“Have you town-criers here?” Hi asked.
“It is a newspaper seller crying some special edition,” Don Inocencio said. Pablo, the major domo appeared, with maté for Don Inocencio.
“Pablo, is this shouter in the road a newspaper seller?” Donna Emilia asked.
“Yes, Señora. He announces some murder.”
“Cause Felipe to procure a copy of the paper for me, will you, Pablo?” Don Inocencio asked.
“I will, Señor.”
When Pablo had gone, Don Inocencio rose, with a look of great importance.
“It is quite clear to me,” he said. “Judgment has overtaken the blasphemer already. Some deliverer has stricken Lopez in the moment of his blasphemy. I knew that our nation did but sleep.”
“I trust that no such thing as that has happened,” Donna Emilia said. “Of all the terrible things, to be flung suddenly into death is the most terrible; and for one to die in the very utterance of blasphemy is what no enemy could wish.”
“One cannot think of him as a blasphemer, mother,” Rosa said, “but as a poor madman. And if some other poor madman has mak’d him siccar, I don’t think one should examine the ways of Providence too critically.”