They entered tamely, greeting the family: "Bòna nit! Bòna nit!" They took seats on a bench, like schoolboys, or they remained standing, all gazing at the girl. Near her was a vacant chair, or if this were lacking, the suitor squatted on the ground, Moorish fashion, talking to her in low tones for three minutes, enduring the hostile gaze of his adversaries. The slightest prolongation of this brief term provoked coughing, furious glances, remonstrances and threats in undertones. The youth would retire and another would take his place. The Little Chaplain laughed at these scenes, seeing in the hostile tenacity of the suitors a motive for pride. The courting of his sister was not going to be like that of other girls. The suitors seemed to Pepet to be rabid dogs who would not easily give up their prey. This wooing smelled to him of gunpowder, and he affirmed it with a smile of joy and satisfaction which disclosed the whiteness of his wolf-cub teeth in his dark oval face. None of the suitors seemed to gain advantage over the others. During the two months that the courting had lasted, Margalida had done nothing but listen, smile, and respond to them all with words which confused the youths. His sister's talent was very great. On Sundays when they went to mass, she walked ahead of her parents accompanied by all her suitors—a veritable army. Don Jaime had met them several times. Her friends, seeing her come with this queenly retinue, paled with envy. The suitors besieged her, endeavoring to extract some word, some sign of preference, but she replied with astonishing discretion, keeping them all on the same footing, avoiding fatal clashes which might suddenly arouse the aggressive youths, who were always heavily armed.
"And how about the Ironworker?" asked Don Jaime.
Accursed vèrro! His name issued with difficulty from the señor's lips, but he had been thinking of him for some time.
The boy shook his head. The Ironworker was making no particular advance over his rivals, and the Little Chaplain did not seem to regret it keenly.
His admiration for the vèrro had cooled somewhat. Love emboldens men, and none of the youths who pretended to Margalida's hand, now that they came face to face with him as a rival, stood in fear of him any longer, and they even ventured disrespect to his formidable person. One evening he had appeared with a guitar, intending to employ a large part of the time which belonged to the others in playing. When his turn came he placed himself near Margalida, tuned his instrument and began to intone songs of the mainland learned during his retirement at "Niza"; but before beginning he had taken from his girdle a double-barreled pistol, cocked it, and had laid it upon one of his thighs, ready to grasp it and to let fly a shot at the first man to interrupt him. Absolute silence and impassive glances! He sang as long as he wished, he put up his pistol with the air of a conqueror, but later, when they went out, in the darkness of the fields, when the youths dispersed with cries of ironic farewell, two well-aimed stones issuing from the shadows struck the braggart to the ground, and for several days he failed to come to the courting so as not to show his bandaged head. He had made no effort to find out who the aggressor was. The rivals were many, and, moreover, he had to take into account their fathers, uncles, and brothers, almost a fourth part of the island, quick to mix in a war of vengeance for the honor of the family.
"I think," said Pepet, "that the Ironworker is less valiant than they say; and what is your opinion about it, Don Jaime?"
When it was growing late, and Margalida had talked with each of her suitors, her father, who was dozing in a corner, would break into a loud yawn. The man of the fields seemed to divine the passing of time even when asleep. "Half past nine! Bedtime! Bòna nit!" And all the youths, after this hint, would leave the house, their footsteps and their whinnying swallowed up by darkness.
Pepet, as he spoke of these reunions, in which he rubbed elbows with brave men, wearers of deadly weapons, again bethought him of his grandfather's knife. When would Don Jaime speak to his father about this family treasure? Since he had put off asking he must not forget his promise to present him another knife. What could a man like himself do, lacking such a companion? Where could he present himself?
"Don't worry," said Febrer. "One of these days I'll go to town. You may count on the gift."
One morning Jaime started for Iviza, eager for a fresh experience, and to renew and vary his impressions in a less rural atmosphere. Iviza seemed to him now like a great city, even to him who had traveled over all Europe. The houses in a row, the red brick sidewalks, the balconies with Persian blinds, he admired them all with the simplicity of a savage from the interior of a desert who arrives at a trading station on the coast. He paused before the shops, examining the goods exposed with the same enjoyment with which he used to contemplate the luxurious display windows on the boulevards or on Regent Street.