Pale with hatred, the two men faced each other.
"_Pare!_ _Pare!_" Pascualet again called faintly, tugging weakly at the lash that held him to the deck.
The Rector remembered that the child was there. Lowering, silent, grim, he let go the tiller, drew his knife from his belt, and cut the sash about the little fellow"s waist.
"And now" ... he said, "that life-belt!"
But Tonet made an obscene gesture, and started to put the jacket on.
"You dog!" Pascualo cried. "I must speak, at last, tell you what I think of you, in just two words! You thought you had fooled me! But it was you I chased last night through the streets of the village. You had been with that foul woman ash.o.r.e there! I am not going to kill you, because we"re going to die together. But this boy here--I used to call him my Pascualet--is not to blame. And I"m not going to let him die. He may get drowned, and that would be almost better for him! But he must have what chance there is! That life-belt, Tonet! For your own boy, the child of your treachery and disgrace! You"re a dog, but you are also a father!
Hand it over, or I"ll cut your throat!"
Tonet smiled an atrocious, cynical smile.
"I don"t say he"s not mine. But it"s everybody for himself!"
He had the life-belt almost on, but he was not quick enough to finish.
His brother was upon him. There was a quick desperate struggle on that pitching, rolling, wave-washed deck.
Tonet fell on his back. Pascualo had sunk the knife twice into his side.
The Rector"s thirst for vengeance had been a.s.suaged!
Blind, not knowing what he was about, he adjusted the life-belt to the boy"s tiny form, picked him up like a bundle of laths, walked astern, and threw him overboard. He saw him floating there for a second, till the crest of a great wave caught him.
It had all been the matter of minutes. The crowd on the point of the Breakwater saw the _Mayflower_ drifting off entirely at the mercy of the storm. The rain suddenly had ceased, and the lightning-flashes were more distant now, though the gale still held furious, and the waves were coming even higher than before. The sailors could not tell, quite, what was going on on deck; but they saw the Rector throw a large bundle into the breakers, that lifted it up, and began to toss it sh.o.r.eward, toward the rocks.
There was one last cry of horror.
The _Mayflower_ had been caught abeam by a huge breaker, and was being turned end over end. She was seen for a second, bottom up, and then she sank, out of sight.
The women crossed themselves. Strong hands laid hold on _sina_ Tona and Dolores, to keep them from leaping into the sea.
Everybody had guessed what that bundle was, floating out there toward the sh.o.r.e. "The boy! The boy!" The sailors could see him now in the life-belt. But he would be smashed against the stones. The two women were screaming for help, though not knowing how it should come nor from whom. Could not the child at least be saved! "The boy! The boy!"
A young man volunteered. To his sash he tied a line held in the hands of the men on sh.o.r.e. He jumped down to the low-lying rocks, and then farther out still, into the water. And he held himself there, against the boiling wash, by sheer strength and adroitness.
The little body came sh.o.r.eward. It was thrown up against a sharp crag and then, to the dismay of the throng, torn loose by another wave.
At last the sailor got hold of it, as a breaker was about to dash it headlong against the wall.
Poor Pascualet! He was laid out on the muddy top of the Breakwater, his face covered with blood, his arms and legs cold and blue, the flesh cut and torn by the sharp edges of the rocks, his tiny form projecting from the big life-belt like a turtle from its sh.e.l.l. _Sina_ Tona tried to warm in her hands the little head whose eyes were closed forever.
Dolores was kneeling at his side, digging her nails into her face, pulling frantically at her luxuriant beautiful hair, her eyes, of the glints of gold, rolling vacantly, wildly, in all directions, while piercing screams went out into s.p.a.ce.
"_Fill meu!_ _Fill meu!_"
To one side, in the crowd of weeping women, Rosario stood, the deserted, the childless wife, tearful in the presence of that anguished motherhood; and from the bottom of her soul she forgave her rival.
And on a rock, there, above them all, indomitable in the face of sorrow, proud and erect as Vengeance herself, towered the ma.s.sive bony frame of _tia_ Picores, her skirts lashing like pennons in the hurricane.
Her back was turned contemptuously toward the sea and the clenched fist she raised was menacing some one way off on sh.o.r.e there, where the _Miguelete_ raised its st.u.r.dy ma.s.s above the housetops of Valencia.
That was the real killer of poor folks, there the real author of the catastrophe! And the sea-witch shook her rough deformed knuckles at the city, while streams of obscenities flowed from her cavernous mouth.
"And after this they"ll come to the Fishmarket, the harlots, and beat you down, and beat you down! And still they"ll say fish comes high, the scullions! And cheap "t would be at fifty, yes, at seventy-five a pound!..."
THE END
WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR
THE FOUR HORs.e.m.e.n OF THE APOCALYPSE
MARE NOSTRUM (OUR SEA)
BLOOD AND SAND
LA BODEGA (THE FRUIT OF THE VINE)
THE SHADOW OF THE CATHEDRAL
WOMAN TRIUMPHANT
THE ENEMIES OF WOMEN
MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
_In Preparation_
THE ARGONAUTS
E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY