Need I tell what followed? The unequal struggle lasted only a few moments. Soon a fierce shout announced that the murderers had triumphed. The unhappy man still breathed. He was able even to drag himself to the bridge, and, waving the stump of his sword, to dare the assassins to come on. Again surrounded by these villains, he once more fell beneath their blows. By the wan light of the lamp burning for the souls in Purgatory, I saw the men lift a bleeding body and throw it into the canal, the surface of which was for a moment disturbed. A second after, the assassins dispersed, and so rapidly that I asked myself if all this was not a bad dream; but the reality was too evident for me to indulge long in this error. Another incident occurred to prove to me that I was wide awake. A man on horseback issued from the house to which a fatal chain of events had bound me, and in this man I recognized Perico, mounted on the noble animal that I had brought with so much trouble from the hacienda de la Noria.
"Halloo, you rascal!" I exclaimed, "this is too much; you are stealing my horse."
"Señor," replied Perico, with astonishing composure, "I am carrying away a proof which might criminate your lordship."
Such was the lépero's farewell. The spurs driven home, the horse sprang off at a gallop. Without taking leave of any body, I set off in pursuit. It was too late; I only heard in the distance his plaintive neigh and the break of his gallop. These sounds soon died away. I rushed at random down one of the lanes which led to the canal. I wandered a long time in this labyrinth before finding myself in a place I knew, and day was breaking before I discovered my whereabouts. Night had brought its counsel, and I resolved to make a declaration in a court of law about the misfortune I had caused the night before. I went, then, to the juzgado de latras.[12] When I entered the judge had not yet arrived, and I waited in the hall. Fatigue and want of sleep were not long in making me oblivious of all my anxieties, and I fell asleep on a bench. I was retracing in my dreams the extraordinary scenes I had witnessed. I fancied I heard a dull noise about me, then deep silence all at once. I opened my eyes; I still believed myself a prey to the nightmare. A stretcher, covered with a bloody sheet, was laid almost at my feet. A thought passed through me like a flash of lightning. I imagined that I had been recognized, and that, by a refinement of barbarous justice, they were about to confront me with him whose death I had caused. I walked to the end of the lobby; the sight of the bloody sheet became insupportable to me. I gradually reassured myself, however, and, arming myself with courage, went and raised a corner of the covering. I had no difficulty in recognizing the victim. His pale, handsome face, and forehead marked with a long, slender scar, had left too deep an impression in my memory. The marshy plants and green slime which soiled his clothes reminded me of the theatre of the crime. This was the man I had seen die so valiantly, and whose loss, I knew, would be so tenderly bewailed. I let the sheet fall over his noble face.
I hasten to terminate this too long story. Twenty days had passed. No attention seemed to have been paid to the unfortunate accident of which I had been the innocent cause, and nothing remained of my nocturnal adventures but an invincible horror of the whole tribe of léperos, when I received an order to appear before a strange alcalde. A man about forty years of age, as much a stranger to me as the alcalde, was waiting for me at the bar.
"Señor," said this man to me, "I am the lamplighter whom your lordship almost killed; and as this accident has kept me from work for a fortnight, you will not take it ill if I ask you to make it up to me."
"Certainly not," said I, delighted to know that I had not to reproach myself with the death of any body. "How much do you ask?"
"Five hundred piastres, señor."
I must confess that this exorbitant charge immediately changed my pleasure into anger, and I could not help mentally consigning the lamplighter to the devil. But these feelings cooled down almost immediately; and the alcalde advising me to compound with the man, I was glad to be let off for a fifth part of the sum demanded by the lamplighter. After all, if my studies had been too expensive, the experience I had gained had its value, and I regretted nothing that Perico had extorted from me, not even the noble horse which he had so ingeniously appropriated.