There was silence again for about thirty seconds, then three or four of the children, who had been on the outskirts of the little crowd, edged sheepishly away. They were followed by others. Sard had no time to dodge or hide; any movement of the sort would have betrayed him. He stood where he was, somewhat bent and peering towards Martin’s hut, with his left hand shading his face and eyes. Half-a-dozen people, children and grown-ups, passed him on their way to their huts. They looked at him rather hard, but no one spoke to him. A man and boy, as they passed, looked perhaps harder than the others. After they had passed, Sard heard the man ask under his breath:
“Who was that by the corner of the house?”
The boy said, “Old Ortiz, I thought. Good-night, Ortiz.”
Sard answered and muttered good-night. As he spoke, a couple of lads, who were running, jolted into the two friends and jolted Ortiz out of their minds. Up and down the line of huts people went home and closed their doors. Martin’s wife stood at her door, looking at them. The last to pass was Andrés, who went shambling past, muttering and twitching. Sard heard him mutter, “With my good knife I would have laid him low, I would have laid him low.”
Now from Andrés’ hut came the cry of a woman:
“Where is that creature calling himself a man, to whom the church has bound me in matrimony, who suspects me of infamy? Where is this Andrés, who from the blackness of his heart asperses the whiteness of my honour? Let me see him that I may cast his foul calumny in his teeth. Is it for this, O dog of all the dunghills of Spain, that I redeemed thee from thy life as hangman’s boy and made thee a knight-at-arms?”
Those who had not gone home hurried to watch Andrés receive his wife’s eloquence. Sard saw Andrés enter his home, but then something made him look up suddenly. He saw that Martin’s wife, who had come a few paces from her door, was looking at him with curiosity. It was bright moonlight; no one who looked at him could fail to see that he did not belong there.
“Well, I’m caught now,” Sard thought. “It’s neck or nothing now. Well, the straightest way is the quickest.”
He walked straight up to her.
“Madam,” he said, “I’m not a spy or the police, or anything. I’m lost here in these hills; will you help me out?”