ead as if trying to
drive away a troublesome thought. Then he appeared to deliberate.... Why
not?...

"To end his suffering... to end his suffering!"

He went back to the cabin, only to come out at once with his old
double-barrelled musket, and he hastened to the little window of the
sick room as if he feared to lose his determination; he thrust the gun
through the opening.

Again he heard the agonizing panting, the chattering of teeth, the
horrible shriek, now very near, as if he were at the victim's bedside.
His eyes, accustomed to the darkness saw the bed at the back of the
gloomy room, and the form that lay writhing in it,--the pale spot of the
face, appearing and disappearing as the sick man twisted about
desperately.

The father was frightened at the trembling of his hands and the
agitation of his pulse; he, the son of the _huerta_, without any other
diversion than the hunt, accustomed to shoot down birds almost without
aiming at them.

The wailing of the poor mother brought back to his memory other groans
of long long ago,--twenty-two years before--when she was giving birth to
her only son upon that same bed.

To come to such an end!... His eyes, gazing heavenward, saw a black sky,
intensely black, with not a star in sight, and obscured by his tears....

"Lord! To end his sufferings! To end his sufferings!"

And repeating these words he pressed the musket against his shoulder,
seeking the lock with a tremulous finger.... Bang! Bang!

END

THE WINDFALL

"I SIR," said _Magdalena_, the bugler of the prison, "am no saint; I've
been jailed many times for robberies; some of them that really took
place and others that I was simply suspected of. Compared to you, who
are a gentleman, and are in prison for having written things in the
papers, I'm a mere wretch.... But take my word for it, this time I'm
here for good."

And raising one hand to his breast as he straightened his head with a
certain pride, he added, "Petty thefts, that's all I'm not brave; I
haven't shed a drop of blood."

At break of day, _Magdalena's_ bugle resounded through the spacious
yard, embroidering its reveille with scales and trills. During the day,
with the martial instrument hanging from his neck, or caressing it with
a corner of his smock so as to wipe off the vapor with which the
dampness of the prison covered it, he would go through the entire
edifice,--an ancient convent in whose refectories, granaries and garrets
th