Ramon listened, his upper lip lifted and his white teeth showing a little. He held his knife, yet clean and razor-sharp in his hand. There was a babel of confused sounds above; he could distinguish the tones of Luis Fernandez. But the voice of his Dolóres he did not hear again. No matter, he had heard it once and he would go—yes, into the midst of his foes. Escape or capture, Carlist or Cristino did not matter now. She was innocent; she loved him; she had called his name. Neither God nor devil should stop him now. He was already on the staircase. He went noiselessly, for he was bare of foot, having stripped in the river-bed, and left his brown cordovans beside his gun. But before his bare sole touched the hollow of the second step, the one sound in the universe which could have stopped him reached his ear—and that foot was never set down.
El Sarria heard the first cry of a new-born child.
CHAPTER XIII
DON TOMAS DIGS A GRAVE
No Cristino bullet that ever was moulded could have stopped the man more completely. He stood again on the floor of the paven hall, pale, shaking like an aspen leaf, his whole live soul upturned and aghast within him.
And above the youngling blared like a trumpet.
El Sarria was outside now. His knife was hidden in his breast. There was no need of it, at least for the present. He looked out of the gate upon the white and dusty highway. Like the hall, it was vague and empty, ankle-deep too in yet warm dust, that felt grateful to his feet after the sharp stones of the arroyo out of which he had climbed.
Under the barn a woman crouched by a fire near a little tent pitched in a corner, evidently taking care of the tan in the absence of her companions. Gipsies they were, as he could see, and strangers to the place. Perhaps she could tell him something. She called aloud to him, and he went and sat down beside her, nothing loth.
"You are a Gallegan, I see!" said the woman, while she continued to stir something savoury in a pot without appearing to pay Ramon much attention.