“Well, what ails you?” asked Tiburcio.
Rodrigo gave a short, apologetic laugh. “It–it’s a woman!” He quit rubbing his hand, seeming to realize. “There’s blood,” he added.
“Here,” said Tiburcio, “you keep back, and run if anybody comes. I’m going to strike a match.”
By the flare they saw that it was a girl and that her head was crushed. Kneeling on either side, they peered questioningly, horrified, at each other. Their great sombreros almost touched. Their hard faces were yellow in the flickering light between, and the face looking up with its quiet eyes and dark purplish cleft in the brow was white, white like milk. With one accord the two men turned and gazed upward at the tower, whose black outline lost itself far above in the blacker shadows of the universe. They understood.
Tiburcio shrugged his shoulders, a silent comment on the tragedy from its beginning to this, its end. He threw the match away and arose, but Rodrigo still knelt, leaning over her, holding the poor battered head in his hands, half lifting it, and trying to look again into those eyes through the darkness. He would touch the matted hair, as if to caress, not knowing what he did, and each time he would jerk back his hand at the uncanny, sticky feeling. Roving thus, his fingers touched an 172ivory cross, and closed over it. With no present consciousness of his act, he placed the symbol in his jacket, over his breast.
Tiburcio touched him on the shoulder. “I’ll go now, and bring her father,” he said.
“Yes,” returned the other vaguely, stumbling to his feet.
“It’s going to kill the old man,” murmured Tiburcio, “or–God, if it should not kill him! He is a coward, but once he slapped you, Rodrigo, for so much as looking at her. And now, the Virgin help–may the Virgin help whoever’s concerned in this!–But here, you must go, do you hear?”
“Yes.”
“Then go, go!”