It was a long, thin, handsome face, save for those eyes of glazed ferocity, and for the longish white teeth under the sparse moustache.

  The man was reduced to his last, blank term of being; a glazed and ghastly ferocity.

  Ramón dropped the hair of his victim, whose head dropped sideways with a gaping red throat, and rose to a crouching position. The second bandit was on his knees, but his hand already clasped his knife. Ramón crouched. They were both perfectly still. But Ramón had got his balance, crouching between his feet.

  The bandit’s black, glazed eyes of blank ferocity took a glint of cunning. He was stretching. He was going to leap to his feet for his stroke.

  And even as he leaped, Ramón shot the knife, that was all bright red as a cardinal bird. It flew red like a bird, and the drops of Ramón’s handful of blood flew with it, splashing even Kate, who kept her revolver ready, watching near the stairway.

  The bandit dropped on his knees again, and remained for a moment kneeling as if in prayer, the red pommel of the knife sticking out of his abdomen, from his white trousers. Then he slowly bowed over, doubled up, and went on his face again, once more with his buttocks in the air.

  Ramón still crouched at attention, almost supernatural, his dark eyes glittering with watchfulness, in pure, savage attentiveness. Then he rose, very smooth and quiet, crossed the blood-stained concrete to the fallen man, picked up the clean, fallen knife that belonged to the fellow, lifted the red-dripping chin, and with one stroke drove the knife into the man’s throat. The man subsided with the blow, not even twitching.

  Then again, Ramón turned to look at the first man. He gazed a moment attentively. But that horrible black face was dead.

  And then Ramón glanced at Kate, as she stood near the stairs with the revolver. His brow was like a boy’s, very pure and primitive, and the eyes underneath had a certain primitive gleaming look of virginity. As men must have been, in the first awful days, with that strange beauty that goes with pristine rudimentariness.

  For the most part, he did not recognize her. But there was one remote glint of recognition.

  ‘Are they both dead?’ she asked, awestruck.

  ‘Creo que sí!’ he replied in Spanish.

  He turned to look once more, and to pick up the pistol that lay on the concrete. As he did so, he noticed that his right hand was bright red, with the blood that flowed still down his arm. He wiped it on the jacket of the dead man. But his trousers on his loins were also sodden with blood, they stuck red to his hips. He did not notice.

  He was like a pristine being, remote in consciousness, and with far, remote sex.

  Curious rattling, bubbling noises still came from the second man, just physical sounds. The first man lay sprawling in a ghastly fashion, his evil face fixed above a pool of blackening blood.

  ‘Watch the stairs!’ said Ramón in Spanish to her, glancing at her with farouche eyes, from some far remote jungle. Yet still the glint of recognition sparked furtively out of the darkness.

  He crept to the turret, and stealthily looked out. Then he crept back, with the same stealth, and dragged the nearest dead man to the parapet, raising the body till the head looked over. There was no sound. Then he raised himself, and peeped over. No sign, no sound.

  He looked at the dead body as he let it drop. Then he went to Kate, to look down the stairs.

  ‘You grazed that man with your first shot, you only stunned him, I believe,’ he said.

  ‘Are there any more?’ she asked, shuddering.

  ‘I think they are all gone.’

  He was pale, almost white, with that same pristine clear brow, like a boy’s, a sort of twilight changelessness.

  ‘Are you much hurt?’ she said.

  ‘I? No!’ and he put his fingers round to his back, to feel the slowly welling wound, with his bloody fingers.

  The afternoon was passing towards yellow, heavy evening.

  He went again to look at the terrible face of the first dead man.

  ‘Did you know him?’ she said.

  He shook his head.

  ‘Not that I am aware,’ he said. Then: ‘Good that he is dead. Good that he is dead. — Good that we killed them both.’

  He looked at her with that glint of savage recognition from afar.

  ‘Ugh! No! It’s terrible!’ she said, shuddering.

  ‘Good for me that you were there! Good that we killed them between us! Good they are dead.’

  The heavy, luxurious yellow light from below the clouds gilded the mountains of evening. There was the sound of a motor-car honking its horn.

