man, rising. "Show us the way."

"Don't you go!" cried Sister Pute, catching hold of his
camisa. "Something will happen to you! Is he hanged? Then the worse
for him!"

"Let me see him, woman. You, Juan, go to the barracks and report
it. Perhaps he's not dead yet."

So he proceeded to the garden with the servant, who kept behind
him. The women, including even Sister Pute herself, followed after,
filled with fear and curiosity.

"There he is, sir," said the servant, as she stopped and pointed with
her finger.

The committee paused at a respectful distance and allowed the old
man to go forward alone.

A human body hanging from the branch of a santol tree swung about
gently in the breeze. The old man stared at it for a time and saw
that the legs and arms were stiff, the clothing soiled, and the head
doubled over.

"We mustn't touch him until some officer of the law arrives," he said
aloud. "He's already stiff, he's been dead for some time."

The women gradually moved closer.

"He's the fellow who lived in that little house there. He came here
two weeks ago. Look at the scar on his face."

"_Ave Maria!_" exclaimed some of the women.

"Shall we pray for his soul?" asked a young woman, after she had
finished staring and examining the body.

"Fool, heretic!" scolded Sister Pute. "Don't you know what Padre
Damaso said? It's tempting God to pray for one of the damned. Whoever
commits suicide is irrevocably damned and therefore he isn't buried
in holy ground."

Then she added, "I knew that this man was coming to a bad end;
I never could find out how he lived."

"I saw him twice talking with the senior sacristan," observed a
young woman.

"It wouldn't be to confess himself or to order a mass!"

Other neighbors came up until a large group surrounded the corpse,
which was still swinging about. After half an hour, an alguazil and
the directorcillo arrived with two cuadrilleros, who took the body
down and placed it on a stretcher.

"People are getting in a hurry to die," remarked the directorcillo
with a smile, as he took a pen from behind his ear.

He made captious inquiries, and took down the statement of the
maidservant, whom he tried to confuse, now looking at her fiercely,
now threatening her, now attributing to her things that she had not
said, so much so that she, thinking that she would have to go to jail,
began to cry and wound up by declaring that she wasn't looking for
peas but and she called Teo a