been! The revenue men were now in charge of young navy officers just off the school-ships, with all sorts of stuck-up ideas in their heads and ears a yard long to catch any talk that was going around; and not a one of them would keep his eyes shut for an hour, if you paid him half his weight in gold. Why, last month they had caught three boats coming from Marseilles with a cargo of cloth! You had to be careful, you had to be careful! Too much blabbing going on all the time. The Q. T., that was the watchword! The Rector had made up his mind? Well, then, straight ahead! His Uncle Mariano would not be the man to throw cold water on an idea like that. He wanted the boys in his family to have ambition and try to get somewhere in the world. Poor old Pascualo would have turned out better if he'd stuck to that business and not gone back to fishing!

Well, how much did the Rector need? Quite frank now!—as though he were talking to a father. If it had been a matter of fishing, not a penny. Hell of a trade for a fellow, that, where you killed yourself working and died poor as a rat. But for something of that other kind, all he wanted, all he wanted! Somehow or other, this business of cheating the government always appealed to tio Mariano! A man's job!

The Rector timidly outlined what he thought he ought to have, stopping every other word, as though he were afraid of asking too much. But his uncle took the short cut to the conclusion. Boat? He had the boat. Very well! He, tio Mariano, would see to all the rest. He would drop a line to some friends of his on the "market" at Algiers. They would give the Rector a good load on credit, and if he were spry and got it ashore all right, a way would be found to sell it. "Thanks ever so much, uncle, grasies, tio! Que bo es voste! It's certainly nice of you." And the Rector's eyes were almost running over with tears. But tio Mariano didn't like sentiment. What was he in the family for? He always had poor Pascualo on his mind. What a way to die! There was a man of pluck for you! Oh, by the way, the Rector would get a full third of the proceeds ... seeing he was one of the family.... You couldn't stick on your full rights with a boy of your own flesh and blood! And the Rector, still moved at his uncle's lavish kindness, nodded grateful assent.

They sat on in silence for a while. Tonet was all taken up with the game nearby, and did not try to follow the conversation which the two men were carrying on, as much with their eyes, almost, as with their lips, which hardly moved.

And when were they intending to start, tio Mariano went on. Right away, he supposed; so he had better get his letter off without delay. The Rector assured him, however, it would be out of the question to sail before Easter-Saturday. He would be better pleased to leave earlier in the week, but there was that procession to the Sepulcher with the body of Christ on Good Friday, and he had promised to lead the mob of "Jews." Something he couldn't really miss. Been in the family, years and years—that part in the ceremonies of Holy Week, and many people were waiting for a chance to get it. The hangman's costume he wore for that occasion had belonged to his father.

Though tio Mariano passed for an infidel in town, because the curate never got a red cent out of him on any pretext, he nodded solemn approval of his nephew's pious intention. Quite right, quite right—everything in its own time and place! The Rector and his brother rose to their feet on seeing that the august personages their uncle had been expecting were approaching. They could depend on him, then. Yes, and another talk later on to fix on the last details. Would they have a little something? What? Not been to dinner yet? Well, it would be waiting for them at home, probably! Hasta la vista, chiquets! And the two boys walked slowly off down the deserted sidewalk on their way back to the cabin district.

"And what did uncle say?" Tonet asked casually.

The Rector, who never wasted any words if he could help it, moved his head up and down vertically. Tonet beamed with excited joy. A sure thing, then! Fine! Pascualo was at last on the road to money, and he, well, at least, he could see his way through the summer. The good-natured Rector kept reflecting to himself on what an unselfish fellow his brother was, and almost felt like hugging him. Yes, that boy's heart was in the right place! Fond as could be of him and of Dolores, and he loved little Pascualet as though the baby were his own child! If only their two wives could get along together a little better....



CHAPTER IV

MARY AND JESUS MEET

Though the early morning sky was bright and cloudless, the streets of the Cabanal were rumbling as in a thunderstorm. People jumped out of bed as the crashing almost split their eardrums; and good women of the village, their hair still down and in wrappers hastily thrown on, went out on the sidewalk in front of their doors to see what was going on. The bluish transparency of dawn was barely gilded with the rays of the still invisible sun. But the "Jews of Jerusalem" were on a rampage, banging their harsh cymbals together as they marched along the streets. One would have thought the Calendar had suddenly gone mad and transported Carnival to Easter week. The most grotesque horribles were gathering in the squares. The young folks of the town were out in costume; for the procession of the Encuentro, in the environs of Valencia, is virtually a masquerade.

Far down the long street, what looked like an army of cockroaches could be seen assembling, figures, called las vestas, in tall, black, sharp-pointed hoods, like so many astrologers, or judges of the Inquisition, their cloth masks rolled up over their foreheads, their long black trains hung over their arms, and each with a baton painted black in one hand. Some of the paraders, to add a touch of ingenuity, had slipped white petticoats on, well ironed and pleated, and from under them pairs of trousers protruded with the legs turned up, and, at the very bottom, top-shoes unutterably tormenting enormous feet accustomed to walking bare on the sands.

Then came the "Jews," fierce villains apparently snatched from some lowly stage for dramas of the Middle Ages that could afford only a conventional costume of poor quality. Their induments were what the Valencian populace refers to as its "war trappings," short skirts or kilts, much mottled with spangles, trimmings and lace fringes, like the tunic of the Apaches; helmets topped off with huge cock plumes, arms and legs "armored" with a rude fabric of cotton tufts to give a distant suggestion of mail. To cap the climax of caricature and anachronism, following the vestas and the "Jews," came—tall and handsome fellows all—the "Virgin's Grenadiers," wearing high-fronted caps like those of Frederick's Prussian guards, with black uniforms decorated with silver lace that must surely have been ripped from the caskets in an undertaker's store.

A stranger might have laughed at that naif array had he dared brook the wrath of those solemn boys whose faces all wore expressions of stern professional seriousness. It is never safe to make fun of an army ready to fight; and these "Jews" and "grenadiers" who were to guard the crucified Christ and his mother were carrying, unsheathed in their hands, all the varieties of sword known from the dawn of history to the present time, beginning with the heavy cavalry saber of the ordinary marcher, to the slender, delicate rapier of the drum-major.

Following the march, or keeping up with it along its flanks, trooped the gamins of the town, enviously studying the colorful uniforms. Mothers, sisters and sweethearts looked on admiringly from their doorways: "There he is, there! Do you see him? Reina y sinora! How grand he looks!" The devout procession, like the parade that heralds the coming of a circus to town, seemed to recall to the sinful, backsliding population of the Cabanal that at seven A. M. sharp Jesus and his mother would meet—hence the name Encuentro—in the middle of the Calle de San Antonio, in front of the "Side of Bacon," the tavern of tio Chulla.

As the twilight brightened into the rosy glow of sunrise, promising a warm spring day, the martial uproar about the village grew. There were drums, cornets and brass horns sounding on every hand. An army seemed suddenly to have descended on the Cabanal. The various companies—collas, as they are called—had formed four abreast, and solemn, stiff, and as much admired as soldiers returning from victory, were marching to the homes of their respective captains to collect the banners displayed there—weird standards of black velvet embroidered with the horrifying symbols of the Passion.

The Rector was hereditary captain of the "Jews," and long before dawn he had gotten up and crammed his person into the handsome costume that was kept securely locked in a chest at other times of the year and was revered by the whole family as the treasure of the house. Lord help us! What are we coming to! Every Easter the poor Rector was getting fatter and fatter and finding it a more and more serious task to stuff his corpulency into that tight-fitting "coat-of-mail." Dolores, in her nightgown and with her hair down, was making the tour of his spacious waist, pushing in the stomach here, and stretching the cloth there, to make room for one more cubic inch of husband inside the cotton armor. On the bed sat little Pascualet gazing in amazement and alarm at that helmet with Indian plumes on the man's head and at that menacing cavalry saber which clanked against the walls and the furniture every time the Rector turned around. Could that be papa?

At last the dread toilette was over. Not exactly what you would call comfortable, but they had spent enough time over it. The Rector's underwear, at odds with the stringency encircling it, was all lumpy, and what looked like tumors could be seen standing out under the "Jew's" stockings. And those trousers! They were so tight around the middle that the poor man could hardly breathe. His helmet, far too small for his head, kept slipping forward and bumping on his nose. But this was a day for dignity, not for ease! And the Rector drew his saber, struck up a rub-a-dub-dub in his stentorian voice, and began to stride up and down the room, as though the baby there were a crown prince reviewing guard. His wife's golden, mysterious eyes followed him as he walked back and forth from one wall of the bedroom to the other like a bear in a cage. She was tempted to laugh at those bandy legs; but no—she liked him better in that costume than in the tarred and pitchy clothes he came home from work in at night, tired out and stupid from toil.

And now they were coming! The "Jews" could be heard, with their band, down the street. They would be wanting their banner. Dolores hastily threw a wrapper on, while the captain advanced to the frontiers of his domain to welcome his army. The lurid company drew up in front of the house. The drum-beat softened in tone, but continued to give the rhythm for the privates who stood there marking time, keeping their heads and bodies and legs moving energetically in space but without moving from their positions. Tonet and two other "Jews" came gravely forward, entered the house, and started for the second story, whence the standard was hanging from a window.

