José ceased singing, but went on playing. Although a printed page of music meant no more than so many black lines and dots and rings to his untutored mind, he was a musician to his finger-tips, and he could expound to others in tones many an emotion which he could not express even to himself in words. Unlike most Portuguese performers, whose melodic phrases were short-winded and very conventionally joined together, he was capable of trailing out long-drawn melodies and of welding them into forms of his own. José's huge fingers stroked the strings so subtly that the monk could almost see the eagle urging up, up, up, above the purple serras, above the moon and stars, until it swept on unwearied wings through the gates into the City.
But Antonio could not give himself up to watching the great bird's flight. He was painfully conscious that he and his man were killing the serão. In breaking the bowl he had almost broken poor Margarida's heart; and here was José driving everybody down into the depths of the blues. He glanced apologetically towards Donna Perpetua: but the candle on the trestle-table beside her lit up the unshed tears in her gray eyes so weirdly that he hastened to gaze upon the ground.
José's threnody ended at last, and he stumped back to his place without the slightest acknowledgment of the listeners' chastened applause. From a corner one of the guitarists struck up a lively dance-tune; but his notes sounded so thin after José's that he broke off of his own accord. To save the situation, Antonio plunged in desperately and asked if Donna Perpetua knew any riddles.
Yes. Donna Perpetua knew several.
"Who is it," she asked, "that knows the hour but not the month; that wears spurs but never rides a-horse; that has a saw but isn't a carpenter; that carries a pick-axe but isn't a quarryman; that delves in the ground but gains no wages?"
Antonio could not guess: but his ignorance was covered up by a general shout of "The cock!"
"Good," cooed Donna Perpetua. "Now explain this: 'Before the father is born the son is climbing up to the roof.'"
"Smoke!" roared everybody.
"What is born on the mountain," she continued, "and comes to sing in the house?"
The shrill voices of the old women were loudest in the chorus of "A spindle!"