“Take myself off!” repeated Sardiola quietly. “In order that you may strangle her at your ease. You ought to be ashamed of yourself to touch even so much as a thread of the Señorita’s garments.”
“But you--by what authority do you come here? Who has sent for you?” and Miranda’s countenance was convulsed with senile rage. “Begone!” he cried, with renewed anger, “or I shall find a weapon.” The bloodshot eyes of the husband glanced around the room until they fell upon the corpse, which preserved in the midst of all this violence its vague funereal smile. Sardiola, meantime, putting his hand into his waistcoat pocket, drew from it a medium-sized knife, probably used for cutting tobacco, and threw it at his adversary’s feet.
“There is one!” he cried, with the proud and chivalric air so frequently seen among the Spanish populace. “God has given me good hands with which to defend myself.”
Miranda stood for a moment, hesitating, then his rage boiled over again and he yelled out:
“I warn you that I will use it! I will use it! Go away, then, before I lose my patience.”
“Use it,” replied Sardiola, smiling disdainfully, “let us see how much courage there is behind those bold words--for, as for my leaving the room--unless the Señorita herself commands me to do so----”
“Go, Sardiola,” said a faint voice from the sofa, and Lucía, opening her eyes, fixed them with a look of mingled gratitude and authority on the waiter.
“Go, I say.” And Lucía sat erect, apparently quite calm. Miranda held the knife in his right hand. Sardiola, throwing himself upon him, snatched the weapon from his grasp, and taking a sudden resolution ran out into the corridor shouting, “Help! help! the Señorita has been taken ill.” At his cries, two persons who had just come up the stairs hurried forward into the chamber of death. They were Father Arrigoitia and Duhamel, the physician. A strange scene met their view; at the foot of the bed, on which lay the dead girl, a woman stood with outstretched hands trying to protect her sides and her bosom from the blows which a man was showering down upon her with his clenched fists. With a vigor not to be looked for in one of his frail physique, Father Arrigoitia rushed between the pair, receiving as he did so, if report speak truly, a blow or two on his venerable tonsured crown, and Duhamel, emulating, in the honor of science, the courage of the Jesuit, seized the furious man by the arm, and succeeded in preventing further violence. Pity it is that no stenographer could have been present at the time to take down the eloquent discourse, in broken French-Lusitanian-Brazilian, addressed by the doctor to Miranda for the purpose of demonstrating to him the cruelty and barbarity of striking in this way a _menina_, in Lucía’s condition. Miranda listened with a countenance that grew darker and darker every moment, while Father Arrigoitia lavished cares and affectionate attentions on the maltreated woman. Suddenly the husband confronted the doctor and asked something in a hoarse voice.