PART SECOND

CHAPTER I

IVIZA

Febrer was contemplating his image, a transparent shadow of quivering contours on the changing waters, through which the bottom of the sea could be seen with milky spots of clean sand and dark blocks of stone broken from the mountain overgrown with a strange vegetation.

The seaweed floated backward and forward like waving green hair; fruits round as Indian figs hung in whitish clusters on the rocks; pearly flowers shone in the depths of the green waters, and among the mysterious growth star-fishes spread their colored points; sea-urchins formed balls like dark blots covered with spines; the hippocampi, those little "devil's horses," swam restlessly; and flashes of silver and purple, of tails and fins, passed swiftly among whirlpools and bubbles, dashing out of one cave to disappear into the mouth of another unfathomable mystery.

Jaime was leaning over a small boat, with its sail dropped. In one hand he held the volanti, a long line with several hooks, which almost reached the bottom of the sea.

It was nearly midday. The craft lay in the shade. In the rear extended the wide coast of Iviza with its broad sinuosities of projecting points and steep shores. Before him was the Vedrá, an isolated rock, a superb landmark a thousand feet in height, which, standing solitary, seemed even higher. At his feet the shadow of the colossus imparted to the waters a dense and yet transparent color. Beyond its azure shadow seethed the Mediterranean, flashing with gold in the sunlight, while the coasts of Iviza, ruddy and lonely, seemed to irradiate fire.

Every pleasant day Jaime came to the narrow channel between the island and the Vedrá to fish. In calm weather this was a river of blue water with submarine rocks which peeped their black heads above the surface. The giant allowed itself to be approached without losing its imposing appearance, harsh and inhospitable. When the wind blew fresh and strong, the half submerged heads were crowned with foam and roared ominously; mountains of water rushed roaring and foaming through this maritime throat, and the fishermen must hoist their sails and hurry away from the narrow pass, from this growling chaos of whirlpools and currents.

In the prow of the boat was old Uncle Ventolera, a seaman who had sailed on ships of many nations, who had been Jaime's companion since he arrived in Iviza. "I am almost eighty, señor," but he never let a day pass without going out to fish. Neither illness nor fear of bad weather prevented him. His face was tanned by the sun and the salt air, but it had few wrinkles. His rolled up trousers displayed spare legs with fresh and healthy skin. His blouse, open on the chest, showed a gray coating of hair of the same color as that on his head, which was covered by a black cap, a souvenir of his last trip to Liverpool, boasting a red tassel on the top, and a broad white and red plaid ribbon. His whiskers were white, and from his ears hung copper earrings.

When Jaime first made his acquaintance he expressed curiosity in regard to these decorations.

"When I was a lad I was a ship's boy on an English schooner," said Ventolera in his Ivizian dialect, singing the words in a sweet little voice. "The master was a very arrogant Maltese, with whiskers and earrings; and I said to myself, 'When I get to be a man I'm going to be like the padrone.' Although you see me like this, I used to be a great swell, and I used to like to imitate persons of importance."

When Jaime first went but fishing to the Vedrá he forgot to watch the water and the line in his hand, while he stared at the colossus which stands high above the sea, broken off from the coast.

The rocks piled to a great height, wedged in one by another and mounting into space, compelled the spectator to throw back his head to see the pointed summit. The rocks at the water's edge were accessible. The sea swept over them, sinking in to the low arcades of submarine caves, a refuge of corsairs in former days, and now sometimes the depository of smugglers. One could leap at places from rock to rock among the sabinas and other wild plants along its base, but farther up the rock rose straight, smooth, inaccessible, with polished gray walls. At enormous heights were green-covered benches, and above these the cliff again rose vertically to its crest, sharp as a finger. A party of hunters had scaled a portion of this citadel, climbing along salient angles until they gained the lower benches. Beyond there no one had gone, according to Uncle Ventolera, except a certain friar exiled by the government as a Carlist agitator, who had built on the coast of Iviza the hermitage of the Cubells.

"He was a strong and daring man," continued the old sailor. "They say that he erected a cross on the summit, but the wind blew it down some time ago."

In the hollows of the great gray rock, shaded by the green sabinas and sea pines, Febrer saw points of color jumping about, something like red and white fleas, incessantly moving. They were the goats of the Vedrá; goats abandoned for some years which had become wild, and which reproduced beyond the reach of man, having lost all domestic habit, springing up the mountain side with prodigious leaps as soon as a boat approached the cliff. On calm mornings their bleating, increased by the impressive silence, could be heard far out upon the sea.

One morning, Jaime, having brought his gun, took a couple of shots at a cluster of goats a long distance away, not expecting to hit them, but merely for the fun of seeing them leap away. The reports, magnified by the echo within the narrow defile, filled the air with the screaming and flapping of wings of hundreds of enormous old gulls that flew out of their haunts, frightened by the noise. The startled island had given forth its winged inhabitants. Other huge birds emerged and flew from the summit and disappeared like black specks toward the larger island. These were falcons which roosted in the Vedrá and lived upon the doves of Iviza and Formentera.

The old sailor pointed out to Febrer certain window-like caves in the most sheer and inaccessible cliffs of the smaller island. Neither goat nor man could reach them. Uncle Ventolera knew what was hidden within those dark passages. They were beehives; beehives centuries and centuries old; natural retreats of bees that, crossing the straits between Iviza and the Vedrá, took refuge in these inaccessible caves after having gleaned the flowery fields of the island. At certain times of the year he had seen glistening streams trickling down the cliff from these openings. It was honey melted by the sun at the entrance of the cavern.

Uncle Ventolera tugged at his line with a grunt of satisfaction.

"That makes eight!"

Hanging from a hook, flapping its tail and kicking, was a species of lobster of dark gray color. Others of its kind lay inert in a basket at the old man's side.

"Uncle Ventolera, aren't you going to sing the mass?"

"If you will allow me."

Jaime knew the old man's habits, his fondness for singing the canticles of high mass whenever he was in a joyous mood. Having given up long voyages, his pleasure consisted in singing on Sundays in the church in the town of San José, or in that of San Antonio, and indulging in the same diversion during all the happy moments of his life.

"In a minute," he said with a tone of superiority, as if he were going to treat his companion to the greatest of delights.

Placing one hand to his mouth he quickly extracted his teeth and put them in his girdle. His face collapsed into wrinkles around his sunken mouth, and he began to sing the phrases of the priest and the responses of the assistant. The childish and tremulous voice acquired a grave sonorousness as it resounded over the watery expanse and was reproduced by the echoes from the rocks. The goats on the Vedrá responded from time to time with mild bleatings of surprise. Jaime smiled at the earnestness of the old man who, with eyes gazing aloft, pressed one hand against his heart, holding his fishline with the other. Thus they remained for some time, Febrer watching his line, on which he did not perceive the slightest movement. All the fish were taken by the old man. This put him in a bad humor, and he suddenly became annoyed at the singing.

"Enough; Tío Ventolera, that's enough!"

"You liked it, didn't you?" said the old man with candor. "I know other things, too; I could tell you about Captain Riquer—a true story. My father saw it all."

Jaime made a gesture of protest. No, he did not wish to hear about Captain Riquer. He already knew the tale by heart. They had been going out fishing together for three months, and rarely did they get through the day without a relation of the event; but Tío Ventolera, with his senile inconsequence, convinced of the importance of everything concerning himself, had already begun his story, and Jaime, his back turned to his companion, was leaning over the boat, gazing into the depths of the sea, to avoid hearing once again what he already knew so well.

Captain Antonio Riquer! A hero of Iviza, as great a mariner as Barceló, who fought at Gibraltar and led the expedition against Algiers, but as Barceló was a Majorcan and the other an Ivizan all the honors and decorations were bestowed upon the former. If there were such a thing as justice the sea ought to swallow the haughty island, the stepmother of Iviza. Suddenly the old man recollected that Febrer was a Majorcan and he was silent and confused.

"That is to say," he added, making excuses for himself, "there are good people everywhere. Your lordship is one of them; but, to come back to Captain Riquer——"

He was the master of a small three-masted vessel called a xebec, armed for privateering, the San Antonio, manned by Ivizans, engaged in constant strife with the galliots of the Algerian Moors and with the ships of England, the enemy of Spain. Riquer's name was known all over the Mediterranean. The event occurred in 1806. On Trinity Sunday, in the morning, a frigate carrying the British flag appeared off Iviza, tacking beyond the reach of the cannons of the castle. It was the Felicidad, the vessel of the Italian Miguel Novelli, dubbed "the Pope," a citizen of Gibraltar and a corsair in the service of England. He came in search of Riquer, to mock him in his very beard, sailing arrogantly in view of his city. The bells were rung furiously, drums were beat, and the citizens crowded upon the walls of Iviza and in the ward of "La Marina." The San Antonio was being careened on the beach, but Riquer with his men shoved her into the water. The small cannon of the xebec had been dismounted, but they hastily tied them with ropes. Every man from the ward of the Marina was eager to embark, but the captain chose only fifty men and heard mass with them in the church of San Telmo. While they were hoisting the sails, Riquer's father appeared. He was an old sailor, and, in spite of his son's opposition, he climbed into the boat.

