“Where is she, Don Pablo?”
“In the loft the other side of the yard where my corn and straw was stored when I kept a horse.”
“Perhaps it is not our Pussy,” said Siseta, in her generous desire to save the poor animal.
“Yes, it is, I tell you. She can’t deceive me. The sly thing jumped in this morning through the pantry window and stole a kitte leg hanging there. The audacity! and to eat her own children’s flesh too. I must put an end to her, Siseta. I have already given you a good part of my furniture for the kittens. I have nothing valuable left except my books of medicine. Will you have them in exchange for the cat?”
“Don Pablo, I will take neither furniture nor books, catch Pussy, and, as we are reduced to such extremities, give part of her to my brothers.”
“Good. Andres, do you dare chase the animal?”
“I do think we want such a lot of arms,” I replied.
“But I do. Let us go.”
The doctor and I climbed to the loft, which we entered slowly and warily, for fear we might be attacked by the ravenous beast, probably maddened by hunger and the instinct of preservation. Don Pablo, lest our prey should escape us, closed the door from within and we remained in almost total darkness, since the feeble light which entered by a narrow slit of a window merely illumined the immediate obscurity. Gradually, however, our eyes got accustomed to the murkiness, and we saw that the room was lumbered with a lot of old and broken furniture; above our heads floated dense curtains of spider webs covered with the dust of a century. Then we began to look for the truant; but saw nothing nor in fact any indication of her presence. I expressed my doubt to Don Pablo; but he replied—