Sisa seemed to have taken a blow in the face. The ground gave way under her feet.
“This way!” cried a guard.
Like an automaton whose mechanism is broken she turned quickly, and, seeing nothing, feeling nothing but instinct, tried to hide herself. A gate was before her; she would have entered but a voice still more imperious checked her. While she sought to find whence the voice came, she felt herself pushed along by the shoulders. She closed her eyes, took two steps, then her strength left her and she fell.
It was the barracks. In the yard were soldiers, women, pigs, and chickens. Some of the women were helping the men mend their clothes or clean their arms, and humming ribald songs.
“Where is the sergeant?” demanded one of the guards angrily. “Has the alférez been informed?”
A shrug of the shoulders was the sole response; no one would take any trouble for the poor woman.
Two long hours she stayed there, half mad, crouched in a corner, her face hidden in her hands, her hair undone. At noon the alférez arrived. He refused to believe the curate’s accusations.
“Bah! monks’ tricks!” said he; and ordered that the woman be released and the affair dropped.
“If he wants to find what he’s lost,” he added, “let him complain to the nuncio! That’s all I have to say.”
Sisa, who could scarcely move, was almost carried out of the barracks. When she found herself in the street, she set out as fast as she could for her home, her head bare, her hair loose, her eyes fixed. The sun, then in the zenith, burned with all his fire: not a cloud veiled his resplendent disc. The wind just moved the leaves of the trees; not a bird dared venture from the shade of the branches.