The father was frightened at the trembling of his hands and the agitation of his pulse; he, the son of the huerta, without any other diversion than the hunt, accustomed to shoot down birds almost without aiming at them.

The wailing of the poor mother brought back to his memory other groans of long long ago—twenty-two years before—when she was giving birth to her only son upon that same bed.

To come to such an end!... His eyes, gazing heavenward, saw a black sky, intensely black, with not a star in sight, and obscured by his tears....

"Lord! To end his sufferings! To end his sufferings!"

And repeating these words he pressed the musket against his shoulder, seeking the lock with a tremulous finger.... Bang! Bang!

The following typographical errors were corrected by the etext transcriber:
There is a curious contradition=>There is a curious contradiction
Segrada threw his cards=>Sagreda threw his cards
His eyes, opened extraordinarly=>His eyes, opened extraordinarily
flocked to Caldera's cavin=>flocked to Caldera's cabin
INTERNATIONAL: POCKET: LIBRARY
———————
1.Mademoiselle FifiGuy de Maupassant
Introduction by Joseph Conrad
2.Two TalesRudyard Kipling
Foreword by Wilson Follett
3.Two Wessex TalesThomas Hardy
Introduction by Conrad Aiken
4.Modern Russian Classics
Stories by Andreyev, Solgub, Gorki, Tchekov,
Babel, and Artzibashev. Foreword by Issac Goldberg
5.CandideVoltaire
Introduction by Andre Morize
6.The Last LionVicente Blasco Ibáñez
Introduction by Mariano Joaquin Lorente
7.A Shropshire LadA. E. Housman
Preface by William Stanley Braithwaite
8.GitanjaliRabindranath Tagore
Introduction by W. B. Yeats
9.The Book of François Villon
Introduction by H. De Vere Stacpoole
10.The Hound of HeavenFrancis Thompson
Introduction by G. K. Chesterton
11.Coloured StarsEdited by Edward Powys Mathers
12.Rubaiyat of Omar KhayyamEdward Fitzgerald
With Decorations by Elihu Vedder
13.The Importance of Being EarnestOscar Wilde
14.Five Modern Plays O'Neill, Schnitzler, Dunsany,
Maeterlinck, Richard Hughes
15.Three Irish Plays J. M. Synge, Douglas Hyde,
and W. B. Yeats
Introduction by Harrison Hale Schaff
16.The Greatest Thing in the WorldHenry Drummond
Introduction by Elizabeth Towne
17.The Symposium of Plato
Introduction by B. Jowett, M.A.
18.The Wisdom of Confucius
Edited by Miles M. Dawson
19.Alice in WonderlandLewis Carroll
Illustrated by Sir John Tenniel
20.Through the Looking-glassLewis Carroll
Illustrated by Sir John Tenniel
—————
Other Titles in Preparation