r partisans.

The quarrel was soon the talk of all the Cabanal. After the services
were over there was another disturbance in the household of Tonet, who,
without waiting to take his costume off, thrashed his wife within an
inch of her life for making a fool of him in public. And the Rector
also brought the subject up while Dolores was prying him out of his
uniform, and his flesh was gradually resuming its normal rotundity. He
was sorry to say so, but that poor Rosario was crazy. Tonet might be all
he might be--and it was true that brandy didn't do him any good! Just
the same, it was a pity to see him tied to a woman about as easy to
handle as a porcupine. But a brother was a brother in his eyes! He
wasn't going to break with the son of his own father just to please that
fool of a woman! Much less at that particular moment, when there would
be a chance to make a real man of Tonet. Dolores, though hardly yet
recovered from the excitement of the brawl, nodded approval to all he
said.

And the Rector thought no more about it. He had that little matter on
his mind. And, in fact, the following day, just as the bells were
ringing for the service of Holy Saturday, while revolvers were being
fired in festive celebration about town, and gamins were going from
house to house beating upon front doors with sticks, _la Garbosa_, that
leaky death-trap hardly able to keep afloat, with a complete outfit for
fishing aboard to make her look like a seiner, raised her huge lateen
sail, new and strong and white, and slipped away from the beach of the
Cabanal, taking the first sea swells like a time-worn beauty, frilled
and painted up to make one last conquest.

CHAPTER V

TWO WOMEN QUARREL

It had stopped raining about daybreak. At five o'clock the street lamps
of Valencia were still burning, their flickering lights mirrored red as
blood in the puddles of the uneven pavement. The irregular line of
housetops was just beginning to stand out against an ashen background of
sky brightening with the first glow of morning. The night watch-men were
unhooking their lanterns from their stations at the street-crossings and
walking off, stamping their chilled feet after wishing a listless _bon
dia_ to the pairs of hooded policemen who would not be relieved until
seven o'clock. Faint from the distance through the stillness came the
whistling of the morning trains leaving the suburbs. The church towers
were beginning to clang with the first