The San Antonio took many hours and expert maneuvering to draw close to "the Pope's" ship. The poor xebec looked like an insect beside the great vessel manned by the wildest and most reckless crew ever gathered on the wharves of Gibraltar—Maltese, Englishmen, Romans, Venetians, Livornese, Sardinians, and Dalmatians. The first broadside from the ship's cannons kills five men on the deck of the xebec, among them the father of Riquer. He lifts up the old man's body, being bathed in his blood, and he runs to place it in the hold. "They have killed our father!" groan the brothers. "Let's get busy!" replies Riquer sternly. "Bring out the frascos! We must board her!"

The frascos, a terrible weapon of the Ivizan corsairs, fire-bottles, which, as they burst upon the enemy's decks, set it ablaze, begin to fall upon "the Pope's" vessel. The rigging begins to burn, the upper works shiver, and like demons Riquer and his men spring aboard among the flames, pistol in one hand, boarding axe in the other. The deck flows with blood, the corpses roll into the sea with broken heads. They find "the Pope" hiding, half dead with fear, in a locker in his cabin.

Tío Ventolera laughed like a boy as he recalled this grotesque detail of Riquer's great victory. Then, when "the Pope" was brought a prisoner to the island, the people of the city and the peasants gathered in crowds, staring at him as if he were a rare wild beast. This was the pirate, the terror of the Mediterranean! And they had found him stuck between decks, shaking with fear of the Ivizans! He was sentenced to be strung up on the island of the hanged men, a small islet where now stands the lighthouse in the Strait of the Freus; but Godoy ordered him to be exchanged for some other Spaniards.

Ventolera's father had seen great events; he was a cabin-boy on Riquer's ship. Later he had been captured by the Algerians, being one of the last captives enslaved before the occupation of Algiers by the French. There he ran a terrible risk of death once upon a time when one out of every ten of the captives was killed in revenge for the assassination of a wicked Moor whose body was found crammed into a latrine. Tío Ventolera remembered the stories his father used to tell of the days when Iviza produced corsairs, and when captured vessels were brought into port with captive Moors, both men and and women. The prisoners would be haled before the escribano de presas, the scrivener of the captives, as evidences of the victory, and he compelled them to swear "by Alaquivir, by the Prophet and his Koran, with hand and index-finger raised, his face turned toward the rising sun," while the fierce Ivizan corsairs, on dividing the booty, set aside a sum for the purchase of linen for binding up their wounds, and left another portion of the loot under pledge for celebration of daily mass by a priest every day while they were absent from the island.

Tío Ventolera passed from Riquer to earlier valorous corsair commanders, but Jaime, annoyed by his chatter, ever displaying a desire to overwhelm the island of Majorca, its hostile neighbor, at last grew impatient.

"It's twelve o'clock, grandfather. Let's go in; the fish have quit biting."

The old man glanced at the sun, which had passed beyond the crest of the Vedrá. It was not yet noon, but it lacked little. Then he looked at the sea; the señor was right; the fish would bite no longer, and he was satisfied with his day's work.

He tugged at the rope with his lean arms, hoisting the small triangular sail. The boat heeled over, pitched without making headway, and then began to cleave the water with a gentle ripple against her sides. They sailed out of the channel, leaving the Vedrá behind, coasting along the island. Jaime held the tiller, while the old man, clasping the fish-basket between his knees, began counting and fingering the catch with avaricious delight.

They rounded a cape and a new stretch of coast appeared. On the summit of a mountain of red rocks, dotted here and there by dark masses of shrubbery, stood a broad yellow squat tower, with no opening on the side toward the sea except a window, a mere black hole of irregular contour. The outlines of a porthole in the battlement of the tower, that had formerly served for a small cannon, was outlined against the blue sky. On one side the promontory rose sheer above the sea, and on the other sloped landward, covered with green, with low and leafy groves, among which peeped the white dots of a diminutive village.

The boat headed straight for the tower, and when near it they turned her toward a nearby beach, the bow grating upon the gravel. The old man struck the sail and warped the boat near a rock along shore from which hung a chain. He fastened the boat to it, and then he and Jaime sprang out. He did not wish to beach the boat; he was thinking of going out again after dinner, a matter of putting out a trawl which he would take up again the next morning. Would the señor accompany him? Febrer made a negative gesture, and the old man left him until the following day when he would awaken him from the beach singing the introit, while the stars still shimmered in the sky. Daybreak must find them at the Vedrá.

"Let us see how early you will come down from the tower!"

The fisherman turned toward the mainland, his fish-basket hanging on his arm.

"Give my regards to Margalida, Tío Ventolera, and tell her to have my dinner brought over right away."

The sailor replied with a shrug of his shoulders without turning his face, and Jaime walked along the beach in the direction of the tower. His feet, shod in hempen sandals, crunched on the gravel at the edge of the wash from the surf. Among the azure pebbles were fragments of pottery; portions of earthen handles; concave pieces of bowls bearing vestiges of decoration, which had, perhaps, belonged to swelling urns; small, irregular spheres of gray clay in which one seemed to make out, despite the corrosion of the salt water, human features worn by the passing centuries. They were curious relics of days of storm; suggestions of the great secret of the sea, which had come to light after being hidden thousands of years; confused and legendary history returned by the restless waves to the shores of these islands, which had been the refuge in ancient times of Phoenicians and Carthaginians, of Arabs and Normans. Tío Ventolera told of silver coins, thin as wafers, found by boys at play on the beach. His grandfather remembered the tradition of mysterious caves containing treasure, caves of the Saracens and Normans, which had been walled in with heavy blocks of stone, and long forgotten.

Jaime began to ascend the rocky slope leading to the tower. The tamarisk-shrubs stood erect like dwarf pines clothed in sharp and rustling foliage, which seemed to be nourished on the salt carried in the atmosphere, their roots embedded in the rock. The wind on stormy days, as it swept away the sand, left bare their multiple, entangled roots, black and slender serpents in which Febrer's feet were often caught. A sound of hurried flight and a crackling of leaves in the bushes answered to the echo of his footsteps, while a bunch of gray hair with a tail like a button scampered from bush to bush in blind haste. The startled rabbits roused dark emerald-colored lizards basking lazily in the sun.

Together with these sounds there floated to Jaime's ears a faint drumming, and the voice of a man intoning an Ivizan romance. He hesitated from time to time as if undecided, repeating the same verses over and over until he managed to pass on to new ones, uttering at the end of each strophe, according to the custom of the country, a strange screech like a peacock, a harsh and strident trill like that which accompanies the songs of the Arabs.

When Febrer gained the crest, he saw the musician sitting on a stone behind the tower, gazing at the sea.

It was a youth he had met several times at Can Mallorquí, the house of his old renter, Pèp. Resting on his thigh was the Ivizan tambourine, a small drum painted blue, decorated with flowers and gilded branches. His left arm was resting on the instrument, his chin in his hand, almost concealing his face. He beat the drum slowly with a little stick held in his right hand, and he sat motionless, in a reflective attitude, with his thoughts concentrated on his improvisation, peeping between his fingers at the immense horizon on the sea.

He was called the Minstrel, as were all those in the island who sang original verses at dances and serenades. He was a tall young man, slender, and narrow shouldered, a youth not yet eighteen. As he sang he coughed, his slender neck swelled, and his face, of a transparent whiteness, flushed. His eyes were large, the eyes of a woman, prominent and rose-colored. He always wore gala costume; blue velvet trousers; the girdle, and the ribbon which served him as a cravat, were of a flaming red, and above this he wore a little feminine kerchief around his neck, with the embroidered point in front. Two roses were tucked behind his ears; his hair, lustrous with pomade, hung like a wavy fringe beneath a hat with a flowered band, which he wore thrust on the back of his head. Seeing these almost feminine adornments, the large eyes and the pale face, Febrer compared him to one of those anemic virgins who are idealized in modern art. But this virgin displayed a certain suggestive bulk protruding beneath his red belt. Undoubtedly it was one of the knives or pistols made by the ironworkers of the island; the inseparable companion of every Ivizan youth.

Seeing Jaime, the Minstrel arose, leaving the tambourine hanging from his left arm by a strap, while he touched the brim of his hat with his right hand, still holding his drumstick.

"Good-day to you!"

Febrer, who, like a good Majorcan, had believed in the ferocity of the Ivizans, admired their courteous manners when he met them on the roadways. They committed murder among themselves, always on account of love affairs, but the stranger was respected with the same traditional scruples that the Arab possesses for the man who seeks hospitality beneath his tent.

The Minstrel seemed ashamed that the Majorcan señor had surprised him near his house, on his own land. He had come because he liked to look at the sea from this height. He felt better in the shadow of the tower; no friend was near to disturb him, and he could freely compose the verses of a romance for the next dance in the town of San Antonio.

Jaime smiled at the Minstrel's timid excuses, suggesting that perhaps the verses were dedicated to some maiden. The boy inclined his head. "Sí, señor."

"And who is she?"

"Flower of the Almond," said the poet.

"Flower of the Almond? A pretty name."

Encouraged by the señor's approbation, the youth continued talking. The "Flower of the Almond" was Margalida, the daughter of señor Pèp of Can Mallorquí. The Minstrel himself had given her this name, seeing her as white and beautiful as the flowers which the almond tree puts forth when the frosts are done and the first warm breezes blowing in from the sea announce the spring. All the youths roundabout repeated it, and Margalida was known by no other name. He had a certain gift for thinking of pretty sobriquets. Those which he gave lasted forever.

