THE HOLY INNOCENTS With small compunction El Sarria turned Don Tomas over with his foot and coolly appropriated the cloak he had discarded, as also his headgear, which was banded with gay colours, and of the shape affected by the dandies of Seville. Then swinging the cloak about him, and setting the hat upon his head jauntily, he strode to the garden door. Above he could hear the angry voice of a woman, with intervals of silence as if for a low-toned inaudible reply. Then came a wail of despair and grief--that nearly sent him up the stairs at a tiger's rush, which would have scattered his enemies before him like chaff. For it was the voice of his Dolores he heard for the second time. But of late El Sarria had learned some of the wisdom of caution. He knew not the force Luis might have within the house, and he might only lose his own life without benefiting either Dolores or his son. Then there was a slow foot on the stairs, coming down. The light went out above, and he heard a heavy breathing behind the closed door by which he stood. "Tomas--Tomas!" said a voice, "here is the brat. It is asleep; do it quietly, so that the mother may not be alarmed. I cannot stir without her hearing me and asking the reason." And in the arms of Ramon Garcia was placed the breathing body of his first-born son. The door was shut before he could move, so astonished he was by the curious softness of that light burden, and Tia Elvira's unamuleted groin escaped safe for that time--which, indeed, afterwards turned out to be just as well. So at the door of his enemy El Sarria stood dumb and stricken, the babe in his arms. For the fact that this child was the son of his little Dolores, annihilated for the moment even revenge in his soul. But a hand was laid on his shoulder. "Haste thee, haste," hissed the witch-wife, La Giralda, Elvira's friend and rival, "hast thou smitten strongly? She lies behind the door. I cannot hear her breath, so all must be well. I saw thee stoop to the blow. Well done, well done! And the brain-pan of the ill-disposed and factious Senor Tomas is comfortably cracked, too. He had but sevenpence in his pockets, together with a bad peseta with a hole in it. Such fellows have no true moral worth. But come away, come away! Presently Don Luis will miss the Tia and give the alarm. Give me the babe!" But this Ramon would not do, holding jealously to his own. "What can you, a man, do with a babe?" she persisted. "Can you stop its mouth from crying? Is there milk in your breasts to feed its little blind mouth? Give it to me, I say!" "Nay," said El Sarria, shaking her off, "not to you. Did not this murderous woman come from your waggons? Is not her place under your canvas?" "It shall be so no more, if your stroke prove true," said the gipsy. "I shall be the queen and bring up this youngling to be the boldest horse-thief betwixt this filthy Aragon and the Gipsy-barrio of Granada, where La Giralda's cave dives deepest into the rock."