Then the guests departed, and Esteban staggered into the house and went to bed.
All that morning Sebastian stood with his hands chained high over his head. The sun grew hotter and ever hotter upon his lacerated back: the blood dried and clotted there; a cloud of flies gathered, swarming over the raw gashes left by Cueto's whip.
Before leaving for Don Pablo's quinta Evangelina came to bid her father an agonized farewell, and for a long time after she had gone the old man stood motionless, senseless, scarcely breathing. Nor did the other slaves venture to approach him to offer sympathy or succor. They passed with heads averted and with fear in their hearts.
Since Don Esteban's nerves, or perhaps it was his conscience, did not permit him to sleep, he arose about noon-time and dressed himself. He was still drunk, and the mad rage of the early morning still possessed him; therefore, when he mounted his horse he pretended not to see the figure chained to the window-grating. Sebastian's affection for his master was doglike and he had taken his punishment as a dog takes his, more in surprise than in anger, but at this proof of callous indifference a fire kindled in the old fellow's breast, hotter by far than the fever from his fly-blown scores. He was thirsty, too, but that was the least of his sufferings.
Sometime during the afternoon the negro heard himself addressed through the window against the bars of which he leaned. The speaker was Dona Isabel. She had waited patiently until she knew he must be faint from exhaustion and then she had let herself into the room behind the grating, whence she could talk to him without fear of observation.
"Do you suffer, Sebastian?" she began in a tone of gentleness and pity.
"Yes, mistress." The speaker's tongue was thick and swollen.
"La! La! What a crime! And you the most faithful slave in all Cuba!"
"Yes, mistress."
"Can I help you?"