Before the uselessness of his bitter plaints, Don Marcelo's former
dominant character had come to life, raging against destiny.
He looked at the horizon where so often he had imagined the adversary
to be, and clenched his fists in a paroxysm of fury. His disordered mind
believed that it saw the Beast, the Nemesis of humanity. And how much
longer would the evil be allowed to go unpunished? . . .
There was no justice; the world was ruled by blind chance;--all lies,
mere words of consolation in order that mankind might exist unterrified
by the hopeless abandon in which it lived!
It appeared to him that from afar was echoing the gallop of the four
Apocalyptic horsemen, riding rough-shod over all his fellow-creatures.
He saw the strong and brutal giant with the sword of War, the archer
with his repulsive smile, shooting his pestilential arrows, the
bald-headed miser with the scales of Famine, the hard-riding spectre
with the scythe of Death. He recognized them as only divinities,
familiar and terrible-which had made their presence felt by mankind. All
the rest was a dream. The four horsemen were the reality. . . .
Suddenly, by the mysterious process of telepathy, he seemed to read the
thoughts of the one grieving at his feet.
The mother, impelled by her own sorrow, was thinking of that of others.
She, too, was looking toward the distant horizon.
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