When he had done eating, he accepted another glass from Potaje, the last, and remained with his chin on his hand looking out silently and sleepily.
Gallardo offered him an Havana cigar.
"Thanks, Seño Juan. I do not smoke, but I will keep it for a companion of mine who is also out on the mountain, a poor fellow who appreciates a smoke even more than food. He is a young fellow who had a misfortune, and who now helps me when there is work for two."
He put the cigar away under his jacket, and the remembrance of that companion, who at that time was certainly wandering not very far off, made him smile with ferocious glee. The wine had warmed Plumitas, and his face had become quite different. His eyes had an alarming metallic lustre, and his chubby face was contracted by a spasm which seemed to alter his usual good-natured expression. One could guess also a desire to talk, to boast of his exploits, to repay the hospitality received by astonishing his benefactors.
"Have any of you heard what I did last month on the road to Fregenal? Do you really know nothing about it?... I placed myself on the road with my companion, because we had to stop the diligence, and settle with a rich man, who remembered me every hour of his life—an important man that, accustomed to move alcaldes, officials and even civil guards at his will—what they call in the papers a cacique.[92] I had sent him a message asking for a hundred duros for an emergency, which made him write to the Governor of Seville, and start a scandal even in Madrid, making them persecute me more than ever. Thanks to him, I had a brush with the civiles, in which I got wounded in the leg, and not content with this, they put my wife in prison, as if the poor woman could know her husband's doings. That Judas did not dare to leave his village for fear of meeting Plumitas, but just at that time I disappeared. I went on one of those journeys I told you about, and our man gained confidence enough to go to Seville one day on business and to set the authorities on me. So we waited for the return coach from Seville, and the coach arrived. The companion, who is a very good hand for anything on the road, cried 'Halt!' to the driver. I put my head and my carbine in through the doorway. There were screams from the women, yells from the children, and the men, who said nothing, were as white as wax. I said to the travellers: 'I have nothing to do with you, calm yourselves, ladies; your good health, gentlemen, and pleasant journey.... But make that fat man get out.' And our man, who had hidden himself among the women's petticoats, had to get out, as pale as death, looking bloodless, and staggering as though he were drunk. The coach drove off, and we remained alone in the middle of the road. 'Listen here, I am el Plumitas, and I am going to give you something to remember me by.' And I gave it. But I did not kill him at once. I gave it to him in a certain place I know, so that he should live twenty-four hours, and that he should be able to tell the civiles when they picked him up that it was Plumitas who had killed him, so that there should be no mistake and no one else should take the credit."
Doña Sol listened, intensely pale, with her lips compressed by terror, and in her eyes that strange light which always accompanied her mysterious thoughts.
Gallardo frowned, annoyed by this ferocious story.
"Every one knows his own business, Seño Juan," Plumitas continued, as if he guessed the matador's thoughts. "We both live by killing; you kill bulls, I kill men. The only difference is that you are rich and carry off the palm and the beautiful women, and I often rage with hunger, and if I am careless I shall be riddled with shot, and left in the middle of a field for the crows to pick. But all the same the business does not please me, Seño Juan! You know exactly where you have to strike the bull for him to fall to the ground at once. I also know exactly where to hit a Christian so that he shall die at once, or that he should last a little, or that he should spend weeks raging against Plumitas, who wishes to interfere with no one, but who knows how to treat those who interfere with him."
Doña Sol again felt an intense desire to know the number of his crimes.
"You will feel repugnance towards me, Señora Marquesa; but after all what does it matter?... I do not think I can remember them all, although I try to recall them. Possibly they might be thirty-three or thirty-five. I really could not quite say. In this very restless life, who thinks of keeping exact accounts? But I am an unhappy man, Señora Marquesa, very unfortunate. The fault lay with those who first harmed me. These dead men are like cherries, if you pull one, the others come down by dozens. I have to kill in order to go on living, and if ever one feels any pity one has to swallow it."