poor Tomas. And now, when he might have left me
the mill-house he must needs marry this widow Garcia and set to work
forthwith to chouse me out of my inheritance! A foul pest on him and on
his seed!"

This mutter of discontent he interspersed with yet more potent
anathemas, as he groped here and there in the darkness for what he
sought. By-and-by he extracted a spade, a mattock, and a skin-covered
corn measure holding about the quarter of an _arroba_.

With these he went grumbling off towards the deep shade of the fig-tree
where Ramon had talked with the gipsy woman. With great impartiality he
cursed his brother Luis, El Sarria and his knife, the widow Dolores and
her child.

Ramon heard him laugh as he stumbled among the vine roots.

"It is a blessing that such puling brats need no iron collar when
sentenced to the garotte. It will not be pleasant, I suppose--a nasty
thing enough to do. But after all, this little trench under the fig-tree
will be an excellent hold over my good brother Luis. Many a stout
'ounce' of gold shall he bleed because of the small squalling bundle
that shall be hushed to sleep under this garden mould!"

Nothing was heard for the next ten minutes but the measured stroke of
the mattock, and the deep breathing of the night workman. But a broad
shadow had drifted silently out from the corner of the little temple
summer-house, and stood only a yard or two from the hole Don Tomas was
making in the ground under the fig-tree.

El Sarria knew his man by this time, though he had not seen him for many
years. The grave-digger was Don Tomas, Luis Fernandez's ne'er-do-well
brother, who had been compelled to flee the country the year of
Angouleme's French invasion, for giving information to the enemy. He it
was whom he had seen at his old tricks by the Devil's Canyon. Not but
what Luis must all the same have set him on, for he alone knew of the
secret way of retreat.

Presently with many puffs and pants Tomas finished the work to his
satisfaction. Then he shook a handful of grass and leaves into the
bottom of the excavation.

"There," he muttered with a cackle of laughter, "there is your
cradle-bed cosily made, young Don Ramon! Would that your father were
lying cheek by jowl with you! Would not I cover you both up snugly. Holy
Coat of Treves, but I am in a lather! This it is to labour for others'
good! I wonder how soon that hell-hog Tia Elvira will be ready to do her
part. The _Sangrador_ must have