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Every soul aboard her lost, and because they had obeyed his orders like true fishermen! And how many other vessels had met the same fate? There was deep shame on his face as he looked at tio Batiste and the two sailors, lashed to the mast there and whipped and bleeding in the storm! He did not choose to look at his brother nor at Pascualet.
Some days later, tio Mariano handed Pascualo the tidy sum of twelve thousand reales, the captain's share in the proceeds of the venture. But money was the least of the Rector's earnings. He had established himself now solidly in his uncle's grace, for the old man, with very slight risk to his own hide, had cleaned up twice that amount.
"Oh, tio!" the Rector exclaimed, when at last he was alone with his uncle. "I can say that now, can't I! It was a tough job, but we pulled it off, didn't we? The Christ of the Grao stood by us fine! We'll figure up accounts by and by, eh? Now I'm going home to Dolores. And won't she be glad to see me!" And the pair walked off toward the distant village with scarcely a glance at the poor vessel.
The men of the crew were gathering in the sail preparatory to lying to. Faithful to tio Mariano's instructions, Pascualo took a piece of tarred cable, set fire to it, and began to describe circles above his head, in series of threes, marked off by hiding the torch behind a piece of canvas which the "cat" held up in front of it.
Tío Ventolera remembered the stories his father used to tell of the days when Iviza produced corsairs, and when captured vessels were brought into port with captive Moors, both men and and women.
On the appearance of Tio Tiburcio, coffee was ordered and the padre told several good stories, over which we all laughed heartily. Cigarettes were next, and in due time Father Norquin very good naturedly inquired why an unfavorable answer, regarding the marriage of their daughter with young Blas Travino, had been returned the previous summer.
Sailors gathered round them with assurances that everything would be all right, though some of the men, foreseeing the inevitable end of the ghastly battle, tried to prevent them from looking on. And so an hour passed. A sight to turn your hair white! Pascualo, out at sea, felt the need of encouragement in his anxiety. And he called to tio Batiste. "You know the Gulf, tio," he shouted.
"Let me go, tio?" puts in Cypriano, with impressive eagerness, his eyes turned towards his cousin as though he did not at all relish the thought of her visiting the Tovas village without his being along with her. "And me, too?" also requests Ludwig, the son, who is two years older than his sister. "No, neither of you," rejoins the father. "Ludwig, you would not leave your mother alone?
The pretty daughter of tio Paella poked biting fun at that wreck she had for a sister-in-law, that old hen, quite passée, poor as a rat, a mere day laborer of the meanest kind, who couldn't hang on to the man she had married! Tonet, in fact, as in earlier days, was again following Dolores around like an obedient dog, sitting up when he was told to sit up, and charging when he was told to charge.
Beyond that, and closing the horizon shoreward, was the saw-toothed Cordillera, with ripples of red granite, its unmoving crests reaching up to lap the sky like tongues. Yes, the good weather had come early that year! You could take it from the Rector! Everybody from the Cabañal knew that, in such matters, he had inherited from his master, tio Borrasca, an instinct that never failed.
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