Teresa was as sad as she had been upon the death of the little one.
Every time that she saw her husband cleaning the double-barrelled shotgun, changing the cartridges, or making the trigger play up and down to be sure it would work smoothly, there arose in her mind the image of the prison, the terrible tale of old Barret; she saw blood and cursed the hour in which they had thought of settling upon these accursed lands. And then came the hours of fear on account of the absence of her husband, those long afternoons spent awaiting the man who did not return, going out to the door of the farm-house to explore the road, trembling each time that there sounded from the distance some report from the hunters of sparrows, fearing that it was the beginning of a tragedy, the shot which shattered the head of the father of the family or which would take him to prison. And when Batiste finally appeared, the little ones would shout with joy, Teresa would smile, wiping her eyes, the daughter would run out to embrace her father, and even the dog leaped close to him, sniffing restlessly, as though he scented about his person the danger which he had just encountered.
And Batiste, serene and firm, but without arrogance, laughed at his family"s anxiety, and became bolder and bolder as the famous quarrel receded into the past.
He considered himself secure. As long as he carried "the bird with the two voices," as he called his shotgun, he could calmly walk throughout all the _huerta_. When he went out in such good company, his enemies pretended not to know him. At times he had even seen Pimento from a distance, walking through the _huerta_, exhibiting like a flag of vengeance his bandaged head, but the bully, in spite of his recovery from the blow had fled, fearing the encounter perhaps even more than Batiste.
All were watching him from the corner of their eye, but he never heard from the fields adjoining the road a single word of insult. They shrugged their shoulders with scorn, bent over the earth, and worked feverishly until he was lost from sight.
The only person who spoke to him was old Tomba, the crazy shepherd, who recognized him despite his sightless eyes, as though he could scent the atmosphere of calamity around Batiste. And it was ever the same.... Was he not going to abandon the accursed lands?
"You are making a mistake, my son; they will bring you misfortune."
Batiste received the refrain of the old man with a smile.
Grown familiar with peril, he had never feared it less than he did now.
He even felt a certain secret joy in provoking it, in marching directly toward it. His tavern exploit had changed his character, previously so peaceful and long-suffering; awakened in him a boastful brutality. He wished to show all these people that he did not fear them, that even as he had burst open Pimento"s head, so was he ready to take up arms against the whole _huerta_. Since they had driven him to it, he would be a bully and a braggart long enough for them to respect him and allow him to live peacefully ever afterward.
And possessed of this dangerous determination, he even abandoned his lands, pa.s.sing the afternoons along the roads of the _huerta_ under the pretext of hunting, but in reality to exhibit his shotgun and his look of a man who has few friends.
One afternoon, while hunting swallows in the ravine of Carraixet, the darkness surprised him.
The birds seemed to be following the mazes of some capricious quadrille as they flew about restlessly, reflected in the deep and quiet pools bordered with tall rushes. This ravine, which cut across the _huerta_ like a deep crack, gloomy, with stagnant water, and muddy sh.o.r.es, where there bobbed up and down some rotting, half-submerged canoe, presented a desolate and wild aspect. No one would have suspected that behind the slope of the high banks, farther on beyond the rushes and the cane-brake, lay the plain with its smiling atmosphere and its green vistas. Even the light of the sun seemed dismal, as it sank to the depths of the ravine, sifting through the wild vegetation and pallidly reflecting itself in the dead waters.
Batiste spent the afternoon firing at the wheeling swallows. A few cartridges still remained in his belt, and at his feet, forming a mound of blood-stained feathers, he already had two dozen birds. What a supper! How happy the family would be!
It grew dark in the deep ravine: from the pools, a fetid vapour came forth, the deadly respiration of malarial fever. The frogs croaked by the thousand, as though saluting the stars, contented at not hearing the firing which interrupted their song, and obliged them to dive head-long, disturbing the smooth crystal of the stagnant pools.
Batiste picked up his "bag" of birds, hanging them from the belt, and ascending the bank with two leaps, set out over the paths on his return trip to the farm-house.
The sky, still permeated with the faint glow of twilight, had the soft tone of violet; the stars gleamed, and over the immense _huerta_ there rose the many sounds of rustic life which would soon with the arrival of night die away. Over the paths pa.s.sed the girls returning from the city; and men coming from the fields, the tired horses dragging the heavy carts; and Batiste answered their "Good night," the greeting of all who pa.s.sed near him, people from Alboraya, who did not know him or did not have the motives of his neighbours for hating him.
He left the village behind him, and as he drew nearer to his farm, the hostility stood out more plainly with every step. The people hissed him without any greeting.
He was in strange country, and like a soldier who prepares to fight as soon as he crosses the hostile frontier, Batiste sought in his sash for the munitions of war, two cartridges with ball and bird-shot, made by himself, and loaded his shotgun.
The big man laughed after doing this. Whoever tried to cut off his way would receive a good shower of lead.
He walked along without haste, calmly, as though enjoying the freshness of the spring night. But this tranquillity did not prevent him from thinking of the risk he was taking, with the enemies he had, in being abroad in the _huerta_ at such an hour.
His keen ear, that of a countryman, seemed to perceive a sound at his shoulder. He turned about quickly, and in the pale star-light, he thought he saw a dark figure, leaping from the road with a stealthy bound and hiding behind a bank.
Batiste laid hold of his shotgun, and lifting the hammer, approached cautiously. No one.... Only at some distance it seemed to him that the plants were waving in the darkness, as though a body were dragging itself among them.
They were following him: some one intended to surprise him treacherously from behind. But this suspicion lasted but a short time. It might be some vagabond dog which fled upon his approach.
Well, it was certain that whatever it was, it was fleeing from him, and so there was nothing for him to do.
