He could hear her laugh triumphantly. She drew back the bolt. The husband arose to his feet slowly; the door was opened.
A cry, the noise of a body falling, oaths, howling, swearing, blows, hoarse voices. Who can describe what took place in the darkness of the bedroom?
The orderly, going out to the kitchen, made a very expressive gesture to the cook.
“And now you’ll catch it!” said the latter.
“I? No, sir. The town will, not I. She asked me if he had gone out, not if he had returned.”
Chapter XXII.
Might and Right.
It was about ten o’clock at night. The last rockets lazily soared into the dark sky, where paper balloons shone like new stars. Some of the fireworks had set fire to houses and were threatening them with destruction; for this reason men could be seen on the ridges of the roofs carrying buckets of water and long bamboo poles with cloths tied on the ends. Their dark shadows seemed descended from ethereal space to be present at the rejoicings of human beings. An enormous number of wheels had been burned, also castles, bulls, caraboas and other pieces of fireworks, and finally a great volcano, which surpassed in beauty and grandeur anything that the inhabitants of San Diego had ever seen.
Now the people turned in one great crowd toward the plaza to attend the last theatrical performance. Here and there could be seen the colored Bengal lights, fantastically illuminating groups of merry people. The small boys were making use of their torches to search for unexploded firecrackers in the grass, or, in fact, for anything else that might be of use to them. But the music was the signal and all abandoned the lawn for the theatre.