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In the end only one was not accounted for the boat of tio Pascualo, the most thrifty saver of all the savers in the Cabañal, a man, decidedly, with an eye for money, a fisherman in winter and a smuggler in summer, a great skipper, and a frequent visitor to the coasts of Algiers and Oran, which he spoke of always as "across the way," as though Africa were on the sidewalk across the street.
They took the Grao road, Pascualo moving his sea-legs frantically to keep up with that devil of a girl who never walked but she ran, though with an attractive swaying of her body which made her skirt go up and down like the marking buoy in a yacht race. Shouldn't he carry her lunch-box for her? Thanks! She was used to having it on her arm. Didn't think she could walk so fast without it!
Tio Pascualo was hardly recognizable. His body was swollen, green, the belly inflated to the point of bursting. The decaying flesh was gnawed away in places by hungry little fishes, some of which, loath to let go their prey, were still clinging to it by their teeth, wriggling their tails and giving an appearance of disgusting life to the horrible mass. The bold sailor's fate was clear.
In the first days of her widowhood, when she saw the two little heads sleeping side by side in the narrow cabin, resting perhaps on the very timbers that had crushed their father's skull, she had felt an equal tenderness for them both, as though the deadly bark were to destroy them as it had killed Pascualo.
Then, like a giant sledge-hammer, it hurtled forward toward the foot of the mast where tio Batiste and the two sailors were. It was all as instantaneous as it was terrible. There was a cry. In spite of his courage in the face of terror, Pascualo could not stand this horrifying sight. With a groan of agony he buried his face in his hands.
And if you want them to stop talking, I'd advise you to have Tonet around your house as little, as little, as possible!" Pascualo had stooped over the watering-trough near the Cross, and covered the whole end of the pipe with his mouth, to let the stream run full into his stomach, as though to drown a conflagration that was burning in his insides.
There's plenty of loafers, and gossips, and rotten women, standing around to bring an honest man to ruin. But now watch me, and you'll see something worth while. This town is going to have something to remember the Rector by, Pascualo el Retor, the most famous lanudo of the Gulf! Ho! Ha!"
And Tonet stayed all warm and cosy at home with her, the pair of them laughing to see what a stupid, self-satisfied idiot you were! Tonet didn't sleep in this house after you sailed. And he's not here even to-night. He ran in a few moments ago, got his things and was off, saying he wouldn't be back again. And where is he, Pascualo? Over at your house of course!
Pascualo hissed the threatening words, to put a stop to that everlasting moralizing of an idiot! Would she never get to the point? Yet, in all his menacing, raging impatience, there was terror in his soul, the wish that minutes might turn, almost, to centuries, to postpone the cruel revelation. Well, yes, she would tell him everything! But how would he take it?
But you're going to see, Rosario, and this whole town is going to see, how Pascualo el llanut goes about things like this!" "No, Pascualo, no," begged Rosario, seizing him by his powerful hands. "Wait ... not to-night ... to-morrow ... some other day!" "Oh, I know what you are thinking about! You know where Tonet is to-night! But don't worry. You're right! Not to-night! Not to-night!
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