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Men, he reflected, certainly do become brutes when they drink. The young woman was in her bedroom. From time to time, Berlanga heard her sigh deeply. Her sighs were long and tremulous, like those of a child still troubled in its dreams after having cried itself to sleep. The silversmith exclaimed: "Oh, Rafaela!" He had to call her twice more.
But already, even though Zureda had wanted to give him back, it was too late. Rafaela ran to the end of the platform, and there she had to stop. Pedro laughed and gesticulated from the blackness of the tender, bidding her farewell. The young woman went back home, in tears. Manolo Berlanga had just got home. He had been drinking and was in the devil's own humor. "Well, what's up now?" he demanded.
Berlanga entered the dining-room and saw that the young woman was making up his bed. He approached her. "Want any help?" he asked. "No, thanks!" Suddenly, without knowing what he was about, he grabbed her round the waist. She tried to defend herself, turning away, pushing him from her. But, kissing her desperately, he murmured: "Come now, quick, quick before he gets here!"
Señor Tomás ended up with: "Well now, you know all about it!" When Zureda left the tavern, his first impulse was to go home and put it up to Rafaela. Either with soft words or with a stick he might get something about Berlanga out of her. But presently he changed his mind. Affairs of this kind can't be hurried much.
Then the two men fell upon each other, first with their fists, presently with knives. At that moment the old man saw in the face of the man he had believed his son, the same expression of hate that twenty years ago had distorted the features of Manolo Berlanga.
XIV. They went on by Valdespino, and by Parra, and Berrocal, and Val de Endrinas, and they left Madina Celi on the right, and crost the plain of Barahona, and past near Berlanga; and they crost the Douro by a ford below the town, and rode on and came into the Oak-wood of Corpes. The mountains were high, and the trees thick and lofty, and there were wild beasts in that place.
Very quietly the engineer demanded: "Well, what have I done?" "You threw away this card, the five o' clubs," replied Berlanga, "and slipped yourself a king, that you needed! That's all. You're cheating!" The engineer answered the furious insult of the silversmith with a blow in the face. They tackled each other like a couple of cats. Chairs and table rolled on the floor.
In Señor Tomás' tavern he found Manolo Berlanga playing tute with several friends. The silversmith was drunk, and his arrogant, defiant voice dominated the others. Slowly, with a careless and taciturn air, the engineer approached the group. "Good evening, all," said he. At first, no one answered him, for everybody's attention was fixed on the wayward come-and-go of the cards.
The engineer already had a plan laid out, that made him talk this way. Among the people who had come to see him, while he had been sick, was one Manolo Berlanga, whose friendship with him had been brotherly indeed. This Berlanga had a job at a silversmith's shop in the Paseo de San Vincente. He had no relatives, and made rather decent wages.
And they past Alcoceba, and went on to the King's Ford, and there took up there lodging at the Casa de Berlanga. On the morrow they lodged at Medina Celi, and from thence they went to Molina, and Abengalvon came out with a right good will to welcome them, for love of the Cid, and he did them all the honour that he could.
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