CHAPTER VI

BASILIO


When the bells began their chimes for the midnight mass and those who
preferred a good sleep to fiestas and ceremonies arose grumbling at
the noise and movement, Basilio cautiously left the house, took two
or three turns through the streets to see that he was not watched
or followed, and then made his way by unfrequented paths to the road
that led to the ancient wood of the Ibarras, which had been acquired
by Capitan Tiago when their property was confiscated and sold. As
Christmas fell under the waning moon that year, the place was wrapped
in darkness. The chimes had ceased, and only the tolling sounded
through the darkness of the night amid the murmur of the breeze-stirred
branches and the measured roar of the waves on the neighboring lake,
like the deep respiration of nature sunk in profound sleep.

Awed by the time and place, the youth moved along with his head down,
as if endeavoring to see through the darkness. But from time to time
he raised it to gaze at the stars through the open spaces between the
treetops and went forward parting the bushes or tearing away the lianas
that obstructed his path. At times he retraced his steps, his foot
would get caught among the plants, he stumbled over a projecting root
or a fallen log. At the end of a half-hour he reached a small brook on
the opposite side of which arose a hillock, a black and shapeless mass
that in the darkness took on the proportions of a mountain. Basilio
crossed the brook on the stones that showed black against the shining
surface of the water, ascended the hill, and made his way to a small