Three Novels by Capek Karel

Author:Capek, Karel
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Catbird Press
Published: 1990-06-28T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XX

“SOMEWHERE in Cuba amidst the hedges of Bougainvillea someone was being pursued, revolvers barked, and on a path that resembled the milky way an unknown man was left lying with a bleeding neck. The wound was inflicted with a knife with a broad blade that is used for cutting sugar-cane. About ten yards further on someone else was lying, with arms and legs splayed out; this one was dead.

Cursing silently, three fellows bent over the one that had been stabbed; but he already began to raise himself and murmured: ‘What—what do you want after all? Don’t push me, Cavalier!’ He felt the back of his neck, screwed up his mouth, and looked in amazement at his hand covered with blood, and at the three men. Mother of God, he was drunk!

‘What business had that mule to get mixed up in this,’ burst out one of the three in an angry mood, scratching his head. ‘Que mierda! Take him to the house, chaps!’

They snatched him up by his arms and legs, and shuffled along; they didn’t mind in the least that his backside was dragging along the road, leaving a trail in the dust like a sack of maize. They gasped and dragged that vagabond along the milky way. Let him bump his rump, the beast!

They put him down behind a door, an old hag flashed a light on his face, and cried to all the saints, and the master of the house, something of a bigwig if we are to go by his fierce blue mug, and evil eyebrows, bent down above it all and inquired why they had taken such a brute there.

The one who scratched his head blinked with all his might at the gentleman with knitted brows. ‘So that he won’t run away, your Grace. When that cavalier went away from here, we heard shooting outside; we ran to look and found this dago lying with this revolver in his hand. A few yards further on lies that unfortunate gentleman. He is dead, may God have mercy on him!’

The other two listened with open mouths as if they wanted to raise some objection; and the gentleman regarded them with inquiring eyes. ‘Do you know for certain that he’s dead?’

The tall peon crossed himself. ‘Like a calf, your Grace. He must have got at least three bullets in the back of his head. He had a knife in his hand … Most likely he tried to defend himself with the knife when this bandit came across him. This cut-throat here wanted to run away, but we put a stop to that. You agree with me, don’t you, boys ? Well, then, moo you oxes!’

Only now did the other two grasp his meaning, and they began to grin broadly. ‘As God is above us, your Grace, that’s how it was, just like that, holy truth; he tried to do a bunk after he had shot that cavalier. And he had a pistol in his hand.’

‘We ought to ask the police to take care of him,’ observed the tall one, looking round for corroboration.

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