Febrer listened to the boy's words with a smile. In what a strange creature had the muse taken refuge! He asked the youth if he worked, and the boy replied negatively. His parents did not wish him to do so; a doctor from the city had seen him in the market place one day and advised his family that he must avoid all fatigue; and he, pleased at such counsel, spent the working days in the country in the shade of a tree, listening to the songs of the birds, spying on the girls walking along the paths, and when some new verse rung in his head he sat down on the seashore to quietly work it out and fix it in his memory.

Jaime took leave of him, saying that he might continue his poetic occupation, but a few steps away he stopped, turning his head at not hearing the tambourine again. The troubador was going down the hill, fearful of annoying the señor with his music, and seeking another solitary retreat.

Febrer reached the tower. All that which from a distance seemed to belong to a lower story was massive foundation. The door was on a level with the elevated windows; thus the guards in early days could avoid being surprised by the pirates. For ingress and egress they made use of a ladder which they drew up after them at night. Jaime had ordered made a rude wooden ladder by which to reach his room, but he never drew it in. The tower, constructed of sandstone, was somewhat eroded on its exterior by the winds from the sea. Many stones had fallen from their places, and these hollows simulated steps for scaling the tower.

The hermit ascended to his habitation. It was a round room with no other opening than the door and the window, which almost seemed to be tunnels, so great was the thickness of the walls. These, on the inside, were carefully whitewashed with the gleaming lime of Iviza, giving a transparency and milky softness to all the buildings, and to the modest little country houses the appearance of elegant mansions. Only on the ceiling, broken by a skylight, which told of the ancient ladder-way leading to the flat-roof above, did there remain any trace of the soot of the fires which used to be lighted in former days.

Rough boards, crudely fastened to wooden cross-pieces, which served to reinforce them, were used for door, window-shutter, and ceiling trap-door. There was not a pane of glass in the tower. It was still summer, and Febrer, undecided, and, in truth, indifferent as to his future, put off the details of actually settling down until some other time.

This retreat seemed to him romantic and pleasing, in spite of its crudity. He detected in it the skilful hand of Pèp and the grace of Margalida. He noticed the whiteness of the walls, the neatness of three chairs and of the deal table, all scrubbed by the daughter of his former tenant. Fish nets were draped upon the walls like tapestry; beyond hung the gun and a bag of cartridges. Long, slender sea-shells with the brown translucency of the tortoise were arranged in the form of fans. They were the gift of Tío Ventolera, as were two enormous periwinkles on the table, white, with erect points, and the interior of a moist rose-color, like feminine flesh. Near the window his mattress lay rolled up with his pillow and sheets—a rustic bed which Margalida or her mother made every afternoon.

Jaime slept there more peacefully than in his palace in Palma. When Tío Ventolera failed to awaken him at dawn by singing mass down on the beach or by climbing up the hill to fling stones at the door of the tower, the hermit rested on his mattress until late in the morning, listening to the music of the sea, the great crooning mother; watching the mysterious light, a mixture of golden sun and blue waters filtering through the cracks and trembling on the white walls; hearing the gulls scream outside, as they passed before the windows in joyous flight, flinging swift shadows within the room.

At night he retired early and lay open-eyed in the diffused starry light, wakeful in the glint of the moon as it shimmered through the half-opened door. It was that half hour in which all the past appears supernatural; that forerunner of sleep, in which the remotest memories are revived. The sea roared, strident calls of the night birds broke the stillness, the gulls complained with a lament like tortured children. What were his friends doing now? What were they saying in the cafés of the Borne? Who might be in the Casino?

In the morning these recollections brought a sad smile to his lips. The returning day seemed to gladden his life. Had he ever been like others who rejoiced in existence in the city? Here was where one could really live.

He glanced over the interior of his round tower. It was a veritable salon, more agreeable to him than the house of his forefathers; this was all his own, free from the dread of co-ownership with money lenders and usurers. He even had handsome antiquities which no one could claim. Near the door was a pair of amphoræ, drawn up by fishermen's nets—whitish earthern jars with pointed bases, indurated by the sea and capriciously decorated by Nature with garlands of adhering shells. In the center of the table, between the periwinkles, was another gift from Tío Ventolera, a terra cotta female head with a strange round tiara crowning her braided hair. The grayish clay was dotted with little, hard spherical concretions formed while lying for centuries in the salt water. As Jaime gazed at this companion of his solitude his imagination pierced the harsh outer crust and he recognized the serenity of feature, the strangeness and mystery of the almond-shaped, Oriental eyes. It appeared to him as to no one else. His long hours of silent contemplation had brushed away the mask, the work of centuries.

"Look at her! She is my sweetheart," he had said one morning to Margalida while she was cleaning his room. "Isn't she beautiful? She must have been a princess of Tyre or of Ascalon, I am not sure which; but the thing of which I am sure is that she was destined for me, that she loved me four thousand years before I was born, and that she has come down through the ages to seek me. She owned ships, robes of purple and palaces with terraced gardens, but she abandoned all to hide in the sea, waiting dozens of centuries for a wave to bear her to this coast so that Tío Ventolera might find her and bring her home to me. Why do you stare at me like that? You, poor child, cannot comprehend these things."

Margalida did, indeed, look at him in surprise. Imbued with her father's respect for this high-caste gentleman, she could only imagine him talking seriously. What things he must have seen in this world!

Now his words about this millenial sweetheart shook her credulity, causing her to smile nervously, while at the same time she looked with superstitious fear at the great lady of forgotten centuries who was nothing but a terra cotta head. How could Don Jaime talk like that? Everything about him was strange!

Whenever Febrer climbed up to the tower he sat down near the doorway and looked across the landscape. At the base of the hill spread recently ploughed fields, wooded areas belonging to Febrer which Pèp was clearing for cultivation. Then began the plantations of almonds, of a fresh green color, and the ancient and twisted olive trees, which lifted up their dark trunks with tufted branches bearing silver gray leaves. The house, Can Mallorquí, was a sort of Moorish dwelling, a cluster of buildings, all as square as dice, dazzling white, and flat-roofed. New white buildings had been added as the family increased, and as its necessities were augmented. Each of the dice constituted one room, and, taken together, they formed a house, which resembled an Arabian village. From without no one could guess which were the living rooms and which the stables.

Beyond Can Mallorquí lay the grove, and the high-banked terraces, separated by thick stone walls. The strong winds did not suffer the trees to grow tall, so they put out many luxuriant branches round about them, gaining in width what they lost in height. The branches of all the trees were upheld by numerous forked sticks. Some of the fig trees had hundreds of supports and spread out like an immense green tent ready to shelter sleeping giants. They were natural summer-houses in which nearly a whole tribe might be sheltered. The horizon in the background was shut out by pine-clad mountains, having here and there red, barren spots. Columns of smoke rose out of the dark foliage from the pits of the charcoal burners.

Febrer had now been on the island three months. His arrival had astonished Pèp Arabi, who was still busy telling his friends and relatives of his stupendous adventure, his unheard of daring, his recent voyage to Majorca with his children, his few hours in Palma, and his visit to the Palace of the Febrers, a place of enchantment, which held within its confines all the luxurious and regal splendor that existed in the world. Jaime's brusque declarations had astonished the peasant less.

"Pèp, I am ruined; you are rich compared to me. I have come to live in the tower; I don't know how long; perhaps forever."

He entered into the details of getting settled in his new quarters while Pèp smiled with an incredulous air. Ruined! All great gentlemen said the same thing, but what was left them in their misfortune was enough to enrich many poor men. They were like the vessels shipwrecked off Formentera, before the government established lighthouses. The people of Formentera, a lawless and God-forsaken crowd—they were natives of a smaller island—used to light bonfires to decoy the sailors, and when the ship was lost to them it was not lost to the islanders, for its spoils made many of them rich.

A Febrer poor? Pèp would not accept the money Febrer offered him. He was going to cultivate some of the señor's lands; they would settle accounts some other time. Since he was determined to live in the tower Pèp worked hard to make it habitable, besides ordering his children to carry the señor's dinner to him whenever he did not feel like coming down to the table.

These three months had been rustic isolation to Jaime. He did not write a letter, nor open a newspaper, nor read any book, except the half dozen volumes he had brought from Palma. The city of Iviza, as tranquil and dreamy as a town in the interior of the Peninsula, seemed to him a remote capital. Probably Majorca and the other great cities he had visited no longer existed. During the first month of his new life an extraordinary event disturbed his placid tranquillity. A letter came; an envelope bearing the mark of one of the cafés in the Borne and a few lines in large, crude script. It was Toni Clapés who had written. He wished him much joy in his new existence. In Palma everything was as usual. Pablo Vails did not write because he was angry with Febrer for going away without bidding him good-bye. Still he was a good friend, and he was busy disentangling Jaime's business affairs. He had a diabolical cleverness for that sort of thing—a Chueta, in fact! He would write more later.

Two months had gone by without the arrival of another letter. What did he care about news from a world to which he should never return? He did not know what destiny had in store for him; he did not even wish to think of it; hither he had come and here he would stay, with no other pleasures than hunting and fishing, enjoying an animal-like ease, having no other ideas or desires than those of primitive man.

