Page:Tales of Today.djvu/228

212 Pepa. He could purchase her with the blood of Zucarraga* It was well. That was all there was of it.

"Garrido had promised; Araquil came there, demanding payment of the debt. The general said:

It is no more than just.'

"He asked where Pepa lived, summoned an aid-de-campaide-de-camp [sic], gave him the address and, pointing to Araquil, said:

You will lodge that man in the Fonda del Sol. And to-morrow you will have the chaplain in readiness. Yes, for a marriage. Go!'

"Juan's night in the fonda that had been transformed into a guardhouse seemed to him to pass very slowly. A long, long night it was, that seemed as if it would never end, with the distant barking of dogs—those howls that tell of coming death—and the sound of firing down there in the direction of the Carlist advanced posts.

"With the approach of morning he fell into a light slumber, dreaming of Pepa and, in his dream, placing gold coins in old Chegaray's skinny hand, the portion of a living woman, the money received for a corpse.

"It was broad day when a detachment of soldiers, headed by a sergeant, came to take Juan from the guardhouse. Who was it that wanted him? The general. More than this, in reply to Araquil's questions, the sergeant would not answer. They ascended the main street of Hernani, the little, narrow street where the houses were crowded and bunched closely together, with ancient escutcheons carved on their sandstone walls and those blue and yellow moucharabies that struck you as so pretty awhile ago, until at last they halted on the Grande Place. The weather