  Ramón went in silence to the parapet, the blood wetting his pantaloons lower and lower, since they stuck to him when he bent down. Rich yellow light flooded the blood-stained roof. There was a terrible smell of blood.

  ‘There is a car coming,’ he said.

  She followed, frightened, across the roof.

  She saw the hills and lower slopes inland swimming in gold light like lacquer. The black huts of the peons, the lurid leaves of bananas showed up uncannily, the trees green-gold stood up, with boughs of shadow. And away up the road was a puther of dust, then the flash of glass as the automobile turned.

  ‘Stay here,’ said Ramón, ‘while I go down.’

  ‘Why didn’t your peons come and help you?’ she said.

  ‘They never do!’ he replied. ‘Unless they are armed on purpose.’

  He went, picking up his blouse and putting it on. And immediately the blood came through.

  He went down. She listened to his steps. Below, the courtyard was all shadow, and empty, save for two dead white-clothed bodies of men, one near the zaguán, one against a pillar of the shed.

  The motor-car came sounding its horn wildly all the way between the trees. It lurched into the zaguán. It was full of soldiers, soldiers standing on the running-boards, hanging on.

  ‘Don Ramón! Don Ramón!’ shouted the officer, leaping out of the car. ‘Don Ramón!’ He was thundering at the doors of the inner zaguán.

  Why did not Ramón open? Where was he?

  She leaned over the parapet and screamed like a wild bird.

  ‘Viene! Viene Don Ramón! Él viene!’

  The soldiers all looked up at her. She drew back in terror. Then, in a panic, she turned downstairs, to the terrace. There was blood on the stone stairs, at the bottom, a great pool. And on the terrace near the rocking-chairs, two dead men in a great pool of blood.

  One was Ramón! For a moment she went unconscious. Then slowly she crept forward. Ramón had fallen, reeking with blood from his wound, his arms round the body of the other man, who was bleeding too. The second man opened his eyes, wildly, and in a rattling voice, blind and dying, said:

  ‘Patrón!’

  It was Martin, Ramón’s own mozo. He was stiffening and dying in Ramón’s arms. And Ramón, lifting him, had made his own wound gush with blood, and had fainted. He lay like dead. But Kate could see the faintest pulse in his neck.

  She ran blindly down the stairs, and fought to get the great iron bars from across the door, screaming all the time:

  ‘Come! Somebody! Come to Don Ramón! He will die.’

  A terrified boy and a woman appeared from the kitchen quarters. The door was opened, just as six horse-soldiers galloped into the courtyard. The officer leaped from his horse and ran like a hare, his revolver drawn, his spurs flashing, straight through the doors and up the stairs, like a madman. When Kate got up the stairs again, the officer was standing with drawn revolver, gazing down at Ramón.

  ‘He is dead?’ he said, stupefied, looking at Kate.

  ‘No!’ she said. ‘It is only loss of blood.’

  The officers lifted Ramón and laid him on the terrace. Then quickly they got off his blouse. The wound was bleeding thickly in the back.

  ‘We’ve got to stop this wound,’ said the lieutenant. ‘Where is Pablo?’

  Instantly there was a cry for Pablo.

  Kate ran into a bedroom for water, and she switched an old linen sheet from the bed. Pablo was a young doctor among the soldiers. Kate gave him the bowl of water and the towel, and was tearing the sheet into bands. Ramón lay naked on the floor, all streaked with blood. And the light was going.

  ‘Bring light!’ said the young doctor.

  With swift hands he washed the wound, peering with his nose almost touching it.

  ‘It is not much!’ he said.

  Kate had prepared bandages and a pad. She crouched to hand them to the young man. The woman-servant set a lamp with a white shade on the floor by the doctor. He lifted it, peering again at the wound.

  ‘No!’ he said. ‘It is not much.’

  Then glancing up at the soldiers who stood motionless, peering down, the light on their dark faces.

  ‘Tu!’ he said, making a gesture.

