“Sing something else, Pilarica,” he entreated, “or else I cannot, cannot wait.”
And Pilarica, with a quick instinct for what would hold his attention, piped up the song by which Spanish children keep in memory the name of a true patriot. By the middle of the second line, Rafael’s fresh treble was chiming in with hers, though his gaze never wavered from the wonder-working fez.
“As he came from the Senate,
Men whispered to Prim:
‘Be wary, be wary,
For life and for limb.’
Then answered the General:
‘Come blessing, come bane,
I live or I die
In the service of Spain.’
“In the Street of the Turk,
Where the starlight was dim,
Nine cowardly bullets
Gave greeting to Prim.
The best of the Spaniards
Lay smitten and slain,
And the new King he died for
Came weeping to Spain.”
“Now! now!” cried Rafael, and whisked the red cap off the stone, which looked—precisely as it had looked before. Not one flake of puffy crust, not one white, tempting crumb betrayed whatever change might have come to pass under that magic covering. The children fell flat on their stomachs on either side of this doubtful substance and first Rafael, then Pilarica, thrust out a red tongue and licked it cautiously. The taste was gritty. Rafael tried to take a bite, but his white young teeth slipped helplessly off the flinty surface. The boy squatted back on his heels, his small fists clenched, and glared darkly out before him.
“Perhaps one of the others—” faltered Pilarica.
“They are all alike,” interrupted Rafael, in a voice harsh with mounting anger. “They are stones, just stones, and they always will be stones. I knew it all the time.”
“Our rolls are very, very hard once in a while,” ventured the little girl again, but this remark was met with scornful silence.
“Or I might hunt for a toad,” she persisted, dismayed by Rafael’s sombre stare. “Toads are much softer than stones, and perhaps—”
But the boy had bounded to his feet and was stamping furiously upon the magic cap.