He dwelt apart from Ivizan life, not mingling in their doings. He was a gentleman among peasants; a stranger! They treated him respectfully, but it was a frigid respect.

The traditional existence of these rude and somewhat ferocious people held for him that attraction which the extraordinary and the vigorous always exerts. The island, thrown upon its own resources, had been compelled century after century to face Norman pirates, Moorish sailors, galleys from Castile, ships from the Italian republics, Turkish, Tunisian, and Algerian vessels, and in more recent times, the English buccaneers. Formentera, uninhabited for centuries after having been a granary of the Romans, served as a treacherous anchorage for the hostile fleets. The churches were still veritable fortresses, with strong towers where the peasants took refuge on being warned by bonfires that enemies had landed. This hazardous life of perpetual danger and ceaseless struggle had produced a people habituated to the shedding of blood, to the defense of their rights, weapons in hand; the farmers and fishermen of the present day possessed the mentality of their ancestors, and kept up the same customs. There were no villages; there were houses scattered over many kilometers, with no other nucleus than the church and the dwellings of the curate and the alcalde. The only town was the capital, the one called in ancient documents the Royal Fortress of Iviza, with its adjacent suburb of La Marina.

When a youth arrived at puberty his father summoned him into the kitchen of the farmhouse in the presence of all the family.

"Now you are a man," he said solemnly, handing him a knife with a stout blade. The youthful paladin lost his filial shrinking. In future he would defend himself instead of seeking the protection of his family. Later, when he had saved some money he would complete his knightly trappings by purchasing a pocket-pistol with silver decorations, made by the ironworkers of the country, who had their forges set up in the forest.

Fortified by possession of these evidences of citizenship, which he never laid aside as long as he lived, he associated with other youths similarly armed and the life of a swain with its courtings opened before him; serenades with the accompaniment of signal calls; dances, excursions to parishes that were celebrating the feast of their patron saint, where they amused themselves slinging stones at a rooster with unerring aim, and above all the festeigs, the traditional courtships when seeking a bride, the most respectable of customs, which gave occasion for fights and murders.

There were no thieves on the island. Houses isolated in the heart of the country were often left with the key in the door during the absence of their owners. The men did not commit murder over questions of gain. Enjoyment of the soil was equitably divided, and the mildness of the climate and the frugality of the people made them generous and but mildly attached to material possessions. Love, only love, impelled men to kill each other. The rustic caballeros were impassioned in their predilections, and as fatal in their jealousy as heroes in novels. For the sake of a maiden with black eyes and brown hands they hunted and challenged each other in the darkness of night, with outcries of defiance; they sighted each other from afar with a howl before coming to blows. The modern pistol which fired but one shot seemed to them insufficient, and in addition to the cartridge they rammed in a handful of powder and balls. If the weapon did not burst in the hands of the aggressor, it was sure to make dust of the enemy.

The courtings lasted for months and even for years. A peasant-farmer who had a daughter of suitable age for betrothal would see the youths of the district and others from all over the island offer themselves, for every Ivizan deemed it his privilege to court her. The father of the girl would count the suitors—ten, fifteen, twenty, sometimes even thirty. Then he would calculate the amount of time that could be devoted to the affair before he would be overcome by sleep, and, taking into account the number of aspirants, he divided it into so many minutes for each.

At twilight they would gather from every direction for the courting, some in groups, humming to the accompaniment of clucking and a sort of whinnying, others alone, blowing on the bimbau, an instrument made of small sheets of iron, which buzzed like a hornet, serving to lull them into forgetfulness of the fatigue of the journey. They came from far away. Some walked three hours, and must travel as many back again, crossing from one end of the island to the other on the courting days which were Thursdays and Saturdays, for the sake of talking three minutes with a girl.

In the summer they sat in the pòrchu, a kind of rural zaguán, or if it were winter they would go into the kitchen. The girl sat motionless on a stone bench. She had removed her straw hat with its long streamers that during the daytime gave her the air of an operetta shepherdess; she was dressed in gala attire, wearing the blue or green accordian-plaited skirt, which she kept during the remainder of the week compressed by cords, and hanging from the ceiling, in order to keep the plaiting intact. Under this she wore other and still other skirts; eight, ten or twelve petticoats, all the feminine clothing the house possessed, a solid funnel of wool and cotton that obliterated every sign of sex and made it impossible to image the existence of a fleshy reality beneath the bulk of cloth. Rows of filigree buttons glittered on the cuffs of her jacket; on her breast, crushed flat by a monastic corset which seemed made of iron, shone a triple chain of gold with its enormous links; from beneath the kerchief worn on the head hung her heavy braids tied with ribbons. On the bench, serving as a cushion for her voluminous body, made bulky by skirts, lay the abrigais, the feminine winter garment.

The suitors deliberated over the question of precedence in the courting, and one after another they took their places at the girl's side, talking to her the allotted number of minutes. If one of them, becoming too enthusiastic in conversation, forgot his companions and trespassed on their time, they reminded him by coughs, furious glances, and threatening words. If he persisted, the strongest of the band would grasp him by the arm and drag him away so that another might take his place. Sometimes when there were many suitors and time was at a premium, the girl would talk with two at once, trying to display no preference. Thus the courting continued until she manifested predilection for a youth, often without regard for her parents' choice. In this short springtime of her life the woman was queen. After marriage she cultivated the soil alongside her husband and was little better than a beast.

The rejected youths, if they felt no particular interest in the girls, would then retire, transferring their affections a few leagues farther on; but if they were really enamored, they would lurk about the house and the chosen one was forced to fight with his former rivals, achieving marriage only by a miracle after passing through a pathway strewn with knives and pistols.

The pistol was like a second tongue to the Ivizan; at the Sunday dances he would fire off shots to demonstrate his amorous enthusiasm. On leaving his sweetheart's house, to give her and her family a sign of his appreciation, he was accustomed to fire a shot as he crossed the threshold, then calling out, "Good-night!" If, on the contrary, he went away offended and wished to insult the family, he would invert this order, first calling out, "Good-night," and shooting his pistol afterwards; but he was obliged in that case to rush out at full speed, for the members of the household promptly replied to the declaration of war with answering shots, with clubs, and with rocks.

Jaime was living on the brink of this existence, burdened with its crude traditions, looking on from the outside at the Arabian customs which still prevailed in this lonely island. Spain, whose flag floated every Sunday over the few houses embraced within each parish, scarcely gave a thought to this bit of soil lost in the sea. Many countries of far-away Oceanica were in more frequent communication with the great centers of civilization than this island, in former times scourged by war and rapine, and now lying forsaken off the beaten track of ocean steamers, surrounded by a girdle of small, barren islets, reefs, and shallows.

In his new round of life Febrer felt the joy of one who occupies a comfortable seat from which he may witness an interesting spectacle. These farmers and fishermen, the warlike descendants of corsairs, were pleasant companions for him. He pretended to look upon them from afar, but gradually their customs were captivating him, drawing him into similar habits. He had no enemies, and yet, in strolling about the island when he did not have his gun upon his shoulder, he carried a revolver hidden in his belt, ready for an emergency.

In the early days of his life in the tower, as the exigencies of getting settled compelled him to go into the town, he dressed as in Majorca, but little by little he left off his cravat, his collar, his boots. For hunting he preferred the blouse and the velveteen trousers of the peasants. Fishing accustomed him to wearing hempen sandals for climbing rocks and for walking along the beach. A hat like that worn by the youths of the parish of San José covered his head.

Pèp's daughter, who was familiar with the island customs, admired the señor's hat with a kind of gratitude. The people of the different quarters, which formerly divided Iviza, were distinguished one from another by the style of wearing their head-dress and by the shape of the brim, almost imperceptible to any but a native of the island. Don Jaime wore his like the youths of San José, and unlike those worn by the inhabitants of other parishes. This was an honor for the parish of which she was a daughter.

Ingenuous and pretty Margalida! Febrer enjoyed talking with her, delighting in her surprise at his jests and at his tales of other lands.

She would be coming with his dinner any moment now. A slender column of smoke had been floating above the chimney of Can Mallorquí for half an hour. He imagined Pèp's daughter flitting from place to place preparing his noonday meal, followed by the glances of her mother, a poor peasant woman, silent in her dullness, who did not venture to set her hand to anything pertaining to the señor.

Any moment he might see her appear beneath the shadow of the pòrchu which gave entrance to the house, the dinner basket on her arm, her marvelously white face, which the sun slightly gilded with a faint tinge of old ivory, shaded by her straw hat with its long streamers.

Someone was stepping into the shelter of the portico, beginning to climb up to the tower. It was Margalida! No, it was her brother Pepet, Pepet who had been in Iviza for a month preparing to enter the Seminary, and whom the people had on this account given the sobriquet of Capallanet, the Little Chaplain.

CHAPTER II

ALMOND BLOSSOM

"Good day to you!"

Pepet spread a napkin over one end of the table and placed upon it two covered dishes and a bottle of wine which had the color and transparency of the ruby. Then he sat down on the floor, clasping his hands about his knees, and kept very still. His teeth shone like luminous ivory as a smile lighted his brown face. His mischievous eyes were fixed upon the señor with the expression of a happy, faithful dog.

