The views of Island life, sharp, vivid, are like those of a stereopticon or the wizard Zola. There is a native woman, Sisa, married to a worthless dog of a husband who beats her, robs her, and gets drunk. All her life centers in her two boys, Basilio and Crispin. They earn a pittance each, working for the sacristan of a church in another village, ringing the bells and cleaning the chancel. They are to come home to-night, and Sisa has been preparing something to please them, a supper with things they like to eat, earned by her hard work and self-denial. She has bought some small fishes, picked the most beautiful tomatoes in her little garden (for she knows how fond Crispin is of tomatoes), and begged from a neighbor some slices of dried wild boar’s meat and a leg of wild duck. To this she adds the whitest of rice, which she herself has gleaned from the threshing-floors. Then her worthless husband comes in and eats most of the boys’ supper. Sisa says nothing, although she feels as if she herself were being eaten. His hunger at last appeased, he remembers to ask for the boys. Then Sisa smiles happily and resolves that she will not eat that night because what remains is not enough for three. The father has asked for his sons; for her that is better than a banquet. The boys do not come, and the father goes away. At the church serious trouble has fallen upon Basilio and Crispin. The curate has accused Crispin of stealing and demands restitution; otherwise, the boy, says the humane curate, will be beaten to death. That night while their mother waits for them they are kept ringing the great bells in the church tower, for a storm is raging and it is well known that the sound of church-bells ringing keeps off the lightning. In the midst of this employment, the sacristan suddenly appears, fines the boys for not ringing in tune, renews the accusation of theft (which is quite groundless), and drags Crispin off to punishment, locking Basilio in the tower. He hears his brother’s cries for help dying out in the distance. Then he climbs the belfry, unties the ropes from the bells, ties them to the railing, lets himself out of a window to the ground, and runs home. But Crispin never appears. He has been shot and killed by a Civil Guard. Two or three days later Civil Guards come to Sisa’s house and arrest her for Crispin’s alleged theft. She is paraded through the streets as a common malefactor and locked in the common jail. Basilio has crept to the woods. Sisa begins to learn of Crispin’s fate. When she is released from jail she has become insane. She wanders about the country, living on alms and sleeping in the woods. Basilio comes home to find her gone and starts in search of her. When at last he comes in sight of her, she in her madness believes him to be another enemy and flees. He runs after her and overtakes her in time to hold her in his arms as she dies. The story of Sisa is interwoven with the development of the story of Ibarra.