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Very well, then; he would go against society, he would join El Bizco and assassinate right and left, and when, wearied of committing so many crimes, he would be led to the scaffold, he would look scornfully down from the platform upon the people below and die with a supreme gesture of hatred and disdain. While all these thoughts of wholesale extermination thronged in his brain, night was falling.
El Bizco and Manuel went along in the dark from one side to the other, exploring the hollows of the mountain, until a ray of light issuing from a crevice in the earth betrayed one of the caves. They approached the hole; from within came the interrupted hum of hoarse voices.
It was already the beginning of autumn; Leandro, on the advice of Senor Ignacio, was living with his aunt on Aguila street; Milagros continued keeping company with Lechuguino. Manuel gave up going with Vidal and Bizco on their skirmishes and joined the company of Rebolledo and the two Aristas.
Uncle Perquique knew the Society of the Three, and he would favour El Bizco and Vidal with his advice. Safer and more profitable than dealing with the stolen-goods purchasers of the second-hand shop was the plan followed by Dolores la Escandalosa, who sold the ribbons and the lace that she pilfered to itinerant hawkers who paid very well.
"What are you doing here?" Manuel asked him. "We've been thrown out of the caves," answered El Bizco, "and it's cold. What about you? Have you left the house?" "Yes." "Have a seat." Manuel sat down and rested his back against a keg of asphalt.
Only a few days before, told Vidal, they had, between them, robbed a fellow of a she-goat, on the banks of the Manzanares near the Toledo bridge. Vidal had entertained the chap at the game of tossing coins while Bizco had seized the goat and pulled her up the slope of the pines to Las Yeserias, afterward taking her to Las Injurias.
Whether anybody induced Bizco to tattoo his arms, or the idea was original with him, cannot be said; probably the tattooing he had seen on one of the bandits that he ran after had suggested a similar adornment for himself. Vidal imitated him, and for a time the pair gave themselves up enthusiastically to self-tattooing.
And to lend force to his declaration he drew out his dirk and plunged it viciously into the table. At nightfall the three returned by the road to the Toledo bridge and separated at that point, after arranging to meet on the morrow. Manuel wondered just what he was committed to by the promise made to be a member of The Three. The life led by Bizco and Vidal frightened him.
"That must be Vidal," said El Bizco, adding in a low voice, as he turned to Manuel, "See here, not a word to him." Vidal strutted in with his carefree air, expressed his pleasure at Manuel's coming, and the three left for the street. "Are you going to be around here?" asked the old woman. "Yes." "Don't come late, then, eh?" added Dolores, addressing Bizco.
He wore an old jacket through the rents of which peered his dark skin; according to what they said, they were both on their way to the intersection of Aravaca road and the Extremadura cart-road, to a spot they called the Confessionary. They expected to meet El Cura and El Hospiciano there and rob a house. "What do you say? Will you join us?" asked El Bizco sarcastically. "No, I won't."
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