The Blood of the Arena Part 21

And as though he took pains to be agreeable to Dona Sol, he broke out into enthusiastic praises of her family. The Marquis of Moraima was one of the men he most respected in all the world.

"If all the rich were like that! My father worked for him, and told us about his charity. I had the fever in a herder's hut in a pasture of his. He knew it but he said nothing. At his farmhouses he leaves an order for them to give me what I ask and to leave me in peace. Such things are never forgotten. When I least expect it I meet him alone, mounted on his horse like a young fellow, as if he did not feel the pa.s.sing of the years. 'G.o.d be with you, Senor Marques.' 'Greeting, boy.'

He does not guess who I am because I carry my companion"--and he motioned to his carbine--"under my blanket. I long to stop him and ask his hand, not to clasp it, no, not that; how could such a good man clasp hands with me, who have so many killed and maimed to my account? No, to kiss it, as though he were my father, to kneel before him and give him thanks for what he does for me."

The earnestness with which he spoke of his grat.i.tude did not move Dona Sol. So that was the famous Plumitas! A poor man; a mild rabbit of the plains whom all thought a wolf, deceived by his fame.

"There are also bad rich men," continued the bandit. "How some of them make the poor suffer! Near my town there is one that lends money and is meaner than Judas. I sent him word not to grind the poor so, and the vile thief, instead of paying attention to me, told the civil guard to catch me. Well, I burned a barnful of straw for him and I did other little things to him and it has been over half a year since he has dared go to Seville, or even out of the town for fear of meeting Plumitas.

Another one was going to turn out a poor little old woman because for a year she hadn't paid the rent of the miserable hut she had held ever since her father's time. I went to see the _senor_, just at nightfall, when he was going to sit down to supper with his family. 'My master, I am Plumitas, and I need a hundred _duros_.' He gave them to me and I went to the old woman with them. 'Grandmother, take this; pay that Jew; what is left over is for you and may it serve your good health.'"

Dona Sol contemplated the bandit with more interest.

"And killed?" she asked. "How many have you killed?"

"Senora, let us not speak of that," said the bandit gravely. "You would feel repugnance for me and I am only a poor, unfortunate, persecuted fellow who must defend himself as he can."

A long silence fell.

"You know not how I live, Senora Marquesa," he continued. "The wild beasts fare better than I. I sleep where I can, or I do not sleep at all. I get up in one end of the province to lie down in the other. One must keep his eye well open and his hand firm so they will respect and not betray one. The poor are good, but poverty is an ugly thing and turns the best bad. If they hadn't been afraid of me they would have handed me over to the guards many times. I have no true friends but my mare and this"--holding up his carbine. "Suddenly I feel a longing to see my wife and babies, and I enter my town at night while all the people who recognize me open their eyes wide. But some day it will end wrong. There are days when I get tired of being by myself and I need to see people. Long have I wanted to come to La Rincona'. Why should I not see at close range the Senor Juan Gallardo, I who appreciate him and have often applauded him? But I always saw you with many friends, or else your wife and your mother and the children were here. I understand that; they would have been scared to death at the mere sight of Plumitas. Now it is different. This time you came with the Senora Marquesa, and I said to myself: 'Let's go and greet those fine people and chat with them a while.'"

The peculiar smile that accompanied these words seemed to recognize a difference between the bull-fighter's family and the lady, and made it clear that Gallardo's relations with Dona Sol were no secret to him.

Respect for the legitimacy of matrimony dwelt in the soul of this poor countryman, and he felt that he was authorized in taking greater liberties with the bull-fighter's aristocratic friend than with the poor women who composed his family.

Dona Sol paid no attention to these words and besieged the highwayman with questions, wishing to know how he had come to his present state.

"Nothing, Senora Marquesa; an injustice; one of those misfortunes that fall on us poor people. I was one of the cleverest in my town and the workmen always chose me as spokesman when there was anything to be asked of the rich. I know how to read and write. As a boy I was a sacristan and they gave me the nickname of Plumitas because I was always after the chickens to pull out their feathers for my writings."

A rough caress from Potaje's strong hand interrupted him.

"_Compadre_, the minute I saw thee I guessed that thou wert a church rat or something like that."

Nacional held his peace, respecting these confidences, but he smiled slightly. A sacristan converted into a bandit! What things Don Joselito would say when he told him that!

"I married my wife and we had our first baby. One night a couple of guards came to the house and took me outside the town to the threshing-floor. Some shots had been fired into a rich man's door, and those good gentlemen were determined that it was I who did it. I denied it and they beat me with their guns. I denied it again and they beat me more. To abbreviate, they kept me till daybreak, beating me all over, sometimes with the barrel, sometimes with the b.u.t.t-end, until they were worn out and I lay on the ground senseless. They had me tied hand and foot, and beat me as if I were a bale of goods. And all the while they kept saying to me, 'Art thou not the bravest man in the town? Come on, defend thyself; let's see how far thy brags can carry thee.' This was what hurt most, their jibes. My poor little wife cured me as best she could, but I never rested, I could not endure the remembrance of those blows and jibes. To abbreviate again, one day one of the guards was found dead on that same threshing-floor and I, to avoid trouble, took to the mountains--and I have lived there to this day."

"Boy, thou hast a good hand," said Potaje with admiration. "And the other?"

"I don't know; he must be somewhere in the world. He left the town; he asked for transfer in spite of his bravery, but I don't forget him. I have a message for him. I get sudden news that he is on the other side of Spain and I go there; I would follow him even into the very h.e.l.l itself. I leave the mare and the carbine with some friend to keep for me, and I take the train like a gentleman. I have been in Barcelona, in Valladolid, in many cities. I take my place near the jail and I look over the guards that go and come. 'This is not my man, nor this either.'

