Part 25 (1/2)

And the phantom, enveloping his face with its burning breath, fixed a glance upon him which pierced his eyes, and descended lower and lower until it tore his very vitals.

”Pardon, Pimento!” groaned the wounded man, terrified by the nightmare, and trembling like a child.

Yes, he ought to forgive him. He had killed him, it was true; but he should consider that he had been the first to attack him. Come! Men who are men ought to be reasonable! It was he who was to blame!

But the dead do not listen to reason, and the spectre, behaving like a bandit, smiled fiercely, and with a bound, landed on the bed, and seated himself upon him, pressing upon the sick man's wound with all his weight.

Batiste groaned painfully, unable to move and cast off the heavy ma.s.s.

He tried to persuade him, calling him Toni with familiar tenderness, instead of designating him by his nickname.

”Toni, you are hurting me!”

That was just what the phantom wished, to hurt him, and not satisfied with this, he s.n.a.t.c.hed from him with his glance alone his rags and bandages, and afterward sank his cruel nails into the deep wound, and pulled apart the edges, making him scream with pain.

”Ay! Ay!... Pimento, pardon me!”

Such was his pain that his tremblings, surging up from the shoulder to his head, made his cropped hair bristle, and stand erect, and then it began to curl with the contraction of the pain until it turned into a horrible tangle of serpents.

Then a horrible thing happened. The ghost, seizing him by his strange hair, finally spoke.

”Come ... come....” it said, pulling him along.

It dragged him along with superhuman swiftness, led him flying or swimming, he did not know which, across a s.p.a.ce both light and slippery; dizzily they seemed to float toward a red spot which stood out in the far, far distance.

The stain grew larger, it looked in shape like the door of his bedroom, and after it poured out a dense, nauseating smoke, a stench of burning straw which prevented him from breathing.

It must be the mouth of h.e.l.l: Pimento would hurl him into it, into the immense fire whose splendour lit up the door. Fear conquered his paralysis. He gave a fearful cry, finally moved his arms, and with a back stroke of his hand, hurled Pimento and the strange hair away from him.

Now he had his eyes well opened; the phantom had disappeared. He had been dreaming: it was doubtless a feverish nightmare: now he found himself again in bed with poor Teresa, who, still dressed, was snoring laboriously at his side.

But no; the delirium continued. What strange light was illumining his bedroom? He still saw the mouth of h.e.l.l, which was like the door of his room, ejecting smoke and ruddy splendour. Was he asleep? He rubbed his eyes, moved his arms, and sat up in bed.

No: he was awake and wide awake.

The door was growing redder all the time, the smoke was denser, he heard m.u.f.fled cracklings as of cane-brake bursting, licked by tongues of flame, and even saw the sparks dance, and cling like flies of fire to the cretonne curtain which closed the room. He heard a desperate steady barking, like a furiously tolling bell sounding an alarm.

Christ!... The conviction of reality suddenly leaped to his mind, and maddened him.

”Teresa! Teresa!... Up!”

And with the first push, he flung her out of bed. Then he ran to the children's room, and with shouts and blows pulled them out in their s.h.i.+rts, like an idiotic, frightened flock which runs before the stick without knowing where it is going. The roof of his room was already burning, casting a shower of sparks over the bed.

To Batiste, blinded by the smoke, the minutes seemed like centuries till he got the door open; and through it, maddened with terror, all the family rushed out in their nightclothes and ran to the road.

Here, a little more serene, they took count.

All; they were all there, even the poor dog which howled sadly as it watched the burning house.

Teresa embraced her daughter, who, forgetting her danger, trembled with shame, upon seeing herself in her chemise in the middle of the _huerta_, and seated herself upon a sloping bank, shrinking up with modesty, resting her chin upon the knees, and drawing down her white linen night-robe in order to cover her feet.