The chimes seemed to approach and dark figures which his tear-wet eyes could not distinguish passed by on the road. He felt some one touch him with the end of a stick and, raising his head, he saw a solitary figure, a kind of spectre leaning toward him.
And he recognized old Tomba, the only one of the huerta to whom he owed no suffering.
The shepherd, considered as a sorcerer, possessed the amazing intuition of the blind. Scarcely had he recognized Batiste when he seemed to understand all his misfortune. He felt with his stick the musket lying at his feet, and turned his head, as though looking for Pimentó's farm in the darkness.
He spoke slowly, with a quiet sadness, like a man accustomed to the miseries of a world which he must soon leave. He divined that Batiste was weeping.
"My son ... my son...."
He had expected everything that had occurred. He had warned him the first day when he saw him settled on the accursed lands. They would bring him misfortune.
He had just passed by Batiste's farm and had seen lights through the open door ... he had heard cries of despair; the dog was howling ... the little boy had died, hadn't he? And he yonder, thinking he was seated on a bank, when in reality he sat with one foot in prison. Thus men are lost and their families broken up. He would end with some mad and foolish murder, like poor Barret, and would die like him, in prison. It was inevitable; those lands were cursed by the poor and could give forth only accursed fruits.
And muttering his terrible prophecies, the shepherd went his way behind his sheep on the village road, advising poor Batiste to leave also, and go away, very far away, where he could earn his bread without having to struggle against the hatred of the poor. And now invisible, shrouded in the shadows, Batiste still heard his slow, sad voice which made him shudder:
"Believe me, my son ... they will bring you misfortune!"