"You have been in Iviza studying to become a priest, have you not?"

The boy nodded his head. Yes; his father had entrusted him to a professor in the Seminary. Did Don Jaime know where the Seminary was?

The young peasant spoke of it as a remote place of torture. There were no trees; no liberty; scarcely any air; it was impossible to live in that prison.

While listening to him Febrer recalled his visit to the elevated city, the Royal Fortress of Iviza, a dead town, separated from the district of Marina by a great wall, built in the time of Philip II, with its cracks now filled with waving green caper bushes. Headless Roman statues, set in three niches, decorated the gate, which opened from the city to the suburb. Beyond this the streets wound upward toward the hill occupied by the Cathedral and the fort; pavements of blue stone, along the center of which rushed a stream of filth; snowy façades half concealing beneath the whitewash escutcheons of the nobility and the outlines of ancient windows; the silence of a cemetery by the seashore, interrupted only by the distant murmur of the surf and the buzzing of flies above the stream. Now and then footsteps were heard along the pavement of the Moorish streets, and windows half opened with the eager curiosity aroused by some extraordinary event; a few soldiers climbing leisurely up to the castle on the hill; the canons coming down from the choir, the fronts of their cassocks shining with grease, their hats and mantles the color of a fly's wing, wretched prebendaries of a forgotten cathedral, too poor to support a bishop.

On one of these streets Febrer had seen the Seminary, a long structure with white walls, and windows grilled like a jail. The Little Chaplain, as he thought of it, grew serious, the ivory flash of his smile vanishing from his chocolate-colored face. What a month he had spent there! The professor was driving away the tedium of the vacation by teaching this young peasant, wishing to initiate him into the beauties of Latin letters with the aid of his eloquence and a strap. He wished to make a prodigy of him by the time he took up his classes again, and the blows grew more frequent. Besides this were the window grilles, which allowed glimpses of nothing but the opposite wall; the barrenness of the city, where not a green leaf was to be seen; the tiresome walks accompanying the priest through that port of dead waters that smelled of putrid mussels, and was entered by no other ships than a few sailing vessels that occasionally came for a cargo of salt. The day before a still more vigorous strapping had exhausted his patience. The idea of beating him! If it had not been a priest who had ventured it he would——! He had run away, returning on foot to Can Mallorquí; but before leaving, he had taken revenge by tearing up several books which the maestro held in great esteem; he had upset the inkstand; and had written shameful inscriptions on the walls, with other pranks characteristic of a monkey at liberty.

The night had been one of storm in Can Mallorquí. Pèp was blind with fury, and had used a club upon his back until Margalida and her mother had been compelled to interfere.

The boy's smile reappeared. He told with pride of the punishment he had taken from his father without uttering a cry. It was his father who was beating him, and a father could chastise because he loved his children; but should anyone else try to beat him, that person was doomed! As he said this he straightened himself with the belligerent air of a race accustomed to seeing blood flow and to administering justice with their own hands. Pèp talked of taking his son back to the Seminary, but the boy put no faith in this threat. He would not go, even if his father tried to fulfill his vow of binding him with ropes and taking him on the back of a donkey like a sack of wheat; rather than that he would run away to the mountains or to the rock of Vedrá and live with the wild goats.

The master of Can Mallorquí had planned the future of his children high-handedly, with the energy of a rustic who gives no thought to obstacles when he believes he is doing right. Margalida should marry a peasant-farmer, and the house and land should be his. Pepet should be a priest, which would represent social ascension for the family, honor and fortune for them all.

Jaime smiled as he listened to the boy's protests against his fate. There was no other center of learning on the island than the Seminary, and the peasants and shipowners who desired for their children a better fortune than their own, enrolled them there. The priests of Iviza! What an incongruous class! Many of them, while carrying on their studies, had taken part in the courtings, using knife and pistol. Descendants of corsairs and of soldiers, when they donned the cassock they still retained the arrogance and the rude virility of their forefathers. They were not lacking in piety, for their simplicity of mind did not permit of this, but neither were they devout and austere; they loved life with all its sweetness, and were attracted by danger with inherited enthusiasm. The island turned out hardy and venturesome priests. Those who remained in Spain became army chaplains. Others, more bold, no sooner had they sung their first mass than they embarked for South America, where certain republics boasting a large Catholic aristocracy were the Eldorado of Spanish priests who had no fear of the sea. They sent home generous sums of money to their families, and they bought houses and lands, praising God, who maintains his priests in greater ease in the new world than in the old. There were charitable señoras in Chile and Peru who gave a hundred pesos as a gratuity for a single mass. Such news made their relatives, gathered in the kitchen on winter nights, open their mouths in amazement. Despite such greatness, however, their most fervent desire was to return to the beloved isle, and after a few years they did so with the intention of ending their days on their own lands; but the demon of modern life had bitten deep into their hearts; they wearied of the monotonous insular existence, with its narrow limitations; they could not forget the new cities on the other continent, and finally they sold their property, or gave it to their family, and sailed away to return no more.

Pèp was indignant at the obstinacy of his son, who insisted upon remaining a peasant. He blustered about killing him, as if the boy were on the road to perdition. The son of his friend Treufoch had sent almost six thousand dollars home from America; another priest who lived in the interior among the Indians, in some very high mountains called the Andes, had bought a farm in Iviza that his father was now cultivating; and this rascal Pepet, who was more quick at letters than any of these, refused to follow such glorious examples! He ought to be killed!

The night before, during a moment of calm, while Pèp was resting in the kitchen with the weary arm and the sad mien of the father who has been wielding a heavy hand, the youth, rubbing his bruises, had proposed a compromise. He would become a priest; he would obey Señor Pèp; but he wanted to be a man for a while first, to go out serenading with the other boys of the parish, go to the Sunday dances, join in the courtings, have a sweetheart, and wear a knife in his belt. This last desire was greatest of all. If his father would only give him his grandfather's knife he would put up with anything.

"Grandfather's knife, father!" implored the boy. "Grandfather's knife!"

For his grandfather's knife he would become a priest, and even if necessary live in solitude, on the alms of the people, as did the hermits on the seashore in the sanctuary of Cubells. As he thought of the venerable weapon his eyes glowed with admiration, and he described it to Febrer. A jewel! It was an antique steel blade, keen and burnished. He could cut through a coin with it, and in his grandfather's hands——! His grandfather had been a man of renown, a famous man. Pepet had never seen him, but he talked of him with admiration, giving him a higher place in his esteem than that evoked by his mediocre father.

Then, spurred on by his desire, he ventured to implore Don Jaime's assistance. If only he would help him! If he should ask just once for the famous knife his father would immediately hand it to him.

"You shall have the knife, my boy. If your father won't give you that one, I'll buy one for you the next time I go to the city," said Febrer good-naturedly.

This filled the Little Chaplain with joy. It was necessary for him to go armed so that he could mingle with men. His house was soon to be visited by the bravest youths of the island. Margalida was now a woman, and the courting was going to begin. Señor Pèp had been besieged by the young gallants, who demanded that he set the day and the hour for the suitors.

"Margalida!" cried Febrer in surprise. "Margalida to have sweethearts!"

The spectacle he had witnessed in so many other houses on the island seemed to him an absurdity for Can Mallorquí. He had not realized that Pèp's daughter was a woman. Could that child, that pretty, white doll, really care for men? He felt the strange sensation of the father who has loved many women in his youth, but who, later in life, judging by his own lack of susceptibility, cannot understand his daughter's fondness for men.

After a few moments of silence Margalida seemed changed in his eyes. Yes, she was a woman. The transformation pained him; he felt that he had lost something dear to him, but he resigned himself to reality.

"How many suitors are there?" he asked in a low voice.

Pepet waved one hand while at the same time he raised his eyes to the vaulted ceiling of the tower. How many? He was not sure yet; at least thirty. It was going to be such a courting as would make talk all over the island, despite the fact that many, although they devoured Margalida with their eyes, were afraid to join the courting, giving themselves up for conquered in advance. There were few like his sister on the island; trim, merry, and with a good slice of dowry, too, for Señor Pèp let it be known everywhere that he intended leaving Can Mallorquí to his son-in-law when he died. And his son might burst with his cassock on his back over there on the other side of the ocean, without ever seeing any girls but Indian squaws! Futro!

However, his indignation soon passed. He became enthusiastic thinking about the young men who were to gather at his house twice a week to make love to Margalida. They were coming even from as far away as San Juan, the other end of the island, the region of valiant men, where one avoided going out of the house after dark, well knowing that every hillock held a pistol and every tree was a lurking place for a firearm. They were capable, every man of them, of waiting for satisfaction for an injury committed years before—the home of the terrible "wild beasts of San Juan." Then, too, various notables would come from the other sections of the island, and many of them must walk leagues to reach Can Mallorquí.

The Little Chaplain rejoiced at the thought of the arrogant youths with whom he was to become acquainted. They would all treat him like a chum because he was the brother of the bride to be; but of all these future friendships the one which most flattered him was that of Pere, nicknamed Ferrer, on account of his trade as an ironworker, a man about thirty, much talked about in the parish of San José.

The boy looked upon him as a great artist. When he condescended to work he made the most beautiful pistols ever seen on the field of Iviza. Old barrels were sent to him from the Peninsula, and he mounted them to suit his fancy in stocks engraved with barbaric design, adding to the work ornate decorations of silver. A weapon of his make could be loaded to the muzzle without danger of bursting.

A still more important circumstance increased his respect for Ferrer. He declared in a low voice, with a tone of mystery and respect, "Ferrer is a vèrro."

A vèrro! Jaime was silent for a few moments, trying to coördinate his recollection of island customs. An expressive gesture from the Little Chaplain assisted his memory. A vèrro was a man whose valor was already demonstrated, one who has several proofs of the power of his hand, or the accuracy of his aim, rotting in the earth.

That his kindred might not seem beneath Ferrer, Pepet recalled his grandfather's prowess. He had also been a vèrro, but the ancients knew how to do things better. The skill with which the grandfather settled his affairs was still remembered in San José; a stab with his famous knife, and his well-laid plans sufficed, for people were always found who were ready to swear they had seen him at the other end of the island at the very moment when his enemy lay writhing in mortal agony far away.

Ferrer was a less fortunate vèrro. He had returned six months ago after having spent eight years in a prison on the Peninsula. He had been sentenced to fourteen, but he had received various exemptions. His reception was triumphal. A native of San José was returning from heroic exile! They must not fall behind the citizens of other parishes who received their vèrros with great demonstrations, and on the day of the arrival of the steamer even the most distant relatives of Ferrer, who composed half the town, went down to the port of Iviza to meet him, and the other half went out of pure patriotism. Even the alcalde joined in the expedition, followed by his secretary, to retain the sympathy of his political partisans. The gentlemen of the city protested with indignation at these barbaric and immoral customs of the peasantry, while men, women, and children assaulted the steamer, each striving to be first to press the hero's hand.

Pepet described the vèrro's reception on his return to San José. He had been a member of the party, with its long line of carts, horses, donkeys, and pedestrians, looking as if an entire people were emigrating. The procession halted at every tavern and inn along the way, and the great man was regaled with jugs of wine, tid-bits of roasted sausage and glasses of figola, a liquor made of native herbs. They admired his new suit, a suit suggesting the fine señor which had been made to his order on leaving the penitentiary; they inwardly marveled at his ease of manner, at the princely and condescending air with which he greeted his old friends. Many of them envied him. What wonderful things a man learns when he leaves the island! There is nothing like travel! The former ironworker overwhelmed them all with boasts of his adventures on his homeward voyage. For several weeks thereafter the evening gatherings in the tavern were most interesting. The words of the vèrro were repeated from house to house throughout all the little homes scattered through the cuarton, every peasant finding some luster for his parish in these adventures of his fellow citizen.

The Ironworker never wearied of praising the beauty of the penal establishment in which he had spent eight years. He forgot the misery and hardship he had endured there; he looked back upon it with that love for the past which colors one's recollections.

He had been more fortunate than those poor wretches who are sent to the penitentiary on the plains of La Mancha, where the men have to carry up the water on their backs, suffering the torments of an Arctic cold. Neither had he been in the prisons of old Castile where snow whitens the courtyards and sifts in through the barred windows. He came from Valencia, from the penitentiary of Saint Michael of the Kings, "Niza," as it was nicknamed by the habitual pensioners of these establishments. He spoke with pride of this house, just as a wealthy student recalls the years he has spent in an English or German university. Tall palm trees shaded the courtyards, their crested tops waving above the tiled roofs; standing in the window-grilles one could see extensive orchards, with the triangular white pediments of the farmhouses, and farther out stretched the Mediterranean, an immense blue expanse, behind which lay his native rock, the beloved isle; perhaps the breeze, laden with the salt smell and with the fragrance of vegetation, which filtered like a benediction through the malodorous cells of the penitentiary, had first passed over it. What more could a man desire! Life there was sweet; one dined regularly, and always had a hot meal; everything was orderly, and a man had only to obey and allow himself to be led. One made advantageous friendships; one associated with people of note, whom he would never have met had he remained on the island, and the Ironworker told of his friends with pride. Some had possessed millions, and had ridden in luxurious carriages there in Madrid, an almost fantastic city whose name rung in the ears of the islanders like that of Bagdad to the poor Arab of the desert listening to the tales of the "Thousand and One Nights;" others had overrun half the world before misfortune shut them up in this enclosure. Surrounded by an absorbed circle, the vèrro recounted the adventures of these associates in the lands of the negroes, or in countries where men were yellow, or green, and wore long womanish braids. In that ancient convent, as large as a town, dwelt the salt of the earth. Some of them had girded on swords and commanded men; others had been accustomed to handling papers bearing great seals and had interpreted the law. Even a priest had been a cell-companion of the Ironworker!

The vèrro's admirers heard him with wide-open eyes and nostrils palpitating with emotion. What joy! To be a vèrro, to have gained celebrity and respect by killing an enemy in the darkness of night, and, as a recompense, eight years in "Niza," a place of honor and delight. How they envied such good luck!

The Little Chaplain, who had listened to these tales, felt a great and enduring respect for the vèrro. He described the particulars of his person with the detail of one enamored of a hero.

He was neither as tall nor as strong as the señor; he would scarcely come up to Don Jaime's ear, but he was agile, and nobody surpassed him in the dance: he could dance whole hours until he tired out every girl in the parish. From his long season at the prison he had returned with a pale and waxy complexion, the complexion of a cloistered nun; but now he was dark like everybody else, with his face bronzed and tanned by the sea air and the African sun of the island. He lived in the mountain, in a hut at the edge of the pine woods near the charcoal-makers, who supplied fuel for his forge. This he did not light every day. With his pretensions at being an artist, he worked only when he had to repair a fire-lock, to transform a flintlock into a rifle, or to make one of those silver decorated pistols which were the admiration of the Little Chaplain.

The boy hoped that this man would be his sister's choice; that the vèrro, with his astonishing skill, would become a member of his family.

"Maybe Margalida will like him, and then Ferrer will give me one of his pistols. What do you think, Don Jaime?"

He plead the vèrro's cause as if he were already a relative. The poor fellow lived so wretchedly, alone in his shop with no other companion than an old woman always dressed in the black garb of long-past mourning; one of her eyes was watery, the other was shut. She would blow the bellows while her nephew hammered the red-hot iron. Ever working around the fire, she grew more bony and thin each day; the hollows of her eyes seemed to be turning into liquid in her old face, which was wrinkled like a withered apple.

That gloomy, smoky den in the pine forest would be embellished by Margalida's presence. Its only decorations at present were a few small, colored rush baskets woven in the shape of checker-boards, adorned with silk pompons, a friendly token from the unfamed artists who whiled away the time in their retreat in "Niza." When his sister should live at the forge Pepet would go to see her, and he counted on acquiring through the munificence of his brother-in-law, a knife as famous as his grandfather's, that is, if Señor Pèp unjustly persevered in refusing him this glorious heritage.

The recollection of his father seemed to cloud the boy's hopes. He realized how difficult it would be for the master of Can Mallorquí to accept the Ironworker as a son-in-law; the old man could say no ill of him; he acknowledged his fame as an honor to the town. The island not only had brave men in "the wild beasts of San Juan," but San José could also gloat over valiant youths who had undergone trying tests; Ferrer, however, was little skilled in agricultural affairs, and although all the Ivizans showed themselves equally predisposed to cultivating the soil, to casting a net into the sea, or to landing a cargo of smuggled goods, along with other little industries, skipping easily from one kind of work to another, he desired for his daughter a genuine farmer, one accustomed all his life to scrabbling the earth. His resolution was unbreakable. In his empty and inflexible brain, when an idea sprouted it became so firmly imbedded that no hurricane nor cataclysm could uproot it. Pepet should be a priest, and should travel over the world. Margalida he was keeping for some farmer who should add to the lands of Can Mallorquí when he inherited them.

The Little Chaplain thought eagerly of him who might be the one favored by Margalida. It would be a struggle for them all, having at their head a man like the Ironworker. Even if his sister should incline toward another, the fortunate one would be compelled to settle accounts with Pere, the glorious desperado, and must put him out of the way. Great things were going to be seen. The courting of Margalida was already discussed in every house in the cuarton; her fame would spread throughout the whole island; and Pepet smiled with ferocious delight like a young savage on his way to a massacre.

He looked up to Margalida, acknowledging her as a greater authority than his father for the reason that his respect was not based on fear of blows. She it was who managed the house; everyone obeyed her. Even her mother walked in her footsteps like a serving woman, not venturing to do anything without consulting her. Señor Pèp hesitated before making a decision, scratching his forehead with a gesture of doubt and murmuring, "I must consult the girl about that." The Little Chaplain himself, who had inherited the paternal obstinacy, quickly yielded at his sister's slightest word, a gentle insinuation from her smiling lips uttered in her sweet voice.

"The things she knows, Don Jaime!" said the boy with admiration, and he enumerated her talents, dwelling with a certain respect on her skill in singing.