  Quickly the lieutenant took the lamp, holding it over the inert body, and the doctor, with Kate to help, proceeded to staunch and bind the wound. And Kate, as she touched the soft, inert flesh of Ramón, was thinking to herself: This too is he, this silent body! And that face that stabbed the throat of the bandit was he! And that twilit brow, and those remote eyes, like a death-virgin, was he. Even a savage out of the twilight! And the man that knows me, where is he? One among these many men, no more! Oh God! give the man his soul back, into this bloody body. Let the soul come back, or the universe will be cold for me and for many men.

  The doctor finished his temporary bandage, looked at the wound in the arm, swiftly wiped the blood off the loins and buttocks and legs, and said:

  ‘We must put him in bed. Lift his head.’

  Quickly Kate lifted the heavy, inert head. The eyes were half open. The doctor pressed the closed lips, under the sparse black moustache. But the teeth were firmly shut.

  The doctor shook his head.

  ‘Bring a mattress,’ he said.

  The wind was suddenly roaring, the lamp was leaping with a long, smoky needle of flame, inside its chimney. Leaves and dust flew rattling on the terrace, there was a splash of lightning. Ramón’s body lay there uncovered and motionless, the bandage was already soaked with blood, under the darkening, leaping light of the lamp.

  And again Kate saw, vividly, how the body is the flame of the soul, leaping and sinking upon the invisible wick of the soul. And now the soul, like a wick, seemed spent, the body was a sinking, fading flame.

  ‘Kindle his soul again, oh God!’ she cried to herself.

  All she could see of the naked body was the terrible absence of the living soul of it. All she wanted was for the soul to come back, the eyes to open.

  They got him upon the bed and covered him, closing the doors against the wind and the rain. The doctor chafed his brow and hands with cognac. And at length the eyes opened; the soul was there, but standing far back.

  For some moments Ramón lay with open eyes, without seeing or moving. Then he stirred a little.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ he said.

  ‘Keep still, Don Ramón,’ said the doctor, who with his slim dark hands was even more delicate than a woman. ‘You have lost much blood. Keep still.’

  ‘Where is Martin?’

  ‘He is outside.’

  ‘How is he?’

  ‘He is dead.’

  The dark eyes under the black lashes were perfectly steady and changeless. Then came the voice:

  ‘Pity we did not kill them all. Pity we did not kill them all. We have got to kill them all. — Where is the Señora Inglesa?’

  ‘Here she is.’

  His black eyes looked up at Kate. Then more of his consciousness came back.

  ‘Thank you for my life,’ he said, closing his eyes. Then: ‘Put the lamp aside.’

  Soldiers were tapping at the glass pane, for the lieutenant. A black little fellow entered, wiping the rain from his black face and pushing his thick black hair back.

  ‘There are two more dead on the azotea,’ he announced to his officer.

  The lieutenant rose, and followed him out. Kate too went on to the terrace. In the early darkness the rain was threshing down. A lantern was coming down from the roof: it came along the terrace to the stairs, and after it two soldiers in the pouring rain, carrying a dead body, then behind, two more, with the other body. The huaraches of the soldiers clicked and shuffled on the wet terrace. The dismal cortège went downstairs.

  Kate stood on the terrace facing the darkness, while the rain threshed down. She felt uneasy here, in this house of men and of soldiers. She found her way down to the kitchen, where the boy was fanning a charcoal fire, and the woman was crushing tomatoes on the metate, for a sauce.

  ‘Ay, Señora!’ cried the woman. ‘Five men dead, and the Patrón wounded to death! Ay! Ay!’

  ‘Seven men dead!’ said the boy. ‘Two on the azotea!’

  ‘Seven men! Seven men!’

  Kate sat on her chair, stunned, unable to hear anything but the threshing rain, unable to feel anything more. Two or three peons came in, and two more women, the men wrapped to their noses in their blankets. The women brought masa, and began a great clapping of tortillas. The people conversed in low, rapid tones, in the dialect, and Kate could not listen.

  At length the rain began to abate. She knew it would leave off suddenly. There was a great sound of water running, gushing, splashing, pouring into the cistern. And she thought to herself: The rain will wash the blood off the roof and down the spouts into the cistern. There will be blood in the water.

  She looked at her own blood-smeared white frock. She felt chilly. She rose to go upstairs again, into the dark, empty, masterless house.

