his answer, for no one was going
to trouble himself inquiring about the fate of a poor woman.

There Sisa spent two hours in a state of semi-idiocy, huddled in a
corner with her head hidden in her arms and her hair falling down in
disorder. At noon the alferez was informed, and the first thing that
he did was to discredit the curate's accusation.

"Bah! Tricks of that rascally friar," he commented, as he ordered
that the woman be released and that no one should pay any attention
to the matter. "If he wants to get back what he's lost, let him ask
St. Anthony or complain to the nuncio. Out with her!"

Consequently, Sisa was ejected from the barracks almost violently,
as she did not try to move herself. Finding herself in the street, she
instinctively started to hurry toward her house, with her head bared,
her hair disheveled, and her gaze fixed on the distant horizon. The sun
burned in its zenith with never a cloud to shade its flashing disk;
the wind shook the leaves of the trees lightly along the dry road,
while no bird dared stir from the shade of their branches.

At last Sisa reached her hut and entered it in silence, She walked all
about it and ran in and out for a time. Then she hurried to old Tasio's
house and knocked at the door, but he was not at home. The unhappy
woman then returned to her hut and began to call loudly for Basilio
and Crispin, stopping every few minutes to listen attentively. Her
voice came back in an echo, for the soft murmur of the water in the
neighboring river and the rustling of the bamboo leaves were the
only sounds that broke the stillness. She called again and again as
she climbed the low cliffs, or went down into a gully, or descended
to the river. Her eyes rolled about with a sinister expression, now
flashing up with brilliant gleams, now becoming obscured like the
sky on a stormy night; it might be said that the light of reason was
flickering and about to be extinguished.

Again returning to her hut, she sat down on the mat where she had
lain the night before. Raising her eyes, she saw a twisted remnant
from Basilio's camisa at the end of the bamboo post in the _dinding_,
or wall, that overlooked the precipice. She seized and examined it
in the sunlight. There were blood stains on it, but Sisa hardly saw
them, for she went outside and continued to raise and lower it before
her eyes to examine it in the burning sunlight. The light was failing
and everything beginning to grow dark a