Dolores met her brother-in-law on his way upstairs, and instantly, instinctively, she drew the overwhelming comparison. There was a real soldier, a general! Tonet had something about him that distinguished him from the uncouthness and clumsiness of the others—of the other. His legs were straight, and his stockings had no wrinkles—everything in his make-up was stylish, well fitting, sleek. He belonged to the Juan Tenorios, the royal don Pedros, the Henri Lagarderes, she had seen on the stage of the theater of La Marina, reciting verses and fighting duels that had thrilled her to the bottom of her soul.

And now all the collas were off toward the church, their bands and banners in front of them, looking, from a distance, like troops of glossy insects moving up and down in the rhythm of the march. The Encuentro was at hand! Two processions were coming-down different streets. In one was the Virgin, weeping, sorrowful, escorted by her guard of funereal grenadiers; in the other, Jesus, in a showy purple mantle spangled with gold, his hair awry, his face stained with blood, collapsing under the burden of the Cross. The image had fallen on the rocks of painted cork that covered its pedestal. Around the Christ, to prevent his escape, crowded the ruthless "Jews," who, in line with their parts, had marshaled ferocious scowls; and with the "Jews" came the vestas, their masks lowered now and their trains dropped and dragging through the puddles. The whole scene was so dreadful, so awe-inspiring, that children along the road began to scream and to hide in fright behind their mothers' skirts.

Sinor!... Ay, sinor, Deu meu!... the old fisherwomen murmured sympathetically at sight of the bleeding Christ in the clutches of that mob of infidels.

The low-pitched cymbals were clanging meanwhile, and the cornets were shrieking long-sustained, ear-splitting blasts like the bellowing of calves in a slaughter-house. In the midst of the throng of cruel guards marched some tall, well-built girls, with painted cheeks, and in costumes copied from the Turkish maidens of comic opera. They carried water jugs to show they were the Biblical women from Samaria. From their mothers they had borrowed earrings and breast-pins. Their plump legs were ostentatiously exposed in open-work stockings under short Polish peasant skirts. But this was not the occasion for mocking raillery from the men in the crowds.

Among the spectators, to be sure, were a few pale faces and blue-ringed eyes—revelers who had been up all night and, to finish their carousals, had come down from Valencia to witness the famous popular festival. But if such people ventured a smile at any incongruity in the costumes, a soldier of Pilate would step up and raise his saber menacingly, calling them to order in righteous indignation:

"Morrals! Morrals! Hey, there, you pig! This is not a joke! The idea! The most religious ceremony of the coast, and as old as the Cabanal itself! You're no gentleman! You must come from Valencia. But I'll teach you manners, if you don't behave yourself!"

The "meeting" place, on a crossing of the Calle de San Antonio, along which, every now and then, some tiles of curious design had been placed to mark the stations of the march to Calvary, was drawing the bulk of the crowd. Rough, aggressive shore-women, in checkered shawls and with kerchiefs on their heads for hats, were competing restlessly for places in the front line.

Among a group of older ones Rosario was stoutly defending her excellent position on the sidewalk with her elbows and her knees. Had they seen her Tonet? Not a "Jew" in the whole lot to compare with him! And in all this enthusiasm for her handsome husband, the poor woman was still rubbing the bruises he had inflicted on her that morning in the course of getting his costume out and on. But suddenly Rosario felt a rude shove which brushed her aside, while a compact, muscular female body crowded into the place she had been occupying. She looked around. Did any one ever hear of such brazen impudence! It was Dolores, leading Pascualet by the hand! They had at last forced their way through the crushing throng. The comely girl still had her usual pout of disdain as she looked at people and carried herself with her habitual queenly pride. The harlot! Yet how everybody made way for her and fawned upon her in spite of her conceit!

To the exceeding alarm of tia Picores, the two women stood there frowning at each other angrily. Their reconciliation some days before in the ice-cream place had been nothing but a truce. They had promised to be good friends, but without much warmth, and one could see from the looks in their eyes at the time that there would be trouble again soon. Rosario, taken aback by the violence of the push that had displaced her, rested content with a grimace. What nice manners some people had! Some people wanted the earth with a fence around it! Gangway for Her Majesty the Queen! Well, there are people and people in this world! And the wrong sort reveal themselves—you don't have to bother to point them out.

As the pale, sickly woman muttered on, her face grew redder and redder with the intoxication of her own words. Her friends near by kept nudging her, egging her on to stand her ground. Dolores, meanwhile, began to toss her gorgeous head like a lioness preparing to cuff at a hornet buzzing behind her back. However, the processions were debouching into the square, and a wave of expectancy swept over the multitude.

Slowly the two lines of celebrants approached each other, measuring their steps so as to reach the designated spot at exactly the same moment. The sun was darting its first golden rays upon the purple robe of Jesus, the maze of plumes, helmets and upraised swords of the guards—one bright, sparkling brilliancy. From the other direction came the Virgin, bobbing up and down on her throne in rhythm with the footsteps of her bearers, dressed in a black velvet gown with widow's weeds, some big wax tears glistening on her face, and—to catch them, supposedly—a black-bordered mourning handkerchief in her stiff, lifeless hands. She it was who riveted the attention of all the mothers present. Many of them began to weep. Ay reina y soberana! How she must be suffering! A mother finding her boy in a fix like that! Suppose I should meet my boy—do you see him over there, and isn't he handsome?—handcuffed, and on the way to the penitentiary! And I'm only an ordinary mother! The fisherwomen were now groaning and weeping all around the square, not forgetting, meanwhile, to study the Virgin's costume for any improvement or shortcoming as compared with the year before.

The exciting moment was now at hand. The drums ceased beating, the cornets interrupted their dolorous bleating, and the bands were hushed. The images of Jesus and Mary were face to face. A plaintive, tremulous voice began to recite in monotone some stanzas which told how very sad and mournful the whole scene was. Tio Grancha, an aged velvet-spinner, came down from Valencia every year to declaim those couplets, and his art was one of the attractions of the festival! What a voice! How it went to your heart! And that is why a riot almost started when some gamblers in the "Side-of-Bacon" began to laugh at a turn in their game, and people rushed to the doors exclaiming angrily:

"Shut up ... shut up ... you vermin!"

The images tilted back and forth, in symbolic pantomime of desperate and sorrowful farewell!

Meanwhile, Dolores could not take her eyes off the arrogant, elegant "Jew" who contrasted so favorably with his bandy-legged captain. She was standing with her back toward Rosario, but that did not prevent the latter from divining the object of her gaze. And did you see that? A married woman making eyes at a married man, and right in the presence of her husband! And all this in public! And what went on in private, when that Tonet went to her house on the pretext of playing with the baby, and found her alone?

The two processions had now joined and were going back toward the church. The jealous, infuriated woman continued, in a half-audible voice, to hurl her insulting tirade over those broad, exuberant shoulders in front of her—a splendid pedestal for a beautiful head with luxuriant hair. Dolores turned around with a smirk of biting ridicule on her face. Beg pardon! Had all that been for her? When would that dirty scullion stop annoying a lady? Couldn't a person look at a parade without being insulted? And a glitter of gold sparkled with a wicked gleam in the pupils of her sea-green eyes.

Yes, came the reply. It had all been for her, every word! An immoral, impudent wench, who was always eyeing other women's husbands! Dolores laughed contemptuously. Thanks! Rosario could keep her husband, for all she cared. What a jewel he was, besides! She had her own man and that was enough for her. Tonet might do for other women, if they were fool enough to take him on. But for the thief there's nobody in the world but thieves! No, madam, her job in life was not stealing husbands, but slapping the faces of lying gossips who talked too much!

"Mare, Mare!" screamed Pascualet, clinging to the skirts of his beautiful mother, who, her dark skin pale as death, had drawn herself up to her full height preparing to throw herself upon her enemy. Rosario, meanwhile, was struggling to shake off a number of women who were holding her pinioned by her weak, flaccid arms.

"What's going on here? At it again, eh?" It was the harsh, scolding voice of tia Picores, who had interposed her towering form between the combatants. She would settle the row! She knew how to handle those hot-heads. "You, Dolores, home with you! And you, you groveling, lying slanderer, get out of my sight and hearing." And with a shove and a threat, first in one direction and then the other, she put them both to rout.

Lord, Lord, what people! And on Good Friday! On Good Friday! And right in front of Mary and Jesus! God might forgive them, but she wouldn't! The thousandth time! And that's the way they bring up girls nowadays. And when the stern old woman saw that the younger ones were still shouting insults at each other from a distance, she went at them again, shaking her fists and calling them names, till they were dragged away by their partisans.

The quarrel was soon the talk of all the Cabanal. After the services were over there was another disturbance in the household of Tonet, who, without waiting to take his costume off, thrashed his wife within an inch of her life for making a fool of him in public. And the Rector also brought the subject up while Dolores was prying him out of his uniform, and his flesh was gradually resuming its normal rotundity. He was sorry to say so, but that poor Rosario was crazy. Tonet might be all he might be—and it was true that brandy didn't do him any good! Just the same, it was a pity to see him tied to a woman about as easy to handle as a porcupine. But a brother was a brother in his eyes! He wasn't going to break with the son of his own father just to please that fool of a woman! Much less at that particular moment, when there would be a chance to make a real man of Tonet. Dolores, though hardly yet recovered from the excitement of the brawl, nodded approval to all he said.