"Do you know the Minstrel, the sick boy, Don Jaime? He has trouble with his chest. He cannot work, and he spends his time lying in the shade thumping on a tambourine and mumbling verses. He's a white lamb, a chicken, with eyes and skin like a woman's, incapable of standing up before a brave man. He aspires to Margalida, too," but the Little Chaplain swore that he would smash the tambourine over his head before he would accept him as a brother-in-law. He would only claim as a relative of his a hero. Yet, as for making up songs and singing them interspersed with cries like the peacock's, there was no one to equal the Minstrel. One should be just, and Pepet recognized the youth's merit. He was a glory to the cuarton, almost to be compared with the valorous Ironworker. At the summer gatherings on the pòrchu of the farmhouse, or at the Sunday dances, Margalida, blushing, urged on by her companions, would sometimes take a seat in the center of the circle, and, the tambourine on her knee, her eyes hidden behind a kerchief, would reply with a long romance of her own invention to the rhymes of the troubadour.

If, some Sunday, the Minstrel intoned a long harangue about the perfidy of woman and how dear her fondness for dress cost man, the following Sunday Margalida would reply with a romanza twice as long, criticizing the vanity and egoism of the men, while the crowd of girls chorused her verses with cluckings of enthusiasm, glorying in having an avenger in the girl of Can Mallorquí.

"Pepet!... Pepet!..."

A feminine voice sounded in the distance like a crystal, breaking the dense silence of the early afternoon hours vibrant with heat and light. The voice grew stronger, as if approaching the tower.

Pepet changed from the position of a young animal at rest, freeing his legs from his encircling arms, and sprang to his feet. It was Margalida calling him. No doubt his father needed him for some task, and he had made a long visit.

Jaime grasped his arm.

"Wait, let her come," he said, smiling. "Pretend you don't hear her."

The Little Chaplain's lustrous teeth glistened in his bronzed face. The young imp was pleased at this innocent duplicity, and he took advantage of it by speaking to the señor with bold confidence.

"You will really ask Señor Pèp for it—for my grandfather's knife?"

"Yes, you shall have it," said Jaime. "Or if your father will not give it to you I will buy you the best one I can find in Iviza."

The boy rubbed his hands, his eyes glowing with savage joy.

"Having that will make a man of you," continued Febrer, "but you must not use it! Just a decoration, nothing else."

Eager to realize his desire at once, Pepet replied with energetic nodding of his head. Yes, a decoration, nothing else! Yet his eyes darkened with a cruel doubt. A decoration it might be, but if anyone should offend him while he had such a companion, what ought a man to do?

"Pepet!"

The crystal voice now rung out several times at the foot of the tower. Febrer waited for her coming, hoping to see Margalida's head, and then her figure, appear in the doorway; but he waited in vain; the voice grew more insistent, with pretty quavers of impatience.

Febrer peeped through the doorway and saw the girl standing at the foot of the stairs, in her full blue skirt and her straw hat with its streamers of flowered ribbons. The broad brim of her hat seemed to form an aureole around the rose-pale face in which trembled the dark drops of her eyes.

"Greeting, Almond Blossom!" called Febrer, smiling, but with hesitation in his voice.

Almond Blossom! As the girl heard this name on the señor's lips a flush of color momentarily overspread the soft whiteness of her face.

Had Don Jaime heard that name? But did such a gentleman interest himself in nonsense of that kind?

Now Febrer saw nothing but the crown and brim of Margalida's hat. She had lowered her head, and in her confusion stood fingering the corners of her apron, abashed, like a girl listening to the first words of love, and suddenly realizing the significance of life.

CHAPTER III

LOVE AND DANCING

The next Sunday morning Febrer took a trip to town. Tío Ventolera could not go fishing with him, for he considered his presence at mass indispensable, that he might respond to the priest with his shrill voice.

Having nothing else to do, Jaime started for the pueblo, walking along the paths in the red earth which stained his white hempen sandals. It was one of the last days of summer. The snowy white farmhouses seemed to reflect the African sun like mirrors. Swarms of insects buzzed in the air. In the green shade of the spreading fig trees, low and round, like roofs of verdure resting on their circle of supports, figs opened by the heat, fell, flattening on the ground like enormous drops of purple sugar. Prickly pears raised their thorny, wall-like trunks on either side of the road, and among their dusty roots whisked flexible, little animals, with long emerald green tails, intoxicated by the sun.

Through the dark and twisted columns of the olive and almond trees groups of peasants, also on their way to town, could be seen in the distance, following other paths. The girls in their Sunday gowns walked in advance, wearing red or white kerchiefs and green skirts, their gold chains glittering in the sun; near them walked the suitors, a tenacious and hostile escort that disputed for every glance or word of preference, several of them laying siege to the girl at the same time. The procession was closed by the girls' parents, aged before their time by the hardships and cares of country life, poor beasts of the soil, submissive, resigned, black of skin, with their limbs as dry as vineshoots, and who, in the dullness of their minds, looked back upon their years of courting as a vague and remote springtime.

Febrer turned in the direction of the church when he reached the village, which consisted of six or eight houses with the alcalde's office, the school and the tavern, grouped about the temple of worship. This rose stately and imposing, the band of union of all the dwellings scattered through mountains and valleys for some kilometers roundabout.

Removing his hat to wipe the perspiration from his brow, Jaime took refuge beneath the arcade of a small cloister before the church. Here he experienced the sensation of well being as does the Arab when, after a journey across the burning sands, he takes asylum with the lonely hermit.

The snowy exterior of the whitewashed church with its cool arcade and its walled terraces crowned with nopals, reminded him of an African mosque. It had more resemblance to a fortress than a temple. Its roofs were concealed by the upper edge of the walls, a kind of redoubt over which fire-locks and catapults had frequently peered. The tower was a military turret still crowned with merlons. Its old bell had pealed forth with feverish clangor of alarm in other times.

This church, in which the peasants entered life with baptism and left it with the mass for the dead, had for centuries been their refuge in time of stress, their fortress of defense. When the atalayas on the coast announced with fires or smoke the approach of a Moorish vessel, families streamed to the temple from all the farmhouses in the parish; men carrying guns, women and children driving asses and goats or bearing on their backs all the fowls of their barnyards, their feet tied together like a bundle of faggots. The house of God was converted into a stable for the property of His followers. Off in one corner the priest prayed with the women, his prayers interrupted by screams of anguish and by crying children, while the fusileers on the roof explored the horizon until word came that the sea birds of prey had sailed away. Then normal existence began again, each family returning to its isolation, with the certainty of being compelled to repeat the agonizing journey within a few weeks.

Febrer continued standing under the arcade, watching the hurrying groups of peasants, spurred forward by the last stroke of the bell whirling in the tower-loft. The church was almost full. A dense effluvium of hot breath, perspiration, and coarse clothing floated out to Jaime through the half-open door. He felt a certain sympathy for these good people when he met them singly, but in a crowd they aroused aversion, and he kept away.

Every Sunday he came to the pueblo and stood in the doorway of the church. The loneliness of his tower on the coast made it necessary to see his fellow men. Besides, Sunday was, for him, a man without occupation, a monotonous, wearisome, interminable day. This day of rest for others was for him a torment. He could not go fishing for lack of a boatman, and the solitary fields, with their closed houses, the families being at mass or at the afternoon dance, gave him the painful impression of a stroll through a cemetery. He would spend the morning in San José, and one of his diversions consisted in standing under the arcade of the church watching the coming and going of the crowd, enjoying the cool shade of the cloister, while a few steps away the soil was burning in the sun. The branches of the trees writhed as if agonized by the heat and by the dust covering their leaves, and the hot air stifled one as it was drawn into the lungs.

Belated families began to arrive, passing Febrer with a glance of curiosity and a diffident greeting. Everyone in the cuarton knew him; they were kind folk, who, on seeing him out in the country opened their doors to him, but their affability went no further, for they could not get near to him. He was a "foreigner"; moreover a Majorcan! The fact of his being a gentleman aroused a vague distrust in the rustic people, who could not understand his living in the lonely tower.

Febrer remained solitary. He could hear the ringing of a little bell, the rustle of the crowd as the people knelt or struggled up to their feet, and a familiar voice, the voice of Tío Ventolera, giving the responses in sing-song tones, with the harsh stridor of his toothless mouth. The people accepted the old man's officious interference without a smile, attributing it to senile aberration. They had been accustomed for years and years to hearing the Latin jargon of the old sailor, who from his pew supported the responses of the assistant in a loud voice. They attributed a certain sacred character to these vagaries, like the Orientals who see in dementia a sign of piety.

Jaime lighted a cigarette to help while away the time. Doves were cooing on the arches, breaking the long silences with their tender calls. Jaime had cast, one after another, three cigarette stubs on the ground near his feet before a long drawn out murmur came from within the church, as from a thousand suspended breaths which finally exhaled a sigh of satisfaction. Then a noise of footsteps, scraping of chairs, creaking of benches, dragging of feet, and the doorway was thronged by people, all trying to crowd out at once.

The faithful exchanged friendly greetings as if they saw one another for the first time as they met out in the sunshine beyond the dim light of the temple.

"Bòn día! Bòn día!"

The women came out in groups; the elder ones dressed in black, emitting a stale odor from their innumerable skirts and petticoats; the young ones erect in rigid corsets which crushed their breasts and obliterated the prominent curves of their hips, displaying with stately pride, above the motley hued handkerchiefs, gold chains and enormous crucifixes. There were brown faces and olive, with great eyes of dramatic expression; coppery virgins with glossy, oily hair divided by a part which their rough combing was ever widening.

