He was one of our guides, a native of the region, who, with an indescribable expression of terror depicted on his face, strove to drag me away with him and to cover my head with the hat which I still held in my hands.
My first glance, half astonishment, half anger, was equivalent to a sharp, though silent, interrogation.
The poor fellow, without ceasing his efforts to withdraw me from that place, replied to it with these words which then I could not comprehend but which had in them an accent of sincerity that impressed me:--“By the memory of your mother! by that which you hold most sacred in the world, _señorito_, cover your head and flee faster than flight itself from that cross. Are you so desperate that, the help of God not being enough, you call on that of the Devil?”
I stood a moment looking at him in silence. Frankly, I thought he was a madman; but he went on with equal vehemence:
“You seek the frontier; well, then, if before this cross you ask that heaven will give you aid, the tops of the neighboring mountains will rise, in a single night, to the invisible stars, so that we shall not find the boundary in all our life.”
“You take it in jest?--You think perhaps that this is a holy cross like the one in the porch of our church?”
“Then you are mistaken out and out, for this cross--saving its divine association--is accursed; this cross belongs to a demon and for that reason is called The Devil’s Cross.”
“The Devil’s Cross!” I repeated, yielding to his insistence without accounting to myself for the involuntary fear which began to oppress my spirit, and which repelled me as an unknown force from that place. “The Devil’s Cross! Never has my imagination been wounded with a more inconsistent union of two ideas so absolutely at variance. A cross! and--the Devil’s! Come, come! When we reach the town you must explain to me this monstrous incongruity.”
During this short dialogue our comrades, who had spurred their sorry nags, joined us at the foot of the cross. I told them briefly what had taken place: I remounted my hack, and the bells of the parish were slowly calling to prayer when we alighted at the most out-of-the-way and obscure of the inns of Bellver.
Rosy and azure flames were curling and crackling all along the huge oak log which burned in the wide fire-place; our shadows, thrown in wavering grotesques on the blackened walls, dwindled or grew gigantic according as the blaze emitted more or less brilliancy; the alderwood cup, now empty, now full (and not with water), like the buckets of an irrigating wheel, had been thrice passed round the circle that we formed about the fire, and all were awaiting impatiently the story of The Devil’s Cross, promised us by way of dessert after the frugal supper which we had just eaten, when our guide coughed twice, tossed down a last draught of wine, wiped his mouth on the back of his hand and began thus: