An Eagle Flight Part 10

Basilio went on with his projects, talking with the confidence of a child. Sisa said yes to everything. But little by little sleep came back to the child's lids, and this time he did not cry in his dreams: that Ole-Luk-Oie, of whom Andersen tells us, unfurled over his head the umbrella with its lining of gay pictures. But the mother, past the age of careless slumbers, did not sleep.

XVI.

AT THE MANSE.

It was seven o'clock when Brother Salvi finished his last ma.s.s. He took off his priestly robes without a word to any one.

"Look out!" whispered the sacristans; "it is going to rain fines! And all for the fault of those children!"

The father came out of the sacristy and crossed to the manse. On the porch six or seven women sat waiting for him, and a man was walking to and fro. The woman rose, and one bent to kiss his hand, but the priest made such a gesture of impatience that she stopped short.

"He must have lost a real miser," she cried mockingly, when he had pa.s.sed. "This is something unheard of: refuse his hand to the zealous Sister Rufa?"

"He was not in the confessional this morning," said a toothless old woman, Sister Sipa. "I wanted to confess, so as to get some indulgences."

"I have gained three plenary indulgences," said a young woman of pleasing face, "and applied them all to the soul of my husband."

"You have done wrong," said Sister Rufa, "one plenary is enough; you should not squander the holy indulgences. Do as I do."

"I said to myself, the more there are the better," replied young sister Juana, smiling; "but what do you do?"

Sister Rufa did not respond at once; she chewed her buyo, and scanned her audience attentively; at length she decided to speak.

"Well, this is what I do. Suppose I gain a year of indulgences; I say: Blessed Senor Saint Dominic, have the kindness to see if there is some one in purgatory who has need of precisely a year. Then I play heads or tails. If it falls heads, no; if tails, yes. If it falls heads, I keep the indulgence, and so I make groups of a hundred years, for which there is always use. It's a pity one can't loan indulgences at interest. But do as I do, it's the best plan."

At this point Sisa appeared. She said good morning to the women, and entered the manse.

"She's gone in, let us go too," said the sisters, and they followed her.

Sisa felt her heart beat violently. She did not know what to say to the curate in defence of her child. She had risen at daybreak, picked all the fine vegetables left in her garden, and arranged them in a basket with platane leaves and flowers, and had been to the river to get a fresh salad of pako. Then, dressed in the best she had, the basket on her head, without waking her son, she had set out for the pueblo.

She went slowly through the manse, listening if by chance she might hear a well-known voice, fresh and childish. But she met no one, heard nothing, and went on to the kitchen.

The servants and sacristans received her coldly, scarcely answering her greetings.

"Where may I put these vegetables?" she asked, without showing offence.

"There--wherever you want to," replied the cook curtly.

Sisa, half-smiling, placed all in order on the table, and laid on top the flowers and the tender shoots of the pako; then she asked a servant who seemed more friendly than the cook:

"Do you know if Crispin is in the sacristy?"

The servant looked at her in surprise.

"Crispin?" said he, wrinkling his brows; "isn't he at home?"

"Basilio is, but Crispin stayed here."

"Oh, yes, he stayed, but he ran off afterward with all sorts of things he'd stolen. The curate sent me to report it at the quarters. The guards must be on their way to your house by this time."

Sisa could not believe it; she opened her mouth, but her lips moved in vain.

"Go find your children," said the cook. "Everybody sees you're a faithful woman; the children are like their father!"

Sisa stifled a sob, and, at the end of her strength, sat down.

"Don't cry here," said the cook still more roughly, "the curate is ill; don't bother him! Go cry in the street!"

The poor woman got up, almost by force, and went down the steps with the sisters, who were still gossiping of the curate's illness. Once on the street she looked about uncertain; then, as if from a sudden resolution, moved rapidly away.

XVII.

STORY OF A SCHOOLMASTER.

The lake, girt with hills, lies tranquil, as if it had not been shaken by yesterday's tempest. At the first gleam of light which wakes the phosph.o.r.escent spirits of the water, almost on the bounds of the horizon, gray silhouettes slowly take shape. These are the barks of fishermen drawing in their nets; cascos and paraos shaking out their sails.

From a height, two men in black are silently surveying the lake. One is Ibarra, the other a young man of humble dress and melancholy face.

"This is the place," said the stranger, "where the gravedigger brought us, Lieutenant Guevara and me."

Ibarra uncovered, and stood a long time as if in prayer.

When the first horror at the story of his father's desecrated grave had pa.s.sed, he had bravely accepted what could not be undone. Private wrongs must go unavenged, if one would not add to the wrongs of the country: Ibarra had been trained to live for these islands, daughters of Spain. In his country, too, a charge against a monk was a charge against the Church, and Crisostomo was a loyal Catholic; if he knew how in his mind to separate the Church from her unworthy sons, most of his fellow-countrymen did not. And, again, his intimate life was all here. The last of his race, his home was his family; he loved ideally, and he loved the G.o.ddaughter of the malevolent priest. He was rich, and therefore powerful still--and he was young. Ibarra had taken up his life again as he had found it.

His prayer finished, he warmly grasped the young man's hand.

"Do not thank me," said the other; "I owe everything to your father. I came here unknown; your father protected me, encouraged my work, furnished the poor children with books. How far away that good time seems!"

"And now?"

"Ah! now we get along as best we can."

Ibarra was silent.

"How many pupils have you?"

"More than two hundred on the list--in the cla.s.ses, fifty-five."