"Come, little slayer of bulls," they shouted, "and show us what you would have taught the people of America."
And it appeared they were not to be disappointed in their expectation of sport. They saw that when he stood before the bull and made a little mocking bow of salute, he looked into its small, furious eyes with a smile, as it drew near--a bellowing black ma.s.s, snorting and throwing up the dust. It was as ready to begin as he. It rushed upon him, and he was gone. He played with it, led it on, defied it, eluded it. The flashing sword seemed to become a score of glittering blades; the people shouted--rose in their seats--leaned forward--laughed--mocked the bull--cried out praises of sword and man and beast--of each leap--each touch of the steel"s point.
"He plays with it as if it were a little lamb," they cried. "Sebastiano!
Sebastiano!"
Of what use to tell what must be seen in all its danger to be understood? The joy and exultation rose to fierce fever-heat, the cries swelled higher, faces flushed and eyes sparkled and flamed, while the brilliant figure darted, leaped, attacked, played with death as it had done scores of times before.
Only Pepita sat without color or applause--only Pepita"s fan was motionless amidst all the fluttering--though her breast moved up and down, and the throbbing in her side was like the beating of a hammer.
She was speaking to herself, though her lips were closed; she was speaking to Sebastiano.
"He will look soon," she was saying. "He will look as he did that first day. My eyes will make him look. They will force him to it. Listen!
it is Pepita whose eyes are on you. You must feel them. You have not forgotten. No. And it is Pepita--Pepita!"
All the strength of her body and soul she threw into her gaze--all the fire of her young wildly beating heart and throbbing pulses.
"You must hear," she said. "Pepita! Pepita!"
And unconsciously she leaned forward so that her white face and great eyes, and the little black head with the rose burning in its hair, stood out among the faces of those about her.
And he looked up and saw her, and their eyes met; and without knowing she started to her feet.
No one knew, no one but herself saw, how it happened: even she did not understand until all was past. Their eyes met, as they had done on the day a year before. No, not as they had done then, but with a strange new look. Sebastiano started; the arena swam before him; there was a second--a fatal second in which he saw only a small face without color and the red rose which was the color of blood. Then there was a roar near him--a roar among the people--a wild shriek from the women. The bull was upon him; he made a misstep, and was caught, amid the shrieks and bellows, and flung inert far out upon the hoof-trodden dust with the blood pouring from his side.
"But," they said in the wine-shops at night, "when they took him up, though they thought him gasping in death, he had not lost himself; and as they carried him out they came upon a girl--the one who is called "the pretty sister of Jose"--her brother was taking her away. She looked like one dead three days; and Sebastiano--there is a man for you!--tore the _devisa_ from his shoulder and dropped it at her feet; and she s.n.a.t.c.hed it up--all wet with his blood--and thrust it in her breast, and dropped like a stone. It is said that he loved her, and she had a devil of a temper and treated him badly. He is a good fellow--her brother Jose--and wept like a child for Sebastiano, and has begged to be allowed to nurse him, and Sebastiano will have it so."
"I am strong as an ox," Jose had said, weeping. "I can watch like a dog.
I want neither sleep nor food, if it comes to that; and once when one of my comrades fell from a scaffold I was the only one who could nurse him without killing him with the pain. He will tell you that I nursed him well, and was never tired."
"Let him stay," said Sebastiano.
In his struggle with death, which lasted so long, it was always the large form and simple, anxious face of Jose he saw when he knew what pa.s.sed around him, and even when the fever brought him delirious visions he was often vaguely conscious of his presence. For himself, he did not know whether he was to live or die; but one night he found out.
It was a beautiful night which came after a long day in which those about his bed had looked at him with pitying eyes, and at last a priest had come and absolved him of his sins, and left him with a solemn, kindly blessing, with a soul clear of stain and ready for paradise.
He had fallen asleep afterward, and had dreamed not of heaven but of earth, of a red rose in soft black hair, and of a pa.s.sionate little face whose large eyes glowed upon him.
And suddenly he was wide awake, and found his dream a living truth.
Jose was no longer in the room. The moonlight made everything clear, and upon the floor beside him knelt Pepita, her eyes fixed upon his.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Dios! Dios! he murmured 163]
"Dios! Dios!" he murmured.
"Hush!" she said. "Do not speak. It is Pepita. Look at me. They said that perhaps to-night you would die. I have prayed until I can pray no more, and when I came to Jose the tears were falling from his eyes, and he said perhaps you would not see the day. Then I showed him the little knife hidden in my breast, and told him if he did not let me come to you alone I would not live. I said I could force you to remain on earth.
I love you--I love you. It has all happened, that which you said would happen; and when the _devisa_ fell at my feet I hid it in my breast with the other which was there before. And because I love you so, you cannot die. I will do anything you say I must do. I am Pepita, and I give myself to you. I would give my blood and my life and my soul for you.
Every night I have waited by the wall in the hope that you would come.
I have watched you when you did not see me. If you had not come I should have killed myself; if you die, I will drive the knife to its hilt in my heart. I can love more than those women who love so easily and so often.
I knew nothing about it when I was so proud and mocked you. I know now.
Mother of G.o.d! it is like a thousand deaths when one cannot see the face one wants. What hunger night and day!--one is driven mad by it!"
She bent more closely over him, crushing his un wounded hand against her heart--searching his soul with her look.
"They said there was a girl in Lisbon whom you loved," she said. "I knew it was a lie."
"Yes," he whispered, "it was a lie. Kiss me on the mouth."
His arm curved itself around her neck, and the red lips which had mocked melted upon his own.
"Did you suffer?" he murmured.
She began to sob like a child, as she had sobbed at the feet of the Virgin.
"I told you that you would suffer! It was the same thing with me. Saints of Heaven! human beings cannot bear that long. I shall not die, and I will make you forget the pain. Stay with me, and let me see your eyes and touch your lips every hour, that I may know you are Pepita, and that you have given yourself to me."
"I will stay through all the day and night," she answered. "They cannot make me go away if I do not wish it. They always give me my way. I have always had it--the Virgin herself has given it to me."
It seemed this was true. In a few months from then the people who strolled in the Public Garden on Sunday looked at a beautiful young couple who walked together.
"There are two who are mad with love for each other," it was said.
"Sebastiano and his wife. She is the one he threw his _devisa_ to when he thought himself a dead man. They used to call her "the pretty sister of Jose.""