THE LITTLE SACRISTANS.

The little old man of the cemetery wandered absent-minded along the streets.

He was a character of the pueblo. He had once been a student in philosophy, but abandoned his course at the demands of his mother. The good woman, finding that her son had talent, feared lest he become a savant and forget G.o.d; she let him choose, therefore, between studying for the priesthood and leaving the college of San Jose. He was in love, took the latter course, and married. Widowed and orphaned within a year, he found in books a deliverance from sadness, idleness, and the gallera. Unhappily he studied too much, bought too many books, neglected to care for his fortune, and came to financial ruin. Some people called him Don Astasio, or Tasio the philosopher; others, and by far the greater number, Tasio the fool.

The afternoon threatened a tempest. Pale flashes of lightning illumined the leaden sky; the atmosphere was heavy and close.

Arrived at the church door, Tasio entered and spoke to two little boys, one ten years old perhaps, the other seven.

"Coming with me?" he asked. "Your mother has ready a dinner fit for curates."

"The head sacristan won't let us leave yet," said the elder. "We're going into the tower to ring the bells."

"Take care! don't go too near the bells in the storm," said Tasio, and, head down, he went off, thinking, toward the outskirts of the town.

Soon the rain came down in torrents, the thunder echoed clap on clap, each detonation preceded by an awful zig-zag of fire. The tempest grew in fury, and, scarce able to ride on the shifting wind, the plaintive voices of the bells rang out a lamentation.

The boys were in the tower, the younger, timid, in spite of his great black eyes, hugging close to his brother. They resembled one another, but the elder had the stronger and more thoughtful face. Their dress was poor, patched, and darned. The wind beat in the rain a little, where they were, and set the flame of their candle dancing.

"Pull your rope, Crispin," said the elder to his little brother.

Crispin pulled, and heard a feeble plaint, quickly silenced by a thunder crash. "If we were only home with mama," he mourned, "I shouldn't be afraid."

The other did not answer. He watched the candle melt, and seemed thoughtful.

"At least, no one there would call me a thief; mama would not have it. If she knew they had beaten me----" The elder gave the great cord a sharp pull; a deep, sonorous tone trembled out.

"Pay what they say I stole! Pay it, brother!"

"Are you mad, Crispin? Mama would have nothing to eat; they say you stole two onces, and two onces make thirty-two pesos."

The little fellow counted thirty-two on his fingers.

"Six hands and two fingers. And each finger makes a peso, and each peso how many cuartos?"

"A hundred sixty."

"And how much is a hundred sixty?"

"Thirty-two hands."

Crispin regarded his little paws.

"Thirty-two hands," he said, "and each finger a cuarto! O mama! how many cuartos! and with them one could buy shoes, and a hat for the sun, and an umbrella for the rain, and clothes for mama."

Crispin became pensive.

"What I'm afraid of is that mama will be angry with you when she hears about it."

"You think so?" said Crispin, surprised. "But I've never had a cuarto except the one they gave me at Easter. Mama won't believe I stole; she won't believe it!"

"But if the curate says so----"

Crispin began to cry, and said through his sobs:

"Then go alone, I won't go. Tell mama I'm sick."

"Crispin, don't cry," said his brother. "If mama seems to believe what they say, you'll tell her that the sacristan lies, that the curate believes him, that they say we are thieves because our father----"

A head came out of the shadows in the little stairway, and as if it had been Medusa's, it froze the words on the children's lips.

The head was long and lean, with a shock of black hair. Blue gla.s.ses concealed one sightless eye. It was the chief sacristan who had thus stolen upon the children.

"You, Basilio, are fined two reales for not ringing regularly. And you, Crispin, stay to-night till you find what you've stolen."

"We have permission," began Basilio; "our mother expects us at nine."

"You won't go at nine o'clock either; you shall stay till ten."

"But, senor, after nine one can't pa.s.s through the streets----"

"Are you trying to dictate to me?" demanded the sacristan, and he seized Crispin's arm.

"Senor, we have not seen our mother for a week," entreated Basilio, taking hold of his brother as if to protect him.

With a stroke on the cheek the sacristan made him let go, and dragged off Crispin, who commenced to cry, let himself fall, tried to cling to the floor, and besought Basilio to keep him. But the sacristan, dragging the child, disappeared in the shadows.

Basilio stood mute. He heard his little brother's body strike against the stairs; he heard a cry, blows, heart-rending words, growing fainter and fainter, lost at last in the distance.

"When shall I be strong enough?" he murmured, and dashed down the stairs.

He reached the choir and listened. He could still hear his little brother's voice; then over the cry, "Mama!--Brother!" a door shut. Trembling, damp with sweat, holding his mouth with his hand to stifle a cry, he stood a moment looking about in the dim church. The doors were closed, the windows barred. He went back to the tower, did not stop at the second stage, where the bells were rung, but climbed to the third, loosed the ropes that held the tongues of the bells, then went down again, pale, his eyes gleaming, but without tears.

The rain commenced to slacken and the sky to clear. Basilio knotted the ropes, fastened an end to a beam of the balcony, and, forgetting to blow out the candle, glided down into the darkness.

Some minutes later voices were heard in a street of the pueblo, and two rifle shots rang out; but it raised no alarm, and all again became silent.

XIV.

SISA.

Nearly an hour's walk from the pueblo lived the mother of Basilio and Crispin, wife of a man who pa.s.sed his time in lounging or watching c.o.c.k-fights while she struggled to bring up their children. The husband and wife saw each other rarely, and their interviews were painful. To feed his vices, he had robbed her of her few trinkets, and when the unhappy Sisa had nothing more with which to satisfy his caprices he began to abuse her. Without much strength of will, dowered with more heart than reason, she only knew how to love and to weep. Her husband was a G.o.d, her children were angels. He, who knew how much he was adored and feared, like other false G.o.ds, grew more and more arbitrary and cruel.