“Off with Rafael!” repeated Rodrigo, ridding himself of his satchel. “That is why he did not meet me this afternoon at the Gate of the Pomegranates. Ha! I hear him running now,—but he is alone.”
All three—for Grandfather had wandered away in search of his guitar—turned to face a bareheaded little lad, drops of sweat standing out upon his forehead and the dark red glowing through the clear brown of his cheeks. Suddenly arrested in his rush, he stood gazing up with wide, happy eyes at the father whom he recognized at once, the father for whom he cherished in secret a passionate hero-worship.
“Where is Pilarica?” three voices asked in chorus. But Rafael heard only the deep, stern tone of Don Carlos, and it struck him dumb with dismay.
“What have you done with your sister?” demanded that accusing voice again.
“Why—I—I left her—I left her at the foot of the old Watch-Tower,” faltered the culprit.
“I wanted—I wanted to meet Rodrigo. And then—and then—I—I forgot Pilarica.”
Rafael’s voice sank lower and lower under his father’s gathering frown. That father, accustomed as a naval officer to enforce strict discipline, spoke again with such cutting rebuke that the child before him shivered from head to foot.
“How long ago was it that you deserted your sister?”
“I—I don’t know,” murmured Rafael. “An hour. Two hours. I don’t know. I—I gave my watch to the Gypsy King.”
“The thief that he was to take the poor boy’s treasure!” broke in Tia Marta, nervously trying to divert the father’s wrath. “Those gypsies would rob the Holy Child of his swaddling-clothes, and St. Joseph of his ass. Ay, they would let the young Madonna walk the desert on foot and wrap the Blessed Babe in—”