Senor," said the servant stopping him and pointing with
her finger.

The group stopped at a respectful distance, allowing the old man to
advance alone.

The body of a man, hanging from the limb of a santol tree, was swinging
slowly in the breeze. The old man contemplated it for some time. He
looked at the rigid feet, the arms, the stained clothing and the
drooping head.

"We ought not to touch the corpse until some official has arrived,"
said he, in a loud voice. "He is already stiff. He has been dead for
some time."

The women approached hesitatingly.

"It is the neighbor who lived in that little house; the one who
arrived only 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 girl as soon as she had
finished looking at the dead body from all directions.

"You fool! You heretic!" Sister Pute scolded her. "Don't you know what
Father Damaso said? To pray for a damned person is to tempt God. He who
commits suicide is irrevocably condemned. For this reason, he cannot
be buried in a sacred place. I had begun to think that this man was
going to have a bad ending. I never could guess what he lived on."

"I saw him twice speaking with the sacristan mayor," observed a girl.

"It couldn't have been to confess himself or to order a mass!"

The neighbors gathered together and a large circle surrounded the
corpse which was still swinging. In half an hour some officers and
two cuaderilleros arrived. They took the body down and put it in
a wheelbarrow.

"Some people are in a hurry to die," said one of the officers,
laughing, while he took out the pen from behind his ear.

He asked some trifling questions; took the declaration of the servant,
whom he tried to implicate, now looking at her with evil in his eyes,
now threatening her and now attributing to her words which she did
not say--so much so that the servant, believing that she was going
to be taken to jail, began to weep and finished by declaring that
she was looking for peas, but that ... and she called Teo to witness.

In the meantime, a peasant with a wide hat and a large plaster on
his neck, was examining the body, and the rope by which it was hanging.

The face was no more livid than the rest of the body. Above the
rope could be seen two scars and two small bruises. Where the rope
had rubbed, there was no blood and the skin was white. The curious
peasant examined closely