Part 14

"Coming with me?" he asked. "Your mother has ready a dinner fit for curates."

"The head sacristan won't let us leave yet," said the elder. "We're going into the tower to ring the bells."

"Take care! don't go too near the bells in the storm," said Tasio, and, head down, he went off, thinking, toward the outskirts of the town.

Soon the rain came down in torrents, the thunder echoed clap on clap, each detonation preceded by an awful zig-zag of fire. The tempest grew in fury, and, scarce able to ride on the shifting wind, the plaintive voices of the bells rang out a lamentation.

The boys were in the tower, the younger, timid, in spite of his great black eyes, hugging close to his brother. They resembled one another, but the elder had the stronger and more thoughtful face. Their dress was poor, patched, and darned. The wind beat in the rain a little, where they were, and set the flame of their candle dancing.

"Pull your rope, Crispin," said the elder to his little brother.

Crispin pulled, and heard a feeble plaint, quickly silenced by a thunder crash. "If we were only home with mama," he mourned, "I shouldn't be afraid."

The other did not answer. He watched the candle melt, and seemed thoughtful.

"At least, no one there would call me a thief; mama would not have it. If she knew they had beaten me----" The elder gave the great cord a sharp pull; a deep, sonorous tone trembled out.

"Pay what they say I stole! Pay it, brother!"

"Are you mad, Crispin? Mama would have nothing to eat; they say you stole two onces, and two onces make thirty-two pesos."

The little fellow counted thirty-two on his fingers.

"Six hands and two fingers. And each finger makes a peso, and each peso how many cuartos?"

"A hundred sixty."

"And how much is a hundred sixty?"

"Thirty-two hands."

Crispin regarded his little paws.

"Thirty-two hands," he said, "and each finger a cuarto! O mama! how many cuartos! and with them one could buy shoes, and a hat for the sun, and an umbrella for the rain, and clothes for mama."

Crispin became pensive.

"What I'm afraid of is that mama will be angry with you when she hears about it."

"You think so?" said Crispin, surprised. "But I've never had a cuarto except the one they gave me at Easter. Mama won't believe I stole; she won't believe it!"

"But if the curate says so----"

Crispin began to cry, and said through his sobs:

"Then go alone, I won't go. Tell mama I'm sick."

"Crispin, don't cry," said his brother. "If mama seems to believe what they say, you'll tell her that the sacristan lies, that the curate believes him, that they say we are thieves because our father----"

A head came out of the shadows in the little stairway, and as if it had been Medusa's, it froze the words on the children's lips.

The head was long and lean, with a shock of black hair. Blue glasses concealed one sightless eye. It was the chief sacristan who had thus stolen upon the children.

"You, Basilio, are fined two réales for not ringing regularly. And you, Crispin, stay to-night till you find what you've stolen."