-Xxvi- · II

Fine things the blockheads of the Orense Committee will say of us! That we are a set of scarecrows and fit for nothing. To lose an election! It is the first time in my life.”

“No. That we chose a very simple candidate. Plainly speaking, that is what the Orense Committee will say.”

“Softly, softly,” exclaimed the archpriest, ready to break a lance for his dear young squire. “We do not agree...”

They had reached this point in their talk, and the audience, which consisted, besides the Abbot of Naya, of the Abbot of Boán and the young gentleman of Limioso, preserved the silence of humiliation and defeat. Suddenly a frightful uproar, composed of the most discordant and savage noises that can rend the human ear, deafened the room. Frying-pans scraped with iron forks and spoons; potsherds clattered like cymbals; saucepans within which a chocolate-whisk twirled in a dizzy vortex; copper cauldrons upon which heavy pestles struck harsh clangs; tin cans tied to strings and dragged along the ground; trivets beaten with iron rods; and above all, the lugubrious, hoarse blare of the horn and the hideous clamour of many human throats, with that cavernous tone lent to the larynx by excess of wine in the belly. In truth, the blessed musicians had just emptied a round wineskin which the secretary’s munificence had provided for them at the Town Hall. In those days the country voters were still unacquainted with certain refinements, and did not know how to demand wine that sparkles and foams, as they did some years later, being well content with good, strong, stubborn red wine of the Borde. Through Barbacana’s window-panes there penetrated, together with the sound of the horrid instruments and unruly yelling, a vinous steam, the tavern stench of that mob, intoxicated with something more than victory. The archpriest adjusted his spectacles; his flushed countenance betrayed uneasiness. The priest of Boán knit his hoary brows. Don Eugenio was inclined to turn it all into a jest. The young squire of Limioso, calm and resolute, stepped to the window, raised a curtain, and looked out.

The rough music continued, relentless and frantic, whipping and clawing the air like a multitude of cats in heat upon the roof where they fight; suddenly, from the midst of the grotesque commotion, arose a cry that in Spain always has a tragic ring: a shout of death.

“Death to the Terso!”

A swarm of cheers and shouts of death followed the first.

“Death to the priests!”

“Death to tyranny!”

“Long live Cebre and our deputy!”

“Long live National Sovereignty!”

“Death to the Marquis of Ulloa!”

More energetic, more deliberate, clearer than the rest, rang out this cry:

“Death to that factionist thief Barbacana!”

And the uproar, unanimous, repeated:

“Deaaath!”

Instantly there appeared beside the lawyer’s table a man of sinister aspect, hitherto concealed in a corner. He did not dress like the peasants, but like a town dweller of low degree: a black cloth jacket, red sash, and grey bowler; short axe-shaped whiskers redoubled the harshness of his features, high-cheekboned and broad-templed. One of his sunken green eyes gleamed feline; the other, motionless and clouded with a thick white cataract, looked like curdled glass.

Opening the drawer of his desk, Barbacana drew from it two enormous horse-pistols, prehistoric beyond doubt, and examined them to make sure they were loaded. Looking fixedly at the newcomer, he seemed to offer them to him with a slight lifting of his eyebrows. For sole reply, the One-eyed Man of Castrodorna showed at the edge of his sash the tip of a yellow-hafted clasp-knife, which he concealed again at once. The archpriest, who had lost his mettle with obesity and age, was greatly alarmed.

“No rash pranks, my friend. In any case, I think it wise to slip out by the back door. Eh? It is not worth waiting for those uncircumcised rascals to come here and do us a mischief.”

Yet already the priest of Boán and the young squire of Limioso, joining the One-eyed Man, formed a resolute group. The young gentleman of Limioso, true to his ancient noble blood, waited quietly, without any bravado, yet with an undaunted heart; the Abbot of Boán, born with more vocation for a guerrilla fighter than for a mass-priest, gripped the pistol with glee, scented danger, and had he been a horse would have neighed with joy; the One-eyed Man, crouched and tense like a tiger, stationed himself behind the door to disembowel with impunity the first to enter.

“Have no fear, Señor Archpriest...” Barbacana murmured gravely. “Barking dogs do not bite. Those loudmouths will not dare even break a pane of glass. But it is well to be prepared, just in case, to show them our teeth.”

The shouts of death resounded thick and fierce; yet in truth, not a single stone came to strike the window-panes. The young squire of Limioso approached once more, lifted the curtain, and called Don Eugenio.

“Look, Naya, look here... They have no mind to come up or throw stones... They are dancing.”

Don Eugenio stepped to the window and burst out laughing. Amid the rabble of drunkards, two of Trampeta’s henchmen—one the jailer, the other a bailiff—were trying to egg on some of the loudest shouters to attack the lawyer’s dwelling; they pointed to the door, indicating with eloquent gestures how easy it would be to batter it down and burst in. But the drunken men, who for all their wine had not lost that cautious prudence, that wholesome dread which the boss inspires in the peasant, feigned not to understand, confining themselves to howling and banging pans and kettles with redoubled fury. And in the centre of the circle, to the rhythm of pestles and saucepans, the most intoxicated, the veritable soakers, were leaping about like madmen.

“Gentlemen,” said Ramón Limioso in a grave, hoarse voice: “It is a burning shame that those rascals should hold us besieged here... I have half a mind to go out and chase them so hard that they will not halt until they reach the Town Hall.”

