Page:The Social Cancer.djvu/174



ASILIO was scarcely inside when he staggered and fell into his mother's arms. An inexplicable chill seized Sisa as she saw him enter alone. She wanted to speak but could make no sound; she wanted to embrace her son but lacked the strength; to weep was impossible. At sight of the blood which covered the boy's forehead she cried in a tone that seemed to come from a breaking heart, "My sons!"

"Don't be afraid, mother," Basilio reassured her. "Crispin stayed at the convento."

"At the convento? He stayed at the convento? Is he alive?"

The boy raised his eyes to her. "Ah!" she sighed, passing from the depths of sorrow to the heights of joy. She wept and embraced her son, covering his bloody forehead with kisses.

"Crispin is alive! You left him at the convento! But why are you wounded, my son? Have you had a fall?" she inquired, as she examined him anxiously.

"The senior sacristan took Crispin away and told me that I could not leave until ten o'clock, but it was already late and so I ran away. In the town the soldiers challenged me, I started to run, they fired, and a bullet grazed my forehead. I was afraid they would arrest me and beat me and make me scrub out the barracks, as they did with Pablo, who is still sick from it."

"My God, my God!" murmured his mother, shuddering. "Thou hast saved him!" Then while she sought for