They had fled blindly, pursued by fire and shot, as crazed with terror
as the people of the middle ages trying not to be ridden down by the
hordes of galloping Huns and Mongols. And this flight had been across
the country in its loveliest festal array, in the most productive of
months, when the earth was bristling with ears of grain, when the August
sky was most brilliant, and when the birds were greeting the opulent
harvest with their glad songs!
In that circus, filled with the wandering crowds, the immense crime was
living again. The children were crying with a sound like the bleating
of lambs; the men were looking wildly around with terrified eyes;
the frenzied women were howling like the insane. Families had become
separated in the terror of flight. A mother of five little ones now had
but one. The parents, as they realized the number missing, were thinking
with anguish of those who had disappeared. Would they ever find them
again? . . . Or were they already dead? . . .
Don Marcelo returned home, grinding his teeth and waving his cane in an
alarming manner. Ah, the bandits! . . . If only his sister-in-law could
change her sex! Why wasn't she a man? . . . It would be better still if
she could suddenly assume the form of her husband, von Hartrott. What an
interesting interview the two brothers-in-law would have! .
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