ed the oath, in
protest, it seemed, against the powers above who allow such things to
happen to an honest man. But he was a stubborn fellow at bottom. His
trustful, inoffensive, disposition made it hard for him to believe
things like that were possible. Inwardly convinced, he nevertheless came
back with a menacing rejoinder:

"You are lying, Rosario! You know that you are lying!"

But the challenge put Rosario on her mettle! "So I'm lying! Oh say,
Pascualo, what's the use of talking with a man like you. You're so blind
you can't see the nose on your face. What are you yelling about? What
have I done to you? You're as blind as a bat, yes, sir, blind as a bat.
A man with a spoonful of brains inside his skull would have seen through
the situation from the first. But you ... you don't notice anything. You
never noticed whether your boy looks like you or like him!"

And that was a nasty thrust! Though the Rector's face was as brown as
shoe-leather from years in the sun and the salt-air, it turned a bluish
ashen pale. His knees seemed to sag as if he were going to fall, and the
shock made his words come out faint, husky and stammering.

"My boy! My Pascualet! Well, whom does he look like? Spit it out, damn
you! Pascualet ... is my boy, my boy. And he looks like me ... like me
... he does!"

But the laugh with which Rosario answered was the hollow, sarcastic,
mocking laugh of a she-devil! Pascualo did not quite understand. What
was there to laugh about in his saying that his boy was his boy? In
terror he waited for her explanation. "Why, stupid! If Pascualet is your
boy, he ought to look like you, oughtn't he, just as you look the way
your father, old Pascualo, looked. Well, he doesn't, that's all! He
looks like Tonet--eyes shape, build, and complexion! Poor dunce of a
Rector! They call you _lanudo_! But the wool on your eyes is thicker
than they ever guessed! Heavens, man, take a peep at the boy! He's the
living picture of Tonet, as Tonet used to be in the days when he was a
boy with you, down at the tavern, and was running around like a little
devil on the beach!"

The Rector did not need convincing further. He was ready to believe that
now. A cataract had been removed from before his eyes, and he saw things
clearly, though the world had a strange unfamiliar aspect for him, as it
does to a blind man led forth for a first glimpse of it. Gospel truth!
Pascualet was Tonet over again! How many times, on looking at the boy,