José fired. The jaguar roared and bit at his flank again, and then sprang in pursuit of Braulio. The latter, turning his course behind the oaks, flung himself towards us to pick up the lance thrown to him by José.
The beast was square in front of us. My rifle alone was available. I fired. The jaguar sank backward, reeled, and fell.
Braulio looked back instinctively to learn the effect of the last shot. José, Tiburcio, and I were all near him by that time, and together we gave a shout of triumph.
The mouth of the brute was filled with bloody foam; his eyes were heavy and motionless, and in the last agony of death, he convulsively stretched out his quivering legs and whipped the leaves with his beautiful tail.
“Good shot!—what a shot!” exclaimed Braulio, as he put his foot on the animal’s neck. “Right through the forehead! There’s a steady hand for you!”
José, with a rather unsteady voice (the poor fellow was thinking of his daughter), called out, wiping the sweat off his face with the flap of his shirt:
“Well, well, what a fat one! Holy Moses, what an animal! You son of a devil, I can kick you now and you never know it.”
Then he looked sadly at the bodies of his three dogs, saying, “Poor Campanilla, she’s the one I’m most sorry for—what a beauty she was.”
Then he caressed the others, which were panting and gasping with protruding tongues, as if they had only been running a stubborn calf into the corral.
José held out to me his clean handkerchief, saying: “Sit down, my boy. We must get that skin off carefully, for it’s yours.”
Then he called, “Lucas!”
Braulio gave a great laugh, and finally said, “By this time he’s safe hidden in the henhouse down home.”
“Lucas!” again shouted José, paying no attention to what his nephew was saying; but when he saw us both laughing, he asked, “What’s the joke?”
“Uncle, the boaster flew away as soon as I broke my lance.”
José looked at us as if he could not possibly understand.
“Oh, the cowardly scoundrel!”
Then he went down by the river, and shouted till the mountains echoed his voice, “Lucas, you rogue!”
“I’ve got a good knife here to skin him with,” said Tiburcio.
“No, man, it isn’t that, but that wretch was carrying the hamper with our lunch, and this boy wants something to eat; and so do I, but I don’t see any prospect of much hereabouts.”
But, in fact, the desired hamper was the very thing which marked the spot whence the fellow had fled as he dropped it. José brought it to us rejoicing, and proceeded to open it, meanwhile ordering Tiburcio to fill our cups with water from the river. The food was white and violet green-corn, fresh cheese, and nicely roasted meat; all this was wrapped up in banana leaves. Then there appeared, in addition, a bottle of wine rolled in a napkin, bread, cherries, and dried figs. These last articles José put to one side, saying, “That’s a separate account.”
The huge knives came out of their sheaths. José cut up the meat for us, and this, with the corn, made a dish fit for a king. We drank the wine, made havoc with the bread, and finished the figs and cherries, which were more to the taste of my companions than to mine. Corn-cake was not lacking, that pleasant companion of the traveler, the hunter, and the poor man. The water was ice-cold. My best cigars ended the rustic banquet.
José was in fine spirits, and Braulio had ventured to call me padrino. With wonderful dexterity Tiburcio flayed the jaguar, carefully taking out all the fat, which, they say, is excellent for I don’t know what not.
After getting the jaguar’s skin, with his head and paws, into convenient bundles, we set out on our return to José’s cabin; he took my rifle on the same shoulder with his own, and went on ahead, calling the dogs. From time to time he would stop to go over some feature of the chase, or to give vent to a new word of contempt for Lucas.
Of course the women had been counting and recounting us from the moment we came in sight; and when we drew near the house they were still wavering between alarm and joy, since on account of our delay and the shots they had heard they knew we must have incurred some danger. It was Tránsito who came forward to welcome us, and she was perceptibly pale.
“Did you kill him?” she called.
“Yes, my daughter,” replied her father.
They all surrounded us, even old Marta, who had in her hands a half-plucked capon. Lucía came up to ask me about my rifle, and as I was showing it to her she added, in a low voice, “There was no accident, was there?”
“None whatever,” I answered, affectionately tapping her lips with a twig I had in my hand. “Oh, I was thinking …”
“Hasn’t that ridiculous Lucas come down this way?” asked José.
“Not he,” replied Marta. José muttered a curse.
“But where is what you killed?” finally asked Luisa, when she could make herself heard.
“Here, aunt,” answered Braulio, and with the aid of his betrothed he began to undo the bundle, saying something to the girl which I could not hear. She looked at me in a very strange way, and brought out of the house a little bench for me, upon which I sat and looked on. As soon as the large and velvety skin had been spread out in the courtyard, the women gave a cry; but when the head rolled upon the grass they were almost beside themselves. “Why, how did you kill him? Tell us,” said Luisa. All looked a little frightened. “Do tell us,” added Lucía.
Then José, taking the head of
