When shall I be strong enough?" he murmured, and dashed down the
stairs.

He reached the choir and listened. He could still hear his little
brother's voice; then over the cry, "Mama!--Brother!" a door
shut. Trembling, damp with sweat, holding his mouth with his hand to
stifle a cry, he stood a moment looking about in the dim church. The
doors were closed, the windows barred. He went back to the tower, did
not stop at the second stage, where the bells were rung, but climbed
to the third, loosed the ropes that held the tongues of the bells,
then went down again, pale, his eyes gleaming, but without tears.

The rain commenced to slacken and the sky to clear. Basilio knotted
the ropes, fastened an end to a beam of the balcony, and, forgetting
to blow out the candle, glided down into the darkness.

Some minutes later voices were heard in a street of the pueblo,
and two rifle shots rang out; but it raised no alarm, and all again
became silent.

XIV.

SISA.

Nearly an hour's walk from the pueblo lived the mother of Basilio and
Crispin, wife of a man who passed his time in lounging or watching
cock-fights while she struggled to bring up their children. The
husband and wife saw each other rarely, and their interviews were
painful. To feed his vices, he had robbed her of her few trinkets,
and when the unhappy Sisa had nothing more with which to satisfy
his caprices he began to abuse her. Without much strength of will,
dowered with more heart than reason, she only knew how to love
and to weep. Her husband was a god, her children were angels. He,
who knew how much he was adored and feared, like other false gods,
grew more and more arbitrary and cruel.

The stars were glittering in the sky cleared by the tempest. Sisa
sat on the wooden bench, her chin in her hand, watching some branches
smoulder on her hearth of uncut stones. On these stones was a little
pan where rice was cooking, and among the cinders were three dry
sardines.

She was still young, and one saw she had been beautiful. Her eyes,
which, with her soul, she had given to her sons, were fine, deep,
and fringed with dark lashes; her face was regular; her skin pure
olive. In spite of her youth, suffering, hunger sometimes, had begun
to hollow her cheeks. Her abundant hair, once her glory, was still
carefully dressed--but from habit, not coquetry.

All day Sisa had been thinking of the pleasure coming at night. She
picked the finest tomatoes in her gar