And as with the acute hearing of a man accustomed to the solitude, he thought that he perceived a certain strange noise in the neighbouring cane-brake, he ran to the farm, and returned immediately, holding a new shotgun.
With the weapon over his arm, and his finger on the trigger, he stood more than an hour close to the bars of the canal.
The water did not flow ahead; it spread itself out in the fields of Batiste, which drank and drank with the thirst of a dropsical man.
Perhaps those down below were complaining; perhaps Pimentó, notified as an atandador, was prowling in the vicinity, outraged at this insolent breach of the law.
But here was Batiste, like a sentinel of his harvest, a hero made desperate by the struggle of his family, guarding his people who were moving about in the field, extending the irrigation; ready to deal a blow at the first who might attempt to raise the bars, and re-establish the water's course.
So fierce was the attitude of this great fellow who stood out motionless in the midst of the canal; in this black phantom there might be divined such a resolution of shooting at whoever might present himself, that no one ventured forth from the adjoining cane-brake, and the fields drank for an hour without any protest.
And this is what is yet stranger: on the following Thursday the atandador did not have him summoned before the Tribunal of the Waters.
The huerta had been informed that in the ancient farm-house of Barret the only object of worth was a double-barreled shotgun, recently bought by the intruder, with that African passion of the Valencian, who willingly deprives himself of bread in order to have behind the door of his house a new weapon which excites envy and inspires respect.
V
EVERY morning, at dawn, Roseta, Batiste's daughter, leaped out of bed, her eyes heavy with sleep, and after stretching out her arms in graceful writhings which shook all her body of blonde slenderness, opened the farm-house door.