  ‘Ah, Señora! You are going upstairs? Go, Daniel, carry the lantern for the Señora!’

  The boy lit a candle in a lantern, and Kate returned to the upper terrace. The light shone out of the room where Ramón was. She went into the salon and got her hat and her brown shawl. The lieutenant heard her, and came to her quickly, very kindly and respectful.

  ‘Won’t you come in, Señora?’ he said, holding the door to the room where Ramón lay; the guest-room.

  Kate went in. Ramón lay on his side, his black, rather thin moustache pushed against the pillow. He was himself.

  ‘It is very unpleasant for you here, Señora Caterina,’ he said. ‘Would you like to go to your house? The lieutenant will send you in the motor-car.’

  ‘Is there nothing I can do here?’ she said.

  ‘Ah no! Don’t stay here! It is too unpleasant for you. — I shall soon get up, and I shall come to thank you for my life.’

  He looked at her, into her eyes. And she saw that his soul had come back to him, and with his soul he saw her and acknowledged her; though always from the peculiar remoteness that was inevitable in him.

  She went downstairs with the young lieutenant.

  ‘Ah, what a horrible affair! They were not bandits, Señora!’ said the young man, with passion. ‘They didn’t come to rob. They came to murder Don Ramón, you know, Señora! simply to murder Don Ramón. And but for your being here, they would have done it! — Ah, think of it, Señora! Don Ramón is the most precious man in Mexico. It is possible that in the world there is not a man like him. And personally, he hasn’t got enemies. As a man among men, he hasn’t got enemies. No, Señora. Not one! But do you know who it will be? the priests, and the Knights of Cortés.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ said Kate.

  ‘Sure, Señora!’ cried the lieutenant indignantly. ‘Look! There are seven men dead. Two were the mozos with guns, watching in the zaguán. One was Don Ramón’s own mozo Martin! — ah, what a faithful man, what a brave one! Never will Don Ramón pardon his death. Then moreover, the two men killed on the azotea, and two men in the courtyard, shot by Don Ramón. Besides these, a man whom Martin wounded, who fell and broke his leg, so we have got him. Come and see them, Señora.’

  They were down in the wet courtyard. Little fires had been lighted under the sheds, and the little, black, devil-may-care soldiers were crouching round them, with a bunch of peons in blankets standing round. Across the courtyard, horses stamped and jingled their harness. A boy came running with tortillas in a cloth. The dark-faced little soldiers crouched like animals, sprinkled salt on the tortillas, and devoured them with small, white, strong teeth.

  Kate saw the great oxen tied in their sheds, lying down, the wagons standing inert. And a little crowd of asses was munching alfalfa in a corner.

  The officer marched beside Kate, his spurs sparkling in the firelight. He went to the muddy car, that stood in the middle of the yard, then to his horse. From a saddle-pocket he took an electric torch, and led Kate across to the end shed.

  There he suddenly flashed his light upon seven dead bodies, laid side by side. The two from the roof were wet. Ramón’s dead man lay with his dark, strong breast bare, and his blackish, thick, devilish face sideways; a big fellow. Kate’s man lay rigid. Martin had been stabbed in the collar bone; he looked as if he were staring at the roof of the shed. The others were two more peons, and two fellows in black boots and grey trousers and blue overall jackets. They were all inert and straight and dead, and somehow, a little ridiculous. Perhaps it is clothing that makes dead people gruesome and absurd. But also, the grotesque fact that the bodies are vacant, is always present.

  ‘Look!’ said the lieutenant, touching a body with his toe. ‘This is a chauffeur from Sayula; this is a boatman from Sayula. These two are peons from San Pablo. This man’ — the lieutenant kicked the dead body — ’we don’t know.’ It was Ramón’s dead man. ‘But this man’ — he kicked her dead man, with the tall domed head — ’is from Ahuajijic, and he was married to the woman that now lives with a peon here. — You see, Señora! A chauffeur and a boatman from Sayula — they are Knights-of-Cortés men; and those two peons from San Pablo are priests’ men. — These are not bandits. It was an attempt at assassination. But of course they would have robbed everything, everything, if they had killed Don Ramón.’