And the Rector thought no more about it. He had that little matter on his mind. And, in fact, the following day, just as the bells were ringing for the service of Holy Saturday, while revolvers were being fired in festive celebration about town, and gamins were going from house to house beating upon front doors with sticks, la Garbosa, that leaky death-trap hardly able to keep afloat, with a complete outfit for fishing aboard to make her look like a seiner, raised her huge lateen sail, new and strong and white, and slipped away from the beach of the Cabanal, taking the first sea swells like a time-worn beauty, frilled and painted up to make one last conquest.



CHAPTER V

TWO WOMEN QUARREL

It had stopped raining about daybreak. At five o'clock the street lamps of Valencia were still burning, their flickering lights mirrored red as blood in the puddles of the uneven pavement. The irregular line of housetops was just beginning to stand out against an ashen background of sky brightening with the first glow of morning. The night watch-men were unhooking their lanterns from their stations at the street-crossings and walking off, stamping their chilled feet after wishing a listless bon dia to the pairs of hooded policemen who would not be relieved until seven o'clock. Faint from the distance through the stillness came the whistling of the morning trains leaving the suburbs. The church towers were beginning to clang with the first calls to the mass of sunrise, some of the bells droning and indistinct like the voices of old women, others shrill and high pitched like the chirping of children. From roof to roof—their city quarters—cocks were exchanging strident challenges to battle.

And now the deserted, rain-soaked streets were slowly awakening with the strangely resonant sounds of footsteps, as the earliest risers stepped out upon the sidewalks, though the closed doors and the grated windows still transmitted the subdued murmur of a city in the last heavy breathings of tranquil slumber. The sky was growing gradually brighter as if numberless thin veils were being torn asunder one by one from across the pathway of the invisible sun. A gray, cold pallor was stealing over the darker alleys and side streets, while, like a fade-in on the cinema screen, the contours of the town began to come into clearer view: the fronts of the houses shining from their recent drenching; the eaves dripping with the last few drops of rain; the roofs gleaming like polished silver; the trees along the broader avenues, naked and shorn as brooms, shaking their leafless branches, while water seemed to ooze from their fungus-covered trunks.

The Gas House of Valencia, weary from its sustained labors of a night, was snorting with the last puffs of steam. The huge gasometers were sinking low between their steel girders; and the tall brick chimney was throwing out its final belches of thick black smoke, which spread curling over the field of space in an ever-widening blotch. In the neighborhood of the Sea Bridge, the customs agents, burying their faces in their mufflers, were walking up and down to shake off the damp chill of the morning. Through the windows of the revenue office the clerks who had just arrived could be seen moving their sleepy heads to and fro.

They had been waiting there for the vendors to come into town—a quarrelsome crew trained to haggling and embittered by poverty, ready, for the difference of a centime, to spend a limitless capital of swear-words and insults, and never successful in reaching market without a string of brawls with the guards who laid the duties on their goods. The produce wagons and the milch cows with their rattling bells had gone through before daybreak. Only the fisherwomen were still to come, a noisy flock of witches, dirty, slimy, in rags, making the air ring with their shrieks and wrangling, stinking to heaven with dead fish and all the odors of shore life which clung to their uncouth petticoats.

It was broad day, and the light, now harsh and blue, was throwing every object into a clean-cut outline up against the leaden sky, when, with a lazy tinkle of distant bells, four tartanas hove in view, making their way toward the Sea-Bridge, drawn by wretched nags that seemed able to keep their feet only because the drivers, huddled low in their seats, their coat collars turned up over their ears, kept pulling at the reins. The black bodies of the two-wheeled wagons pitched about over the ruts in the road like old belly-cracked boats tossing at the mercy of the waves. The wagon-hoods showed their reed framework here and there through the rents in their tarred canvas. Plasters of red paste covered some of the smaller holes. The ironwork was squeaky and broken, the breaks repaired with strings. The wheels were splashed and scaly with the winter's mud. Outfits, decidedly, that had seen better days!

The front openings of the wagon-coverings were protected by flaps, painted, for one trace of ornament, at least, in a red, now faded. Looking into the vehicles from behind, where everything was open, the senoras of the Fishmarket, sitting in rows with their baskets, might have been seen, each woman wearing a checkered shawl, with a colored kerchief covering breast and shoulders. So the rickety carts came on, leaving behind them as they passed a sickening stench of rotting sea-life. They tilted alarmingly as one wheel would sink into a deep hole, till the wheel on the other side would find a chasm just as deep, and the hood careened in that direction.

The four tartanas pulled up in front of the office; and down over their steps numberless worn-out shoes, undarned stockings, dirty, protruding heels began to come, under a flutter of skirts caught up in front over yellow petticoats with black arabesques. The baskets were set down in line near the platform of the scales, each covered with a wet cloth. From underneath the strip of canvas shone the silver of a herring or the vermilion of a salmon, or the greenish blue of a lobster's claw, quivering with the tremor of agony. Alongside the baskets lay the bigger fish, broad-tailed sea-bass, their circular jaws wide open, showing the white, round tongues and the dark throats, while their bodies were stretched backward, taut in the contraction of death; and flat, enormously wide skates, their fins spread out on the ground like kites of brown cloth, slimy and viscous to the touch.

The scales happened to be occupied by some out-of-town bakers, good-looking fellows with square leather aprons, their sleeves rolled up, and flour in their hair and eyebrows. They were weighing out bags of fresh, nutty bread, which seemed to bring a fragrance of life into that nauseating ambient of sea-carrion. Waiting for their turn, the fish-women were blarneying with customs men or idlers who stood about looking at the big fish with the curiosity of landlubbers. Meanwhile, other women were coming in on foot from down the coast, carrying their baskets on their heads or by the handles. The group was growing in numbers every minute, and the line of baskets now reached clear from the scales to the bridge.

The officials were getting bad-tempered with that snarling, loud-talking mob of harpies who wore them out every morning with their quarrelsomeness and unreasonable haggling. Every one of them shouted at you as if you had no ears, reenforcing every other word with an interjection from that inexhaustible store of epithet native to the shores of the Mediterranean. Rivals, on meeting here again after a set-to on the beach the day before, would revive the passions of the unsettled argument, annotating insults with obscene gestures, emphasizing accusations with cadenced slapping of hands on thighs, or lifting clenched fists above their heads as if they were about to strike. And then, when you would think of calling the police, if not the undertaker, laughter, suddenly everywhere, as though the hens in a big hen coop had started cackling all at once! Some one of the combatants had scored with an unusually cutting or scurrilous phrase!

The bakers were slow in getting off the scales; so gibes began to rain on them; and they, for their part, were not the men to accept such taunts in silence. Indecencies, blasphemies, slanderous genealogies began to fly back and forth, though the deadliest thrusts seemed to rouse only friendly grins and guffaws.

Outstanding in the thickest of the riot, and the center of most attention, stood Dolores, la del Retor, as comely as usual and better dressed than any of the others, carelessly leaning against a corner of the office shanty, her arms folded behind her back, her magnificent bust thrown forward, smiling with satisfied complacency at the interested glances that reached her tan shoes and the red stockings so blatantly advertising her well-shaped ankles. At the sharpest jokes she heard she opened her luscious lips and her man-eating jaws wide enough to show two rows of strong, even, pearl-white teeth that gave a suggestion of marble luminousness to her darkish features.

A girl of "prestige," obviously—and why not? A solid cuff in that plump right hand of hers, and a tongue in her head, I can tell you, when she had a mind to use it! The wife of Pascualo el Retor, besides, a good-natured fat-head who ate out of her hand and never dared peep inside his own house; but all there, when it came to making a living out of the sea—a pot of money, earned, every cent of it, by good, honest, straightforward fishing.

All this Dolores knew. And that, doubtless, was why she stood there with the self-possession of a Grand Duchess, surveying that dirty-mouthed, dirty-clothed rabble of the Fishmarket, and perking her lips disparagingly when some one noticed her real pearl earrings, or the Algerian scarf, or the red-flannel petticoat from Gibraltar the Rector had given her! In fact, the only woman she thought quite her class was "Granny" Picores, agueela Picores, a veteran of the Fishmarket, a whale of a woman, mastodontic, who cowed every policeman in the market with one glare from her incinerating eyes, or one bellow from that cavernous mouth of hers, the center upon which all the wrinkles in her face converged.

"Cristo, when will you fools be through!" Dolores finally shouted at the bakers, her seductive arms akimbo. And the husky young men, moving a little slower than usual, if anything, answered in kind, but tossing their salacious repartees in the direction of the fish-hags who lined up around the scales with hands folded over protruding abdomens and adding a grotesque enlargement to those already conspicuous bulges. But at last the weighing of the fish could begin: "Hey there, me first, you——!" "No, my turn, you——!" "You were first yesterday!" The usual morning fight for precedence was on, waiting for arbitration by tia Picores, with her cannonading voice and formidable obscenities. But Dolores had not joined the squabble—she even missed the place her basket held, by rights, in the line. Something on the bridge had caught her eye; and, in fact, over the side rails of that structure the head and shoulders of a straggler could be seen advancing slowly, staggering along under the weight of a heavy load.

An expression of diabolical cruelty overspread the handsome countenance of Dolores; and when the laggart fish-woman had reached the nearer end of the bridge, near the customs office, the girl burst into an insolent, ridiculing laugh. She touched agueela Picores on the arm:

"Look, granny, late as usual. And what can you expect from a mess of lazy-bones like that!"