He went along over the dark road, walking silently like a man who knows the country in the dark, and for the sake of prudence does not wish to attract attention. As he approached the farm, he felt a certain uneasiness. This was his neighbourhood, but here also were his most tenacious enemies.
Some minutes before arriving at the farm, near the blue farm-house where the girls danced on Sundays, the road became narrow, forming various curves. At one side, a high bank was crowned by a double row of mulberry-trees; on the other, was a narrow ca.n.a.l whose sloping sh.o.r.es were thickly covered with tall cane-brake.
It looked in the darkness like an Indian thicket, a vault of bamboos bending over the road. It was completely dark here; the ma.s.s of cane-brake trembled in the light wind of the night, giving forth a mournful sound; the place, so cool and agreeable during the hours of sunlight, seemed to smell of treason.
Batiste, laughing at his uneasiness, mentally exaggerated the danger. A magnificent place to fire a safe shot at him. If Pimento should come along here, he would not scorn such a beautiful chance.
And scarcely had he thought of this, when there came forth from among the cane-brake a straight and fleeting tongue of fire, a red arrow which vanished, followed by a report; and something pa.s.sed, hissing close to his ear. Some one was firing upon him. Instinctively he stooped down, wishing to fuse with the darkness of the ground, so as not to present a target to the enemy. In the same moment a new flash glowed, another report sounded, mingling with the echoes still reverberating from the first, and Batiste felt a tearing sensation in the left shoulder, something like the scratch of steel, sc.r.a.ping him superficially.
But his attention scarcely stopped at this. He felt a savage joy. Two shots ... the enemy was disarmed.
"Christ! Now I"ve got you!"
He rushed out through the cane-brake, plunged, almost rolling down the slope, and entered the water up to the waist, his feet in the mud and his arms aloft, very high, in order to prevent his shotgun from getting wet, guarding like a miser the two shots until the moment should arrive when he could safely deal them out.
Before his eyes the cane-brake met, forming a close arch almost level with the water. Before him in the darkness, he heard a splashing like that of a dog fleeing down through the ca.n.a.l. Here was the enemy: after him!
And in the stream-bed, he entered on a mad race, plunging along groping through the shadows, leaving his sandals behind him, lost in the mud: his trousers, clinging to his body, and dragging heavily, r.e.t.a.r.ded his movements: and the stiff sharp stalks of the broken cane-brake struck and scratched his face.
At one moment Batiste thought he saw something dark clinging to the cane-brake, striving to rise above the bank. He was attempting to run away: he must fire.... His hands, which felt the itching of murder, carried the shotgun to his face, pulled the trigger, ... the report sounded, and the body fell into the ca.n.a.l, among a shower of leaves and rotting cane.
At him! At him!... Again, Batiste heard the splashing of a fleeing dog: but now with more effort, as though the fugitive, spurred on by desperation, were straining every effort to escape.
It was a dizzy flight, that race amid darkness, through the cane-brake and water. The two kept slipping on the soft ground, unable to cling to the brake without loosening their hold on their guns; the water eddied about them, lashed by their reckless haste, but Batiste, who fell several times on his knees, thought only of reaching out his arms, in order to keep his weapon dry and save the shot which remained.
And thus the human hunters went on, groping through the dismal darkness, until in a turn of the ca.n.a.l, they came out to an open s.p.a.ce, where the banks were clear of reeds.
The eyes of Batiste, accustomed to the gloom of the vault, saw with perfect clearness a man who, leaning on his firearm, climbed staggering out of the ca.n.a.l, with difficulty moving mud-clogged legs.
It was he ... he! he as usual!
"Thief!... thief! you shall not escape," roared Batiste, and he discharged his second shot from the bottom of the ca.n.a.l, with the certainty of the marksman who is able to aim well and knows he brings down his booty.
He saw him fall heavily headlong over the bank, and climb on all-fours in order to roll into the water. Batiste wanted to catch him, but his haste was so great that it was he who, making a false step, fell full-length into the midst of the ca.n.a.l.
His head sunk in the mud, and he swallowed the earthy, ruddy liquid; he thought he would die, and remain buried in that miry marsh; but finally, by a powerful effort, he succeeded in standing upright, drawing his eyes blinded by the slime out of the water, then his mouth, panting as it breathed in the night air.
As soon as he recovered his sight, he looked for his enemy. He had disappeared.
He came out of the ca.n.a.l, dripping water and mud, and climbed the slope at the same place where his enemy had emerged: but on reaching the top, he could not see him.
On the dry earth, however, he noticed some black stains, and touched them with his hands: they smelled of blood. Now he knew that he had not missed his aim. But, though he looked about, hoping to see his enemy"s corpse, he sought in vain.
That Pimento had a tough skin. Dripping mud and mire, he would go along dragging himself up to his own farm-house. Perhaps that vague rustle which he believed he heard in the immediate fields, as though a great reptile were dragging itself over the furrows, came from him. All the dogs were barking at him, filling the _huerta_ with desperate howlings.
He had heard him crawling along in the same manner a quarter of an hour before, when doubtless he was intending to kill him from behind. But on seeing himself discovered, he had fled on all-fours along the road, in order to take his stand further on in the leafy cane and to lie in ambush without any risk.
Batiste felt suddenly afraid. He was alone, in the midst of the plain, completely disarmed; his shotgun, without cartridges, was no more now than a weak club. Pimento couldn"t return, but he had friends.
And overcome by sudden fear, he began to run, seeking as he crossed the fields the road which led to his farm.
The plain trembled with alarm. The four shots in the darkness of the evening had thrown all the neighbourhood into commotion. The dogs barked more and more furiously; the doors of the farm-houses opened, emitting black figures, who certainly did not come forth with empty hands.