“Faith,” growled the Abbot of Boán, “you speak little, but well. Let us frighten them, quoniam! Sneeze alone and I scatter half a dozen of those soakers.”

The One-eyed Man uttered no word; only his greenish eye flared with phosphorescent light, and he looked at Barbacana as if asking leave to join the venture. Barbacana nodded assent, but motioned him to put away the knife.

“He is right,” exclaimed the Limioso gentleman, throwing back his head and flaring his nostrils with a haughty expression, very unusual in his sad and languid face. “Such folk are to be dusted with cudgels and whips. Let us not soil a weapon kept for the mountain, for partridges and hares, which are worth more than they (saving their souls).”

And as he said saving their souls, the young gentleman crossed himself.

“Be considerate, gentlemen, be considerate...” murmured the archpriest with difficulty, holding out his hands as if to calm their inflamed spirits. (How far off were those warlike days when he secured an election with kicks!)

Barbacana did not oppose the exploit; on the contrary, he passed into another room and returned with a bundle of canes, cudgels, and walking-sticks. The priest of Boán would have no cudgel but his own, which was formidable; Ramón Limioso, true to his disdain for the churlish rabble, chose the thinnest whip, a riding crop. The One-eyed Man grasped a sort of horsewhip which, wielded by a vigorous arm, could not fail to produce a terrible effect.

They went cautiously down the stairs, careful not to stamp, a precaution rendered idle by the din of the rough music. The door was bolted and barred, a measure taken by the lawyer’s cook at the first tumult. The Abbot of Boán drew the bolts back impetuously, the One-eyed Man removed the bar, turned the key, and priests and laymen burst upon the rabble without warning, with set teeth, flashing eyes, swinging whips and brandishing cudgels.

Not five minutes had elapsed when Barbacana, watching the field of battle from behind the curtains, smiled silently, or rather curled his lips, baring his yellow teeth, and gripped the window-sill with nervous violence. In every direction the terrified drunkards fled, shrieking as if charged by a regiment of cavalry at full gallop; some stumbled and fell headlong, and the One-eyed Man’s whip coiled about their loins, drawing shrieks of anguish. The squire of Limioso laid about him with less cruelty, but with sovereign contempt, as one might whip a drove of hogs. The priest of Boán dealt clean cudgel blows with untiring regularity and vigour. He of Naya, unable to keep within the bounds of his judicial role, reviled, laughed at, and thrashed the drunkards all at once.

“Off with you, wine-cask, vat, mosquito! Take that, and that, to teach you to come back, you skin, you wineskin! Go sleep off your drink, you sot! Off to the tavern with your bones, you glutton, you cask of must! To jail, drunkards, to spew out what you have in your bellies!”

The street was cleared; cleaner now than a paten: a profound silence had succeeded the clamour, the shouts of death, and the savage rough music. Scattered upon the ground lay the spoils of the fray: saucepans, pestles, ox-horns. Upon the staircase was heard the tread of the victors, mounting as they celebrated their easy triumph. Foremost entered Don Eugenio, throwing himself into an armchair, convulsed with laughter and clapping his hands. The priest of Boán followed, wiping his brow. Ramón Limioso, grave and still melancholy, merely handed Barbacana the riding crop without opening his lips.

“They are... nicely served!” stammered the Abbot of Naya, bursting with laughter.

“I threshed them... like one threshing rye!” exclaimed the priest of Boán, breathing with satisfaction.

“As for me,” explained the squire, “had I known they would prove such cowards and take to their heels without even turning upon us, faith, I would not have taken the trouble to go out.”

“Do not be too sure,” observed the archpriest. “Trampeta will shame them at the Town Hall, and may come here in person with his rascals to give the Licentiate a scare (so friends familiarly termed Barbacana). For safety, these gentlemen should pass the night here. I must say mass tomorrow at Loiro, and my sister will be terrified... else I would stay...”

“None of that,” Barbacana replied peremptorily. “These gentlemen shall each return home. There is no cause for anxiety. For my part... this lad is enough for me,” he added, pointing to the One-eyed Man, crouched once more in his corner.

It was impossible to prevail upon the boss to accept the guard of honour offered to him. Furthermore, there was no sign whatever of any renewed disturbance. Nor were distant shouts of victorious voters to be heard. The drowsy silence of small, lifeless country towns weighed upon Cebre. Three heroes of the great sally, and the archpriest with them, rode away towards the mountain. They went not downcast, like defeated election agents, but full of merriment, with much chatter and joking, extolling beyond measure the drubbing administered to the drunken serenaders. Don Eugenio was inspired, witty, noisy, and full of humour; it was a treat to hear him mimic the shrieks and falls of the topers into the mud of the street, and the face the priest of Boán pulled as he thrashed them.

Barbacana remained alone with the One-eyed Man. If any of the battered musicians of the rough music had ventured to poke his head out and glance towards the boss’s windows, he would have seen that, through bravado or negligence, the shutters were not closed, and he might have made out, through the curtains and standing out against the background of the room lit by the lamp, the heads of the lawyer and of his fierce defender and henchman. They were discussing something important beyond doubt, for the conversation was long. An hour or more elapsed from the time they lit the lamp until the shutters were closed, leaving the house silent, grim, and sombre, like one guarding a dark secret.