Rosario grew pale as death, and it was with a sigh of faintness and fatigue that she set her basket on the ground. She looked at Dolores, with what hatred her exhaustion could let gather in her eyes. Then she sat down on the burden she had been carrying. For a second the two enemies surveyed each other from head to foot, their year-long resentment boiling up within them.

Dolores wiped her nose with an arm, snorting, as at a pinch of snuff. "Yes, I'd sit down, if I were you, mud-puppy. God, when Tonet was taking a wife, why didn't he get a woman!" Rosario did her best to parry the flood of insults: Sit down? Why not sit down—since God had given her something to sit on and she had a place to put it! Besides, an honest woman need not be afraid to be seen walking. She couldn't hire a coach-in-four—by playing fast and loose with her husband! "And it's me you're talking to!" exclaimed Dolores, stepping forward with blood in her eyes. But she did not go far. For her "Granny's" clawed talons were upon her shoulder, pulling her back. "Into the cart with you! Your fish is weighed! No public scenes to-day! It's late, and they want their orders up in the Market! Of all the loving pairs of sisters!..." And the old Tartar was now in front of Dolores, thrusting the girl back toward the tartana with bumps from her huge stomach. But the beauty's lips were trembling white with emotion, though she obeyed; but with one foot on the step of the cart, she hurled back one parting shot:

"Tu, ya se vorem, Rosario!"

Have it out later? Of course they would. You say when, Dolores! And Rosario, her arms really so weak and flaccid, laid hold on a heavy basket in an impulse of rage and tossed it like a pebble on to the scales.

The clouds from the night's storm were burning off with the advent of the sun, which was making a triumphant entrance upon the day, rolling its molten gold horizontally over the streets, gilding the puddles, and painting the house fronts and window-panes with the reddening brilliancy of a conflagration. The town was now quite awake. The street-cars were crowded with people, and the sidewalks on either hand were lined with still drowsy laborers on their way to work, their lunch baskets hung over their shoulders and cigar butts in their mouths. Pairs of relief horses for the police were being driven through the street by boys riding bareback on one of their two steeds.

Servant girls were tripping along toward market. Street sweepers were busy at work on the mud the rain had washed into the gutters, where cows at intervals were being milked. The sheet-iron coverings of store windows were being raised, letting the light in upon the colorful displays inside. Through open doors the scratching of brooms on floors could be heard, while clouds of dust came driving out, making Jacob's-ladders of the sunbeams.

When the tartanas reached the Pescaderia the women porters there hurried out to meet them and help the sailors' wives unload. Servile before these latter, whom they regarded as bosses, they trooped in line through the narrow cell-like doors of the fish-portico, fetid air-holes, through which the stenches from inside poured out. The baskets were dumped on the marble flooring and the fish arranged in line on beds of seaweed. On every hand were trundles of big fish and barrels where the "produce" of the day before was packed in ice.

Across the market was another line of vendors, dressed in costumes like those from the Cabanal, but more miserable in appearance, if anything, and with more repulsive faces still. They were the women of Albufera, a strange concentration of poverty and degradation, housing in wretched shanties a people that lives among the reeds and mud of the lake marshes, fishing in the murky, shallow waters from black, bluff-bowed boats that look like coffins. On these ashen, weather-beaten features indigence was drawn in its most ghastly outlines. Every eye was aglow with the wild gleam of fever; and the odors that came from clothes, here, had not the vigorous pungency of the open seashore, but the subtle nausea of swamp land and the infectious muck of stagnant pools. The bags these women were emptying on the tables were squirming masses of life. As the eels came out they twisted into rings of black slime, or wriggled on their white bellies, or lifted their pointed heads like snakes. Nearby, whitening, dead, lay the fresh-water fry, tench, for the most part, insufferably noisome, glittering with the subdued metallic luster of poisonous tropical fruit. Here, too, was a higher and lower caste in misery, for the least fortunate vendors of this section had seats, not at the tables, but on the floors, whence they were offering frogs strung on sticks with their four legs distended.

Business was just beginning in the Fishmarket. The customers were coming in, and mysterious signals were flying back and forth among the stalls mixed with strange words from the jargon of the fish-mongers. The inspectors were outside! As fast as possible false scales vanished under aprons or petticoats. Meanwhile, old and grimy knives were slitting the silvery bellies of the fish, the guts falling hap-hazard under tables or counters. An occasional dog would come running by, sniffing at the offals lying around and with a snort of disgust passing on toward the neighboring porticos, where the butchers were holding forth. The fish-women who had been playfully twitting each other an hour before in their tartanas or at the customs house now sat watching each other, whenever a marketer came along, with hostile jealousy. An atmosphere of struggle, of relentless competition pervaded the ill-smelling, reeking environment. The women kept calling off their fish in shrill, piercing tones, or beating on their dirty scales to attract the attention of some possible purchaser. Smiles and quaint greetings of endearment would welcome the housewife as she came up; but if she found prices too high and passed on, a deluge of filthy epithet would follow after her, and the insolent ridicule would be taken up by the whole crew of vendors, instinctively standing together against the buyer.

Tia Picores, towering with the majesty of a battle-scarred whale in her tall armchair, sat twitching her wrinkly mustached lips and frequently changing position to get the full warmth of the brazier she kept daily burning at her feet till full summer-time. As a veteran of the market, she had her regular trade and did not try overmuch to attract new customers. Her delight it was to take the lead in spitting curses upon the grumbling townswomen who went in person to do their shopping with their maids; and her drawling voice always had the last word in the disputes that went on. Her hair-raising obscenity and the apothegms from her philosophy of shame, which she got off with the solemnity of an oracle, were the principal sources of mirth throughout the portico. The stall across the aisle in front of her belonged to Dolores, who worked with her sleeves rolled up, playing with the bright, gilded scales she owned or showing her beautiful teeth in coquettish smiles when men came by. For many gentlemen in town went marketing by themselves, filling their neat, red-edged baskets at her counter for the pleasure of a chat with the charming girl. Rosario, two tables beyond tia Picores, was busy putting the freshest of her wares to the fore. The two girls were thus face to face, though they avoided each other's eyes disdainfully, each turning her back when the other one looked her way, though immediately afterwards they would be staring impudently and angrily at each other again.

It was not long before a pretext for their daily quarrel was available. A man had stopped at Rosario's counter and was bargaining, when Dolores, with a vigorous rapping on her scales and one of her prettiest smiles, enticed him in her direction. "Thief! Thief! He was my customer—one of my best! And you've taken him away! I sell fish, I do; but you sell ...!" And the pale, bony cheeks of the frail, overworked Rosario flamed red with spite and her gleaming eyes flashed fire. Dolores, drawing herself up to her most crushing height of haughtiness, seemed to sniff with her chubby but handsome nose: "Huh! Thief! Never mind about thieves, darling! People here know who I am; and they know who you are; and if they come to me ..."

The outlook for an interesting morning in the market suddenly improved. The fish-women brightened on every hand, even neglecting their custom to crane their necks and take in everything that was going on. With smiles of amusement, the customers began to crowd around, while the inspector, foreseeing what was coming, prudently slipped out, though he had scarcely begun his rounds. Tia Picores, in despair at such everlasting quarrelsomeness, contented herself with a resigned invocation to heaven. "Thief is what I said," Rosario resumed. "And everybody knows it. You want everything I've got, and I can prove it. Here you steal my customers and down at the Cabanal you steal ... well, you steal ... something else ... something else.... She's not fooling me, I can tell you, even if she is pulling the wool over her husband's eyes ... dolt that he is, fool of a Rector, who don't know his chin from his elbow." But Dolores was not moved from her patronizing self-possession. She could see from the faces of the onlookers that every one was wondering how she would take those allusions to herself and her good-natured husband; and she was not going to let the Fishmarket have a day's fun at her expense. "Close your mouth, deary, before you slip and fall into it! Don't be bitter! You can't have all the men there are. You're envious!" "Me, envious!" Rosario retorted. "Envious of your reputation, I suppose,—the best in the Cabanal, as even the lamp-post knows! Thanks! I'm a decent woman, I am, I never tried to get another girl's husband!" "And whose husband could you get with that sculpin-face? No, dearest, no one is jealous of you!" And Rosario, growing paler than ever, sunk her nails into her clenched hands, while Dolores, her fists on her hips, wreathed her delicious countenance in a smile, which seemed to serve for volumes of insults.

The joy of combat had taken possession of the whole portico. Idlers had gathered in throngs at the doors. The fish-women were leaning far forward over their counters with the eager appetites of furies, clacking their tongues as though they were sicking two dogs upon each other and banging on their scales to applaud each cutting thrust. It was time for Dolores to fall back on the ultima ratio of a fish-woman's contempt.

"Look, Rosario! Don't talk to me! Talk to this!"

And she turned squarely around and, bending slightly, registered a resonant slap on the pair of spacious hips that trembled under her calico skirt with all the elasticity of her firm flesh.

This trovata had immense success with the audience. Women fell from their chairs in the contortions of laughter. The tunny-men in the near section doubled up in the gripes of joy, while the hilarity found its outer boundaries in the meat-market, stalls and stalls away. Staid gentlemen from town set their baskets down to do full justice with their clapping hands to the beauty and the wit of the inimitable Dolores.

But the triumph of the Rector's wife was of short duration. As she looked around to see the effect her blow had had, a handful of sardines struck her full in the face. Rosario was blind with fury. "Come out of that stall! Show your face out here where I can get at you, you low-lived street-walker!" And Dolores did show her face. Rolling her sleeves up still higher, as though clearing for action, she strode forth from her stall, her eyes aglow with the enthusiasm of combat. Toward her Rosario came running, brushing aside the arms that tried to restrain her, aquiver with rage from head to foot and shrieking curse on curse.

They met in the wet, slippery passageway between the two lines of counters. Head down, the smaller woman rushed full tilt into her taller and sturdier antagonist. It was a shock of nerve on muscle. Dolores was scarcely stirred, and the blows Rosario rained on her did not seem even to ruffle her temper. Answering in kind, she began to deliver the most merciless slaps upon the pale, bony cheeks of her assailant, which grew red under the punishment.

But suddenly Dolores shrieked in agony and raised both hands to one ear. "The dog! The dog!" she cried.

Rosario's fingers had closed over one of those pearl earrings that had been the admiration of the Fishmarket. She had torn it out. The pretty girl began to sob, pressing her torn ear under both her hands, while blood streamed through her fingers. "Was that the way to fight fairly?" she moaned. That showed the kind of woman she had to deal with. People had gone to jail for life for less than that! Then, whipped to a violent rage by the pain she felt, she started once more for her enemy. But the fish-women had gathered round her, petting and consoling her, and they held her back. Tia Picores, meanwhile, was spitting oaths and insults into the face of Rosario, who stood there pale, fainting, in fright and horror at what she had done.

Above the crowd outside the portico the top-knots of several policemen had appeared. The forces of law and order were trying to elbow their way into the throng. Sh ... h ... h! Tia Picores assumed command. "Back to your stalls, everybody! And mum's the word! Those pretty boys will be in here with their summonses and their papers! Nothing's the matter, remember, everybody, nothing happened at all!" Some one threw a big handkerchief over the bleeding ear of the wounded girl. The women were all in their places looking straight ahead as solemnly as in church, and calling off their prices with laughable mechanicalness. As the officers passed from counter to counter the market was again in turmoil, but of a different kind. "What are those dudes doing in here? Some people never know where they belong. What's the idea? Just butting in, eh, lolly-pop!" And the police marched out as wise as they had entered, chased away by the drawling voice of tia Picores—who could never understand how people allowed such a government of thugs and grafters to exist among honest people—and marking time to the banging of metal scales, which all began to clatter as a parting salutation.

The market returned to its usual routine. The vendors were busy with their custom. Rosario, like a sphinx in dudgeon, stood upright and stiff behind her counter, indifferent to the passing trade, spots on her cheeks and temples turning black-and-blue from the buffets they had received. Dolores kept her back turned toward her enemy, but she was doing her best to stifle the cries that her pain was almost tearing from her. Tia Picores seemed to be in a thoughtful mood, as she talked aloud and in monologue to the fish lying about in front of her. And those spit-fires would keep at it for the rest of their lives, eh! I kill you or you kill me! Fine! And all over a man! Men! Men! As though there weren't enough hogs in the world to go round! But she would put a stop to it, she would. Any more of their nonsense and she would thrash them, thrash them both, by God! And perhaps they didn't think she could! Well, she would see!

Distractedly she seized the lunch that the char-woman brought at eleven o'clock—a roll of black bread with two dripping chops—and she swallowed it in a few hurried mouthfuls. Then, wiping her furrowed face with her dirty, greasy apron, she walked over to her niece's stall, planted herself with arms folded in front of it, and began her lecture.

That business had got to stop, if you please! The family of tia Picores could not be the talk of the Fishmarket all the time. It had got to stop! She had made up her mind, and when tia Picores made up her mind to a thing, she got what she wanted, even if God himself got in the way, even if she had to lick half of Spain to get it. Tia Picores had a bit of a temper herself when she got really mad. What had just happened would be nothing, nothing, compared to the fuss there'd be when she set out on the warpath. Those girls would have to make up!

"No, no!" Dolores groaned, clenching her fists and shaking her head decisively.

"No, no! No, no!" mimicked tia Picores. "What's the meaning of that? No, no! No, no! Like it or lump it, but you make up, you make up! The idea, such a scandal in the family! And lucky you are in the family, both of you. That gives you a chance to make up. She tore your ear? Now, now, Dolores, think of those blows you gave her on the face. Tit for tat, with tit having a little the best of it. There's a good girl now! No, no—no use arguing ... you just mind your auntie!"

And thence the fish-woman passed to the table of Rosario, where her language was stronger still. And Rosario called that being a lady? A mad dog, rather, a mad dog, yes—not to use the real word! "Don't you look at me like that, you jackanape, or I'll give you this pair of scales over your head, I will! That's what I get for being nice to you two brats. That's the way you treat an old friend of your mother! Well, now, Your Highness, this nonsense is going to stop, and stop here—just because I say so, I! Look at that poor Dolores over there, crying because her ear hurts so. Is that the way decent people fight, pulling each other's ears off? Only sneaks fight like that—sneaks, do you hear? When you fight, you fight straightforward and honest. Strike as hard as you want, but where it won't do any harm. Man alive! In my time I've pulled the hair of every wench in the market. You get their skirts up, and you take your shoe, and there, where it's all soft and tender, whack, whack, whack, till they have to sit on one side for a week. But after that ... a cup of chocolate in the cafe, and then ... better friends than ever. Yes, sir, that's the way respectable people fight. And that's what you are going to do, if I have to lick you every inch of the way. You won't, eh! Well, we'll see! Dolores is stealing your man, eh! Ten thousand fleas on the good-for-nothing, anyhow! Excuse me, the girls don't chase the men. It's the men that chase the girls. Listen to me, dearie. If you want that man of yours to mind his business, you just keep things going at home right and proper. Keep him busy! Keep him busy! Then he won't go browsing around where he don't belong. Dios! such girls as are growing up nowadays. As much brains as so many geese. I'd like to see a man of mine with enough to him to have anything to spare for other women! Anyhow ... this mess is all over. You're going to make up ... because I say so, if not for a better reason.... Otherwise tia Picores will take a hand...."

And with a mixture of threats and words of endearment the sturdy dean of the fish-women went muttering back to her place, to sell the rest of her stock.

Work was over early that day. There was quite a demand for fish in town, and the counters were emptying by noontime. The vendors began to sweep their leavings into kegs of cracked ice and to cover them with damp cloths. The teamsters were collecting their baskets, large and small, and piling them up in the tails of their rickety tartanas. Tia Picores was putting on her checked shawl and chatting, in the middle of the portico, with a group of old women of her time who went shares with her in paying for a wagon. She still had that matter of the two girls on her mind; and as soon as everything was ready for the drive home she made for their stalls, and pushed and pinched till she had brought the rivals together.

Dolores and Rosario, unable to resist the brow-beating of the terrible woman, stood with lowered heads, as though deeply humiliated at what was going on, but not daring to say a word. "We're going to stop a minute at the chocolate place," tia Picores directed to her teamster; and the company of mottled shawls and dirty skirts went out of the Pescaderia, the flagstones echoing to the clatter of heavy shoes. In Indian file the women crossed the crowded market, where the last bargainings were in progress, tia Picores opening her way through the throngs with her vigorous elbows, behind her the bevy of wrinkly-faced, yellow-eyed veterans, then Rosario with her load of baskets,—for she always went to and fro on foot—and finally Dolores, her ear still smarting cruelly, but able, nevertheless, to raise a smile of pleasure when her pretty brown face, no less winsome under the rude bandage around her head, attracted remarks of appreciation from the men around.

They invaded and occupied the chocolate shop, where they were regular customers. Rosario set her reeking, smelly baskets on one of the marble tables, and the odor of stale fish mingled through the room with the fragrance of cheap cocoa that drifted out from the adjoining kitchen. Tia Picores gave a grunt of satisfaction as she settled into a chair. Chocolate after the day's work was her greatest comfort in life. How well she knew that little cafe, with its striped matting on the floor, its white tiled walls, its frosted glass windows with red curtains; in front of the doors, ice-cream freezers in cork casings with metal covers; the counter, then, with its jars for cookies and sweets, and behind it the proprietor of the place sleepily brushing at the flies with a bundle of long paper streamers fastened to a stick.

And what would they have? Same as usual, of course; a half-pint cup all around, and a glass of lemon water apiece. This would make the fourth chocolate that tia Picores had downed that fore-noon; but the stomachs of those tough daughters of the sea were poison proof, and they could sip gallons of that imitation "Venezuela" with the gusto of sybarites. Nothing to beat chocolate! Drink a lot of it if you wanted to last beyond your apportioned three-score and ten! And eagerly the aged cronies sniffed at the bluish steam that was rising from the plain white cups before dipping pieces of bread into the muddy paste and raising them, dripping brown, to the toothless caverns of their mouths. The two girls sat there, however, barely touching the good things in front of them, their chins on their breasts and avoiding each other's eyes. But when tia Picores's cup was almost empty her thundering voice came out to change the situation. "Did you ever see such a pair of sillies! Still mad, still mad! Well, well, the girls in the Market these days are not what they used to be! Once their faces are out of joint, there's no ironing them out again! Mad once, mad for always, eh! Couldn't be worse if they were tony folks up town! No, there's something wrong with the hearts of girls nowadays. And if you don't believe it just see here. Is there one of you at this table that at some time or other hasn't had her hair pulled or her face slapped by me? No! Not a one. What's more, I'll bet that if any one of you were to show the place you sit on, you'd find the scars of where I beat you with a hob-nailed shoe. No? Well, there you are! And we've never been better friends, and we're ready to stand by when any one of us gets into trouble. And that's the way for people to be. Quick-tempered? Very well. But ready to make up afterwards, like honest Christians. Leave your grumps at the door and have a cup of chocolate, say I. And that's what my old ma said, in her day. And that's what the Fishmarket people always said. 'Don't swallow hard feelings! Throats are made for chocolate, white bread and quinset,' as the old song runs:

'Pesar, d'asi no has de pasar. Chocolat, bollet, y got de quinset!'"

And although the glasses they had before them were not of "quinset," since the season for ices had not yet come, all the old women, to show their approval of the philosophy expounded, drank their lemon-water instead with gulps and gapes of satisfaction. Tia Picores, meanwhile, was getting angry at the steadfast balkiness of the two rivals. "Well, now, speak up, numskulls! Haven't you tongues in your heads? You're going to stick to it, I suppose. You think I am talking just to hear myself talk. Well, you're wrong. See here, Rosario, what have you got to say? You're the most to blame. Come now."

The poor little woman sat there with her head still lowered, playing in her embarrassment with the ends of her shawl. She muttered something or other about her husband, and then said slowly: "If she promises ... to keep him away!"

Dolores started like a shot.

"Keep him away! What do you take me for? A scarecrow, to keep people away from the house? That fine husband of yours, I'll have you know, is my husband's brother. You expect me to shut the door in his face and spit fire at him when he comes around? But, after all, what do I care?... I don't want to be quarreling all the time, and be made the talk of half Spain. All those stories about me and Tonet are lies of people who don't know how else to make trouble in a good family.... Tonet went with me before Pascualo and I were married. Well, was it wrong to marry his brother? Bosh! Was I the first to do a thing like that? Well, why else should people talk? No ... all I want is to be let alone, and not be plagued all the time. Keep Tonet away, no. I won't be mean to him. However, if I have seemed to be too intimate, I'll be more careful in the future, even though he's one of the family ... just so people will have no reason to say anything ...!"

Tia Picores beamed. "Now, that's the way to talk! Some heart in that girl after all, come now! Well, Rosario! Are you satisfied at last? There's a good girl! One smack, and bygones are bygones!"

Reluctantly, the women actually pushing the two heads toward each other, the girls kissed, but without rising from their chairs. Tia Picores, in the full flush of triumph, could not work her tongue fast enough. "The idea of two women fighting over a man, as if there were only one in the world! And that's just what the rascals want you to do, sillies. Every time you quarrel over a man his stock goes up, and he thinks he's got so much more hold on you. No, indeed, women have got to stand their ground, good and hard, the way I did. My husband? Why, if he ever went on a rampage, I brought him to order mighty quick, I did; and the first thing he knew he was for asking my pardon. Was there ever a man in the world worth getting jealous over? Not much! Why worry then? Do you ever know where your man is when he is away from home? Of course, you don't. Just take it for granted he is up to mischief, and then forget about it. The less you fret about them, the better they like you. I led my man a song and dance, I can tell you. 'What are you doing in my bed! No, sir, where you spent the summer you can spend the winter!' And out he'd go, in a hurry. No 'dear this,' and 'dear that,' with my man! And he followed me around like a dog. That's the way to keep them tamed!"

Dolores, reserved and on her dignity, kept biting her lip as though she were trying to repress a laugh that was tickling at her palate. Rosario did not agree with tia Picores. No, she lived with her husband like a good wife, and she had a right to expect him to do as well by her. She didn't like quarreling and lying all the time. But the old woman did not let her talk. "All nonsense! Nonsense! Good wife, good husband! Such rot makes me sick! You've got to take men as God made them, haven't you, girls?" And the "girls" assented with approving nods of their aged heads. "Count the men, and you'll get the number of dogs there are in the world! Kick them, and they eat out of your hand! But if you want to keep your husband faithful to you, it's very easy. Just tie him to the foot of your bed, with your petticoat, and never let him out of the house.... So much for men!"

The teamster several times had looked in at the door. "What do you old hens think this wagon is, your private coach?" "What's the matter with you, codfish? What are you paid for?" roared the gentle tia Picores. But on seeing that her comrades were drawing out their "purses," she extended her brown arm over the table majestically. "Put those bags back where they belong! This is all mine, all mine! I'm celebrating to-day. We've put some sense into these girls' heads!" And lifting her skirt and petticoat, she unhooked her own bag from a belt she wore next to her skin. From it came a pair of scissors she used in opening fish with heavy scales; then a knife that was rusty with grime; finally a handful of coppers which she threw down on the table. She sat for some moments counting the sticky money over and over again. Then leaving a pile of coins on the bare marble, she went out of the shop to join her companions, who were already in the cart.

Rosario, carrying her empty baskets, was out on the sidewalk with Dolores. The two girls were looking at each other and did not know what to say.

"Come along with us, Rosario," tia Picores suggested. "We'll be a bit crowded, but we can get you home."

The girl refused, however. "Good-by, Rosario," said Dolores, smiling graciously. "You know, we are friends now." And she climbed in after her aunt. The wagon creaked under these two solid additions to its burden, but finally drove off with a music of squeaking joints and loose wheels. Rosario stood looking after it as if she were awakening from a dream. Could it all be true? Had she really made friends again with that hateful thing?



CHAPTER VI

THE SMUGGLERS

It was deep night; but the beacon on the Cabo de San Antonio, winking with a blinding glare like the eye of a Cyclops, broke the foam curling under the Garbosa's bow into spangles of colored radiance and sent a seething, restless, dancing pathway of fire out over the troubled waters. The adventurers were sailing close in shore before a faint land breeze. To starboard lowered the gigantic battlements of the Point, precipitous, weather-beaten, blackened by storm and sea. Inland against the starlit sky the somber Mongo reared its lofty head.

It had taken a whole day to cross the Gulf of Valencia; but now beyond the Cape the fair road to Algiers was opening, and the Garbosa would soon be out on the deep sea. Astern at the tiller, his eye studying the black outline of the promontory and checking up his bearings on the murky glass face of an old compass of tio Mariano's, sat the Rector, anxiously consulting Tonet, the experienced hand on board, the only member of the crew who had been "across the way."

"Easy as could be. The Cape, and then Southeast, Southeast, without swerving. Set her right, and she'll get there by herself, if this wind holds!"

The Rector gave a pull at the tiller with both hands. The Garbosa, groaning like an invalid turning over in bed, swung around to the course. The gentle swell that had been roiling her slightly from abeam she now caught full under the bow, and she began to pitch, setting the foam aboil. The light now came from dead astern, dousing its white sweep in the rippling wake of the vessel.

"And now for a bit of sleep!" Tonet stretched out on a coil of line at the foot of the mast and pulled a piece of canvas over him. His brother would steer till midnight, when it would be his turn till dawn.

The Rector was now the only one awake on board the Garbosa. The thrashing of the water forward was not loud enough to drown the snores from the crew sleeping almost at his feet. For the first time in his life, Pascualo was uneasy. He could draw a seine in a full gale. He had never thought once of danger in the worst of weather. But now, in his loneliness, he was filled with all manner of forebodings. How was this venture going to turn out? What a responsibility to be in charge of one's own enterprise! Would the old hulk hold together if a storm struck her? Supposing they were caught on the way back with a full load! And he sat on, listening to the agonized moans that came from the Garbosa's joints, as she took the seas, or looking up at the throats of the giant bellying canvas which, as it swayed to and fro, seemed to be scraping the sky with the point of the mast.

But the night wore on uneventfully, and the dawn came, with a flock of red clouds, and as hot as a mid-summer's morning. The sail now kept flapping like the wing of a great bird in lazy flight. The wind was coming in barely perceptible gusts that tickled the surface of the burnished, prostrate sea, as blue as a Venetian mirror. The mainland was completely down. Away off to port some pink blotches, hardly distinguishable from the mist of sunrise, vaguely dimmed the horizon line. "That's Ibiza off there!" Tonet called to his companions. Slowly the Garbosa crept along over the tranquil, circular immensity, beyond whose rim black lines could occasionally be seen—the smoke of distant steamers. A bare ripple under the vessel's bows marked her virtual immobility. The sail hung lifeless from the mast, sweeping back over the deck at times as a capricious zephyr headed the course. Looking down over the sides, the eye plunged deep into the blue waters, where the sky, the clouds and the boat were mirrored in bottomless mystery. Schools of fish darted by underneath, shining like bits of tin. Dolphins were playing about on the surface close at hand, showing their absurd muzzles and their black sides sprinkled with diamond dust. Flying fish, the butterflies of the sea, came up, flitted along for a distance, and then sank again into the depths. Strange beings of fantastic shapes and indescribable colors, some gayly striped like tigers, others in mournful black, some huge and chubby, others small and wiry, some with cavernous mouths and tiny bellies, others with enormous bodies and ridiculous little snouts, swarmed around the old boat, as though the Garbosa were one of those mythological craft that used to lead processionals of marine divinities.