The men stopped in the doorway to adjust upon their tonsured heads the kerchief worn in womanish fashion under their hats, below which fell long curls over their foreheads. It was a relic of the ancient haick, or Arabian hood, now worn only on extraordinary occasions.

Then the old men drew from their belts their rustic, home-made pipes, filling them with the tobacco of the pòta, an acrid herb which was cultivated on the island. The young men strolled from the porch and adopted ferocious attitudes, their hands in their belts, and their heads held high, before the groups of women, among which were the beloved atlotas, the marriageable girls, who feigned indifference, but at the same time peeped at them out of the corners of their eyes.

Gradually the mass of people scattered.

"Bòn día! Bòn día!"

Many of them would not meet until the following Sunday. Along every path walked multi-colored groups; some dark, without any escort, moving slowly, as if dragging themselves along in the misery of old age; others energetic, with rustling skirts and fluttering kerchiefs, followed by a troop of boys, who shouted, whinnied like colts, and ran back and forth to attract the girls' attention.

Febrer saw a few black-clad figures leave the church, a somber group of shawled women, each affording a glimpse through the opening in the mantle of a nose reddened by the sun, and of one eye swimming in tears. They were covered by the abrigais, the winter shawl, the coarse wool wrap of ancient usage, the very sight of which on that sultry summer morning aroused sensations of torment and asphyxia. Then followed some hooded men, old peasants wearing the ceremonial cape, a gray garment of coarse wool, with broad sleeves and tight hood. The sleeves were loose and the hood was fastened under the chin, showing their brown, pirate-like faces.

They were relatives of a peasant who had died the week before. The large family, which dwelt in different parts of the cuarton, had gathered, according to custom, at the Sunday mass to honor the deceased, and when they saw one another they gave vent to their grief with African vehemence, as if the corpse still lay before their eyes. Tradition demanded that they cover themselves with the ceremonial garments, their winter dress serving to shut them up as it were in casques of mourning. They wept and perspired inside their wraps, and as each recognized a relative whom he had not seen for several days, his grief burst forth anew. Sighs of agony issued from within the heavy wrappings; the rude faces framed by the hood wrinkling and emitting howls like sick babies. They expressed their grief by melting into an incessant flood of mingled perspiration and tears. From every nose, the most visible part of these grief-struck phantoms, trembled drops which fell upon the folds of their heavy garments.

In the midst of the clamor of feminine voices, hoarse with pain, and the masculine lamentations sharpened by grief, a man began to speak with kindly authority, demanding calm. It was Pèp, of Can Mallorquí, a far-off connection of the dead man. In this island where everyone was more or less united by ties of blood, the distant relationship, although it required that he participate in the mourning, did not oblige him to don the haik worn on solemn occasions. He was dressed in black, and covered with a light wool mantle and a round felt hat that gave him a certain ecclesiastic air. His wife and Margalida, who did not consider themselves related to this family, stood at a distance, as if their bright Sunday apparel set them apart from this show of affliction.

Good natured Pèp pretended to be angry at the extremes of despair which were growing more and more vehement. Enough, enough! Let everyone return to his house, and live many years commending the dead to God's mercy.

The weeping grew louder beneath the shawls and hoods. Adios! Adios! They clasped each other's hands, they kissed each other's lips, they twisted each other's arms, as if saying farewell never to meet again. Adios! Adios! They departed in groups, each taking a different direction, toward the pine-covered mountains, toward the distant white farmhouses half hidden among fig and almond trees, toward the red rocks along the shore, and it was an absurd and incongrouous spectacle to see these heavy perspiring images, these tireless mourners, marching slowly through the resplendent green fields.

The return to Can Mallorquí was sad and silent. Pepet led the way, the bimbau between his lips buzzing like a gad-fly. From time to time he stopped to throw a stone at a bird or at a puffed-up black lizard darting among the opuntia cactus. Little impression did death make upon him! Margalida walked at her mother's side, silent, abstracted, her eyes opened very wide, beautiful bovine eyes, which looked in every direction reflecting not a single thought. She seemed to forget that behind her was Don Jaime, the señor, the revered guest of the tower.

Pèp, also abstracted, addressed an occasional word to Febrer, as if he felt need of one with whom to share his feelings.

"What an ugly thing is death, Don Jaime! Here we are, in a bit of land surrounded by the waters, unable to escape, unable to defend ourselves, awaiting the moment for the final weighing of the anchor."

The peasant's egoism rebelled at this injustice. It was all very well that over there on the mainland, where people are happy and enjoy life, Death should show himself; but here—here, too, in this far-away corner of the world, was there no limit, no exemption from the great meddler? It was useless to think of obstacles against Death's coming. The sea might be raging along the chain of islands and reefs lying between Iviza and Formentera; the narrow channels might be boiling caldrons, the rocks crowned with foam, and the rude men of the sea might acknowledge themselves vanquished and seek safety in the harbors, the passage might be closed against every living thing, the islands shut off from the rest of the world, but this signified nothing to the invincible mariner with the hairless head, to him who walks with fleshless legs, who rushes with gigantic strides over mountain and sea. No storm could detain him; no joy could make him forget; he was everywhere; he remembered everyone. The sun might shine, the fields might be in the fullness of their glory, the crops bountiful—they were deceptions to divert man in his tasks and to make these more endurable! Deceitful promises, like those made to children, so that they will submit to the torments of school! Nevertheless, one must allow himself to be deceived; the lie was good; one must not dwell upon this inevitable ill, this ultimate danger for which there was no remedy, and which saddened life, depriving the bread of its relish, the liquid of the grape of its merry sparkle, the white cheese of its succulency, the open fig of its sweetness, and the roasted sausage of its piquant strength, overshadowing and embittering all the good things that God has put on the island for the enjoyment of worthy people. "Ah, Don Jaime, what misery!"

Febrer dined at Can Mallorquí to save Pèp's children the climb up to the tower. The meal was begun in gloom, as if the lamentations of the hooded creatures on the porch of the church still vibrated in their ears; but gradually around the little low table, crowned with its great bowl of rice, joy began to spread. The Little Chaplain talked of the afternoon dance, absolutely forgetting his life in the Seminary, and venturing to meet Pèp's eyes. Margalida recalled the Minstrel's glances and the Ironworker's arrogant mien when she had walked past the youths on her way to mass. Her mother sighed.

"Alas, señor! alas, señor!"

She never said more than this, accompanying her confused thoughts of joy or of sorrow with the same exclamation.

Pèp had made numerous attacks upon the wine-jug filled with the rosy juice of grapes from the very vines which spread a leafy screen before the porch. His melancholy face was flushed with a merry light. "To the Devil with Death and all fear of him!"

Should an honorable man spend his whole life trembling at thought of Death's approach? Let him present himself whenever he wished! Meanwhile, let a man live! And he manifested this desire to live by falling asleep on a bench, and by loud snoring, which did not avail to frighten away the flies and wasps whirling about his mouth.

Febrer returned to his tower. Margalida and her brother barely noticed the señor. They had left the table that they might more freely discuss the dance, with the light-heartedness of children who were disturbed by the presence of a serious person.

In the tower he threw himself upon his couch and tried to sleep. All alone! He reflected upon his isolation, surrounded by people who respected him, who, perhaps, even loved him, but at the same time felt in irresistible attraction for their simple pleasures which were insipid to him. What a torment these Sundays were! Where should he go? What could he do?

In his determination to while away the time, to seek relief from an existence wanting in immediate purpose, he at last fell asleep. He awoke late in the afternoon when the sun was beginning slowly to descend beyond the line of islands in a shower of pale gold which seemed to impart to the waters a deeper and intenser blue.

On going down to Can Mallorquí he found the farmhouse closed. Nobody! His footsteps did not even arouse the dog that lived under the porch. The vigilant animal had also gone to the fiesta with the family.

"They've all gone to the dance," thought Febrer. "Suppose I go to the pueblo myself!"

He hesitated for awhile. What could he do there? He detested these diversions in which the presence of a stranger aroused animosity among the peasants. They preferred to remain by themselves. Should he, at his age, and with his austere appearance, that inspired only respect and chill, go and dance with an island maiden? He would have to keep near Pèp and the other men, breathing the odor of native tobacco, discussing the almond crop and the possibility of a frost, making an effort to bring his mind down to the level of these peasant farmers.

At last he decided to go. He dreaded solitude. Rather than spend the rest of the afternoon alone he preferred the dull, monotonous, conversation of the simple folk, a restful conversation, he said to himself, which did not compel him to think, and which left his mind in a state of sweet, animal calm.

Near San José he saw the Spanish flag floating over the roof of the alcalde's office, while the hollow beating of a drum, the bucolic quavering of a flute, and the snapping of castanets, reached his ears.

The dance took place in front of the church. The young people were formed into groups, standing near the musicians, who occupied low seats. The drummer, with his round instrument resting on one knee, beat the parchment with rhythmical strokes, while his companion blew on a long, wooden flute, carved with primitive designs. The Little Chaplain was flipping castanets as enormous as the shells brought in by Tío Ventolera.