The farmer, showing his sharp white teeth, smiled like a hyena.
"Thief! thief!" he answered in a voice which sounded like a snarl.
And waving his weapon from side to side, he sought for a place where he might strike, avoiding the thin and desperate hands which the miser held before him.
"But, Barret, my son! what does this mean? Lower your weapon, do not jest! You are an honest man ... think of your daughters! I repeat to you, it was only a joke. Come tomorrow and I will give you the key.... Aaaay!..."
There came a horrible howl; the cry of a wounded beast. The sickle, tired of encountering obstacles, had lopped off one of the clenched hands at a blow. It remained hanging by the tendons and the skin, and from the red stump blood spurted violently, spattering Barret, who roared as the hot stream struck his face.
The old man staggered on his legs, but before he fell to the ground the sickle cut horizontally across his neck, and ... zas! severed the complicated folds of the neckerchief, opening a deep gash which almost separated the head from the trunk.
Don Salvador fell into the canal; his legs remained on the sloping bank, twitching, like a slaughtered steer giving its last kicks. And meanwhile his head, sunken into the mire, poured out all of his blood through the deep breach, and the waters following their peaceful course with a tranquil murmur which enlivened the solemn silence of the afternoon, became tinged with red.
Barret, stupefied, stood stock still on the shore. How much blood the old thief had! The canal grew red, it seemed more copious! Suddenly the farmer, seized with terror, broke into a run, as if he feared that the little river of blood would overflow and drown him.
Before the end of the day, the news had circulated like the report of a cannon which stirred all the plain. Have you ever seen the hypocritical gesture, the silent rejoicing, with which a town receives the death of a governor who has oppressed it? All guessed that it was the hand of old Barret, yet nobody spoke. The farm-houses would have opened their last hiding-places for him; the women would have hidden him under their skirts.
But the assassin roamed like a madman through the fields, fleeing from people, lying low behind the sloping banks, concealing himself under the little bridges, running across the fields, frightened by the barking of the dogs, until on the following day, the rural police surprised him sleeping in a hayloft.