Tonet and the two sailors were taking advantage of the calm to fish with hand lines. The "cat" was busy forward with the midday meal. The Rector was pacing the narrow deck astern, scanning the horizon and swearing for wind. The Garbosa was eating her way slowly along, but to all appearances she might have been nailed to the surface of that placid sea. Now, in the distance, a schooner was visible, caught in the calm, her sails sagging, east-bound, for Malta or Suez, probably. Great steamers occasionally slipped past along the horizon line, their funnels smoking, their decks almost level with the water from the loads of Russian wheat they were carrying from the Black Sea to the Straits.

And the sun rose high in the heavens. The waters shone with a dazzling glare as though boiling from an infinite conflagration. The decks of the Garbosa grew hot, and her old timbers cracked stridently as they shrank. Captain and crew ate dinner under the shade of the sail, scooping with their spoons in the same spot, drinking deep draughts from the wine jug to cool their parched throats, their shirts open in front, sweating in streams, panting from the lifeless sultry calm, enviously watching the gulls that sailed by just above the water, as though afraid of the stifling muggy air on high. After their meal, the men walked about on deck for a time, lazily, and with heavy eyes, drunk with sunlight rather than with wine; then they went below, one after the other, throwing themselves flat on boards that were wet with bilge-water, and sagged under the slightest weight. So the afternoon, and another night went by.

At dawn the wind freshened, and the Garbosa, like an old war-horse touched with the spur, leapt forward, careering and dancing over the ruffled waters. About noon clouds of smoke began to rise along the horizon ahead, and gradually from the girdling sash of green sky, thick steel masts with battletops, the towers of forts, it seemed, came into view, and under them, floating castles painted white, spotted black with thousands of men, going this way and that through their own smoke, now forming in squares, now stringing out along the whole horizon—a flock of Leviathans, churning the water with invisible fins.

Algiers could not be far away! That was the French Mediterranean squadron, out for practice. God, what big boats people were making nowadays! The smallest of those monsters, the white cruiser, with all those flags and black balls, that kept going in and out among the other ships, signaling and directing the evolutions, would only have to graze the Garbosa to reduce her to kindling wood! And those black pipes sticking out of the turrets! One sneeze from those snouts, and it would be all day with the Rector's outfit and part of to-morrow! The smugglers studied the fleet with the uneasy respect a pickpocket has for a squad of policemen marching by.

About three o'clock, a dark irregularity, something like the arched back of a whale, rose on the horizon ahead! Land! And Tonet, who remembered having seen it before, called it the Cabo de la Mala Dona, the farthest outpost of the coast. Algiers was more to port! The breeze was freshening every moment. The swelling lateen sail, as the boat heeled, described a saucy curve on the tilted mast The prow went merrily up and down, throwing a lively spray from the chop. The Garbosa, old horse, was smelling her oats, and bolting along the last lap to the stable, though every bone in her strained!

They were heading East-Southeast now; and by evening-fall, on the flanks of the Mala Dona, indistinct still in the haze to starboard, could nevertheless be seen the rolling tops of hills, and white blotches that meant villages. Then, as the boat continued its rapid flight, these faded from view, but the coast itself was up, ahead. The Garbosa hugged the shore. With night, the saw-toothed crest of a ridge of mountains, climbed up against the sky; and the wind veered to southward, blowing off the land, warm, and fragrant with the perfume of an enchanted country. Low in the west hung the new moon, a real Oriental crescent, fine drawn with curving points—just as you saw it embroidered on the standards of the Prophet, or shining from the weathervanes of Mahometan minarets! That was what you called being in Africa! The beat of the surf was audible from the Garbosa's decks, and even calls from Moors ashore there in the fields. Clusters of lights could be made out along the coast—towns off there! Then, the sky above the end of the mountain chain to the Eastward began to grow ruddy; the sea broke inland in a capricious curve; and soon many, many lights began to glow. Algiers!

In three hours they were in the roadstead. Now there were lights, of varied grouping and intensity, everywhere, hundreds of them, winding along in a serpentine course to mark a seashore boulevard. The Garbosa, luffing slightly, shot round a promontory, and the city itself, in all the splendor of a Levantine port, was before them. Cristo, never mind flor de mayo and alguilla! It was worth the trip to see just that! And folks bragged about the harbor at the Grao! The humble fishermen stood there mouths agape; with the exception of Tonet, of course, who had seen many better things in his trip around the world! The water of the great bay was absolutely calm. A red and green beacon marked the entrance to the basin. The city climbed a hill in the background, the houses shining white even in the dark, from the millions of lights that suggested a festival. What a waste of gas! Long snaky stripes of color came out over the surface of the water, flecked here with the harbor lights of a merchant vessel, there with the distinguishing marks of a man-o'-war. Off in this direction was the European city—the brightest section, the restaurants and bazaars all lighted up, while the black ant-like forms of people, and the canvas-tops of swiftly moving vehicles, could be seen on the streets. And what a strange mixture of sounds! Music from the cafes, trumpet calls from the barracks, talking and shouting from the boulevards, cries from boatmen on the water—the blended murmurings of a cosmopolitan city of trade, cheating all day long for the money it wastes in pleasure after sundown.

The Rector could not indulge in the ecstasies of wonderment too long. His mind went back to business. The men of the crew were gathering in the sail preparatory to lying to. Faithful to tio Mariano's instructions, Pascualo took a piece of tarred cable, set fire to it, and began to describe circles above his head, in series of threes, marked off by hiding the torch behind a piece of canvas which the "cat" held up in front of it. The signal was repeated many many times, the Rector meanwhile gazing steadily at the darkest part of the water-front. Tonet and the others stood around watching the operations curiously. Finally a red lantern gleamed on shore. The "market" had understood the message. They would soon be off with the cargo.

The Rector explained the fine points of all this signaling. It wasn't wise to take on a load inside the basin. Tio Mariano knew, from experience, that detectives were always on the watch there, ready to telegraph the name and description of any boat likely to be smuggling. These spies got a percentage on the profits of the confiscation. It was better to load up outside, and at night. By morning they would be off again, with absolutely no one the wiser. Then they could make Valencia without any trouble at all. For, who the devil would ever guess, at home, what they had on board? And the good-natured fisherman laughed at his own shrewdness, though, inside, he rather admired the wily uncle who had given him all this good advice.

And the Rector waited, his eyes anxiously fixed on the water in the direction from which the red light had shone. Tonet and the two sailors were sitting on the bow, their legs dangling over the water. They were hungrily studying the brilliantly lighted town. Rosario's husband had been stationed at Algiers once, and he had all sorts of stories to tell about his gay escapades about the city. He could even point the places out from the lights in front of them. They could actually hear the music from one of the cafes, where he had had such a time, such a time! The "cat" opened his mouth from ear to ear, and his eyes gleamed excitedly. He could almost see the wonderful dancing girl the great man was describing. That long straight avenue there, leading from the pier—all arches, and a light under each one, so that it looked like the nave of a church with candles—was the Boulevard de la Republique, where the really swell places were. Only officers from the navy went there—absinthe, mostly—with rich Moors—you ought to see the big turbans they wore—and Jew merchants, with silk tunics, dirty usually, but of fine colors. The streets leading off it also had arches and pretty shops. Over there was the Plaza del Caballo where the principal mosque was—a big white building—and a lot of those Moor lunatics went there, all washed and barefoot, to pay respects to that fake of a Mahomet. You could even see the little tower of the place from the boat. Well, at certain times of the day, a fellow in a turban got up there and waved his arms and shouted like a crazy man. And madames, all along, well dressed, and waddling in little steps like ducks, with a mersi for every compliment you dropped them! And soldiers, with date-palm hats, and trousers big enough for a whole family to get inside them; and lots of fine fellows from every country, who had gone there to get away from the police! A drinking place every two doors, with tables out on the sidewalks, and absinthe in big glassfuls!

Tonet had seen it all himself, and described everything with gestures or grimaces that vividly pictured each episode and kept his companions laughing noisily. And up there was the Moorish city. They remembered that alley just off the market at the Grao where you brushed the wall on each side with your elbows? Well, that was a mile wide compared to the holes those Moors crawled through, always uphill, the eaves coming almost together overhead, and a stream of slop running down over the steps in the pavement. You needed to have plenty of liquor aboard and your nostrils plugged before you walked in front of the shops up there, rotten filthy dens where those dark-skinned devils squatted smoking in the doorways, muttering God knows what in that lingo of theirs. But you could live like a king with those people, yes, sir, and for very little, provided of course you didn't mind seeing people eat with their fingers after rubbing them in the dirt! You got a whole meal for a couple of cents, a pair of red painted eggs like you saw at home at Easter, and tea in cups the size of egg-shells,—and you could go to sleep if you wanted to, on the couch of some Moorish cafe there, to the sound of a flute and the banging of tambourines.

And then the women! Little Moor girls, their cheeks all painted up, their finger-nails stained blue, and queer tattooing on their breasts and backs; and then black ones who worked as masseuses in the baths; and the ladies, finally, with veils over their faces till all you could see was their nose and one eye, stumbling along in big fluffy trousers, wearing gold-cloth vests under their shawls, their arms like the show-window of a jewelry store, and all sorts of medals, coins, and half-moons, on their bosoms. "And what eyes! You never saw anything like it, boys! And the shapes they have. I remember once I ran into a big black one—rich, I guess—in a street in the upper part of town. Well, you know how I am—I simply couldn't help it! I just gave her a little pinch from behind. Well, sir, that woman squealed like a sick rat, and now from this direction and now from that a lot of big ugly devils came running with clubs the size of your arm. There was a fellow with me, and we took out our knives and held the gang off till the zouaves came. They put us in the coop for a couple of days, and then the consul got us out. You see," Tonet concluded, looking at his feet with an expression of weariness, "in those days I was rather wild!" But his companions were much impressed with the superiority of a man who had done all that. And they liked the story of the black girl best of all.