They have given me wrong information, but it doesn't matter. It is years since I began looking for him, but I shall find him--unless he is dead, which would be a pity."

Dona Sol followed this tale with interest. An original creature was this Plumitas! She had made a mistake in thinking him a rabbit. The bandit became silent, knitting his brows as if he feared he had said too much, and meant to avoid a new outburst of confidence.

"With your permission," he said to the swordsman, "I'll go to the stable and see how the mare has been treated. Wilt thou come along, comrade?

Thou shalt see something worth while."

Potaje, accepting the invitation, went out of the kitchen with him.

When the two were left alone, the bull-fighter and the lady, he showed his ill-humor. Why had she come down? It was foolhardy to present herself before a man like that; a bandit whose name was the terror of the people.

But Dona Sol, pleased with the excellent success of her encounter, laughed at the bull-fighter's fears. The bandit seemed to her a decent man, a poor fellow whose mischievousness was exaggerated by popular fancy. He was almost a servant in her family.

"I imagined him different, but anyway I am glad I have seen him. We will give him an alms when he goes. What an original land this is! What types! And how interesting his pursuit of that civil guard all over Spain! What a thrilling article one could write about that!"

The women of the ranch lifted off the flames of the fireplace two great frying-pans that shed an agreeable odor of sausage.

"Come to breakfast, gentlemen," shouted Nacional, who a.s.sumed the functions of _mayordomo_ at his master's farmhouse.

In the centre of the kitchen stood a great table covered with a cloth, on which were placed round loaves of bread and numerous bottles of wine.

Plumitas and Potaje and several farm hands answered the call, the overseer, the farmer, and all those who filled places of greater trust.

They began seating themselves on two benches placed along the length of the table, while Gallardo glanced undecided at Dona Sol. She ought to eat upstairs in the rooms set apart for the family. But the lady, smiling at this suggestion, seated herself at the head of the table. She enjoyed rustic life and thought it interesting to eat with these people.

She was born to be a soldier. And with a manly air she invited the _matador_ to be seated, dilating her nostrils with a voluptuous enjoyment of the savory odor of the sausages. A very rich dish! How hungry she was!

"This is right," sententiously remarked Plumitas, looking over the table; "the masters and servants eating together, as they say was the custom in olden times. I have never seen it before." And he seated himself near the _picador_, without letting go of his carbine, which he held between his knees.

"Move over, _guason_," he said, shoving Potaje with his body.

The _picador_, who treated him with rude _camaraderie_, answered with another shove and the two strong fellows laughed as they pushed back and forth, amusing every one at the table by their horse-play.

"But, d.a.m.n it!" said the _picador_. "Get that blunder-bus out from between thy knees. Dost thou not see that it is aiming straight at me?

An accident may happen."

The bandit's carbine, resting between his knees, was pointing its black muzzle at the _picador_.

"Hang that up, _malaje!_" he insisted. "Dost thou need it to eat with?"

"It's all right where it is. Never fear," answered the bandit shortly, frowning as if he did not like to hear any comments upon his precautions.

He grasped his spoon, scooped up a great piece of bread, and impelled by rural courtesy, glanced at the others to make sure that the moment for eating had arrived.

"Good health, gentlemen!"

He attacked the enormous dish that had been placed in the centre of the table for him and the two bull-fighters. Another like it steamed farther down for the farm hands. Suddenly he seemed ashamed of his voracity, and after a few spoonfuls he stopped, thinking an explanation necessary.

"Since yesterday morning I have tasted nothing but a crumb and a little milk they gave me in a herder's hut. A good appet.i.te!"

He attacked the plate again, winking his eyes and working his jaws steadily. The _picador_ invited him to drink. Intimidated in the master's presence, he gazed wistfully at the bottles of wine placed within reach of his hand.

"Drink, Plumitas. Dry grazing is bad. It should be moistened."

Before the bandit accepted his invitation the _picador_ drank, and drank deeply. Plumitas only occasionally touched his gla.s.s after much vacillation. He was afraid of wine; he had lost the habit of drinking it. He did not always get it on the plains. Besides, wine was the worst enemy of a man like him, who must live wide awake and on guard.

"But here thou art among friends," said the _picador_. "Consider, Plumitas, that thou art in Seville, beneath the very mantle of the Virgin of Macarena. There is no one to touch thee. And if by chance the civil guards should come, I would put myself at thy side, I would grasp a spear, and we wouldn't leave one of those lazy devils alive. A little more and I would be willing to become a free-lance of the mountains!

That has always attracted me."

"Potaje!" admonished the _maestro_ from the end of the table, fearing the loquacity of the _picador_ and his proximity to the bottles.

The bandit, in spite of drinking little, was red in the face and his eyes shone with a happy light. He had chosen his place facing the kitchen door, from which the entrance to the plantation could be seen, showing a portion of the solitary road. From time to time, a cow, a hog, a goat, pa.s.sed along this belt of land, and the shadow of their bodies, outlined by the sun on the yellow ground, was enough to make Plumitas jump, ready to drop his spoon and grasp his rifle. He talked with his companions at the table, but without withdrawing his attention from what might be outside the door. It was his habit to live at all hours ready for resistance or for flight, making it a point of honor never to be taken by surprise.

After he had done eating he accepted one more gla.s.s from Potaje, his last, and he sat with a hand beneath his jaw, gazing out of the door, dulled and silent by his heavy meal. His was the digestion of a boa, or a stomach accustomed to irregular nourishment by his prodigious gorgings, and to long periods of fast. Gallardo offered him an Havana.