“Yes. She came down with a lamp in her hand and watched us.”
His hands stopped working. Very deliberately Marania rose, lifted his parcel and proceeded on his way home, Cesiphos followed him in deep dejection. The servant knew that his master had not accepted his story: yet it was true—every word of it.
They soon reached Marania’s farm. Pabasca was waiting outside to receive her husband. She ran to him with a cry of delight and threw her arms about his neck. He embraced her, at first tenderly, then with passion.
In the meantime, Cesiphos had carried his package into the house and had begun to prepare food for his master. It was with a great effort that he moved his body about, so sick he felt, so dismayed, so full of apprehension. Through the open door he saw his master and mistress go to their living-room. He could feel them talking together. For a long time they talked until, suddenly, with blazing eyes, Marania entered, rushed up to his servant and dealt him a heavy blow between the eyes. Cesiphos staggered and fell. He rose, whimpering.
Marania then went to the entrance-door and opened it wide. Pointing with one hand to the door, he seized his servant with the other and violently dragged him into the passage. Still whimpering Cesiphos stumbled into the night. The master whom he had loved and served now hated him.
Marania locked and bolted the door, and returned to his wife.
But though she was weeping he would not comfort her, and that night and for ever afterwards he slept in the room that Cesiphos had occupied.