The Rector, who was still astern, gave a sudden cry. Some one from shore was coming aboard. And in fact a red light could be seen drawing nearer, and a curious chugging was audible, as if a dog were splashing his way toward the boat. It was the launch from the "market." A fine looking young man with a blond mustache and wearing a blue coat climbed up on deck. In the lingua franca of the African ports, a mixture of Italian, French, Greek and Catalan, he explained just what the situation was. He had received the letter of mosiu Mariano of Valencia, and had been expecting them the night before. He had understood their signal and brought the goods right off; for, even if the French usually winked at such things, it was just as well not to waste any time in getting through.

"All ready, boys," the Rector shouted to his men. "Load her on!"

The launch was piled high with bales, till barely a foot of smokestack was visible over the top. But one by one the heavy bundles began to come aboard, sewed up in waterproof burlap and exhaling a teasing fragrance. The two craft were lashed together so that the transfer was not difficult. As the packages vanished through the hatches of the Garbosa, the old boat got lower and lower in the water, groaning and creaking, meanwhile, like a long-suffering donkey complaining of its load.

The blond Algerian kept looking the vessel over, and his astonishment grew apace. Were they going to put to sea in a trap like that, loaded way down to the water line? The Rector replied with several knocks on his own strong breast to evidence an assurance that he really did not feel. Put it all on, put it all on! The way he figured, with the help of God and the Holy Christ of the Grao, every last bale would be on the shore at the Cabanal within forty-eight hours. The hold was soon full up. The remaining bundles were stowed on the old creaking deck, lashed down and propped with planks so as not to wash overboard. "Well, good luck, captain!" said the young man from the launch, and he shook the Rector's hand warmly.

The vessels were pushed apart, and the launch ran off. The Garbosa spread her sail again, and catching the wind, came around. The lights of Algiers began now to come from the left, and soon they were fading visibly in the distance. Once under way again, the Rector felt a gripe at his heart. Heaven help them, and not send a storm! Fine weather now! But still it was a miracle the old sieve got along at all. Amidships the deck was almost level with the water, and the boat seemed down by the head, and did not take the sea well. Though there was scarcely any chop, the waves came over, forward, as though a storm were running. Tonet, however, with nothing in particular to lose on the venture, made fun of the old-tub—a torpedo-boat he called her, she sat so low in the water!

At dawn the Mala Dona was just visible, as an indistinct silhouette, over the stern, and an hour later they were fairly to sea. Out on the Mediterranean once more, the Rector could hardly believe the cargo he had taken aboard so rapidly during the night could be real. But there the bales were! You could see them! The men, quite played out from the hard work of loading, were sleeping on them. Besides the old Garbosa was crawling along like a mud-turtle from such a burden! But Pascualo liked the look of the weather. A smooth sea and a good breeze! If things held like that, the ramshackle old girl might last to Valencia—but no farther. It wasn't exactly fear. The Rector realized now the imprudence of starting an important venture in a rig like that. His poor old father had made fun of the sea, as he had; but that had not prevented him from being tossed out on the beach one day like a chunk of rotting garbage! But all that day and the following night the breeze continued fair and the sea calm.

But the morning dawned with a sky that was overcast, and the wind came hard in streaks and squalls that were gradually piling up a sea. The Cabo de San Antonio had just come into view, with the mists curling round it. Behind, the peak of the Mongo alone was visible, for the base of the mountain was cloaked in cloud. The Garbosa was running with an alarming list to starboard, its bulging sail almost dipping into the water, as the vessel raced along. The frown of the weather was not at all to the liking of the captain, who, if he wanted to get his load ashore, would not be able to run in till nightfall anyhow.

Suddenly the Rector jumped to his feet and let the tiller go. Futro! There was no doubt about it. A sail had heaved in view out of the mists around the Cape. He knew that craft well. It was the cutter from Valencia on watch off the point. Some one had squealed at the Cabanal! The real object of the Garbosa had been not fishing, but something else! Tonet had also recognized the boat, and he looked at his brother anxiously.

There was still time! Out to sea with her! The Garbosa swung round a little, heading Northeast, away from the Cape. The maneuver was all in her favor, as she now got the wind fairly over the stern quarter, and was eating into the sea like anything, taking every wave aboard over the bow. The cutter was surely after them, for she too came about and followed. A better and a lighter boat with more speed in her! But the Rector saw that the distance between them was considerable. He had a good start. He would run, run, run, damn it, clear to Marseilles if necessary—provided, that is, the old band-box didn't sink, cargo, crew, and all.

At noon the Garbosa had held her own. By that time they must surely have been as far up as Valencia. Suddenly the cutter changed her course, and turned shoreward, abandoning the chase. The sly devils! The Rector understood what they were up to. The weather had an ugly look. The cutter preferred to loaf along the coast, sure that sooner or later the Garbosa would try to get back home and land her booty.

"We'll go them one better," the Rector exclaimed, drawing a deep breath of relief. "We've got to find a place to crawl into, boys! We can't stay another night at sea in a mess of a boat like this. Off for the Columbretas! There's always a place there for an honest free-trader!"

At nine o'clock that night, taking her course from a lighthouse, and groaning and cracking as she bucked into a nasty sea, the Garbosa shot into the Big Columbreta, an extinct volcanic crater, caved in, on one side, leaving a half-circle of steep, wave-eaten cliffs, within which the water is calm, unless the storm happens to be coming from the East. This island, uninhabited save by the keepers of the lighthouse, has not a trace of beach. The abrupt, precipitous walls of lava are too bare to feed a tree, so hot is the sun in summer, so heavy is the air with salt. At their base are piles of pebbles that the storm-surf has rolled on high, with a mixture of flotsam and jetsam and dead fish. Scattered around the larger islet lie the Little Columbretas,—the Foradada, piercing the surface of the water like the arch of a submarine temple, and a cluster of barren rocks, bald, sheer-faced, unapproachable, like the fingers of some prehistoric colossus buried there in the depths.

The Garbosa came to anchor in the pool. No one seemed to notice her presence. The lighthouse people were accustomed to these visits of mysterious craft, which, for that matter, came to this solitary archipelago just because they did not want to be noticed. The sailors could see the lights in the buildings on shore and hear voices even, but they paid no more attention to them than to the gulls that darted rapidly by overhead on the blasts of the gale, wailing like infants in agony. Outside, and on the windward shore of the island, the sea was snarling angrily. As the waves rolled by the promontory they sent great smooth undulations back into the calm of the bay.

As soon as it was light, Pascualo went ashore, and up over a winding trail he found, he climbed the cliffs, to study the looks of things between the islet and the mainland, which still lay invisible in the storm. Not a sail in sight! But that did not reassure the Rector. The Columbretas were notorious as a refuge for smugglers in bad weather. He was sure his pursuers would follow him there. At the same time he was afraid to put to sea again in that leaky boat. Not afraid to die, but how about that load of tobacco, and the money he had put into it! Yes, but stay there, and have the government get it? Not much! To sea, then, even if the whole thing went to the bottom for the sharks to smoke! No coast guard was ever going to brag about getting rich on him!

After the meal at noon time, the Garbosa spread her sail, and left the sheltered anchorage as mysteriously as she had come. She said not even good-by to the lighthouse people who came out on the platform in front of the beacon to see her off. Dios, what a wind! First a slap here and then a slap there! The Garbosa almost stood on her stern end as she was lifted by the first wave, outside; but she staggered free and shoved her nose into the green of the trough that followed, as though she were headed for the depths through one of those gigantic eddies that blinked like treacherous eyes of the abyss. Then, crash! The next comber came full aboard, the water churning into a white roar or atomized in spray, and sweeping aft in cascades over the bales of tobacco, while the crew, soaked to the skin, held on for dear life. Tonet grew pale, and clenched his teeth. He didn't mind bad weather in the right boat; but it was fool business leaving shelter in that God-forsaken punt. But the Rector, pot-bellied numskull that he was, would not listen to reason! The driveling idiot seemed to grow fat on getting people into trouble! And in fact, Pascualo's moon-face was glowing in the excitement of this battle with the sea. At every buffet of the waves he smiled, a purple flush suffusing his features, as though he were rising from a holiday meal. His arms seemed part and parcel of the heavy tiller, and his legs might just as well have been nailed to the deck. As the old Garbosa leapt and lunged, shrieking in every seam from stem to stern as though in panic-stricken agony, the Rector's spherical corpulence scarcely moved at all.

"What's the matter with you fellows?" And he would laugh with the loud bellow with which he applauded funny stories ashore—as soon as he saw the point in them. "Scared? Dios, why don't you wait till we get a breeze? Hardly enough air out this afternoon to catch your breath! Here she comes, here she comes! Brrrmm! Never touched the old girl! If that fellow had gotten us, good-night and good-morning! Anyhow, in the other world every day is Sunday, the parson says! Die young, and the lobsters eat you; die old, and it's the worms! What's the difference! Me for a short life and a gay one! And if need be, we can swim for it. Hey there, here she comes! Brrrrum! Tra, la, la! Missed again!..."