“He is coming; I hear him hissing,” Lucía would say, as if they were speaking of some monster.
“You will see that he won’t come for five minutes yet,” Pilar would answer in a tone of conviction.
“I tell you he is coming, my dear; he is sputtering now.”
“Let me listen. No, no! It is the noise of the wind shaking the trees. You are dreaming.”
Then a short pause of complete silence would follow--a tragic interval.
“Hist! now, now!” the sick girl would cry, clapping her hands; “now it is coming, and in earnest!”
In effect, a strange gurgling noise was heard, followed by a shrill whistle, and then a jet of boiling water, which emitted an intolerable odor of sulphur, rose straight, swift, and foaming to the very roof of the high arbor. A thick steam enveloped the basin, and diffused itself through the atmosphere, now filled with the sickening odor of the sulphur. Thus the stream rose impetuously until the force below began to diminish when, with the fury of impotence, it issued in wild leaps, like the convulsions of an epileptic, writhing in anger, sputtering with desperate articulation; at last it would fall down, vanquished and powerless, sending forth only at rare intervals a thin stream, like the last flashes of a dying taper. Its agony ended with two or three hiccoughs from the tube at whose orifice the stream would appear, but without sufficient force to emerge. The spring would not now flow again for ten hours at least.
Lucía and Pilar would often dispute together about the termination of the phenomenon as they had done about its beginning.
“It has stopped. He is going to sleep. Good-night, sir,” Lucía would exclaim with a wave of the hand.
“No, child. He will make his appearance three or four times yet before he goes to rest.”
“He can. You shall see; he will give a few _little spits_ more, as the servant of a cousin of mine, an artillery officer says. Hush, listen, listen to him still snoring! One, two, three, now he is spitting!”
“Four, five, six! There, he won’t come back again. The poor fellow is tired out.”
“No, he won’t come again now; he has given his last gasp.”
Returning, the friends would find the bridge more animated than they had found it on going to the spring. This was the hour at which the townspeople and the bathers returned from their expeditions into the country, and many equestrians were to be seen hastening to the town, displaying their riding-trousers and buttoned gaiters, against which gleamed brightly stirrup and spur. An occasional sociable, looking like a light canoe, proceeded on its way, drawn by its handsome pair of well-matched ponies, with lustrous coats and clean hoofs, proud of their elegant burden. Hasty glimpses could be caught of wide straw hats, profusely adorned with lilacs and poppies; of light gowns, laces, and ribbons; light-colored muslin parasols; gay countenances, gay with the gayety of good society, which is always set in a lower key than, the gayety of common people. This latter was enjoyed by the pedestrians, for the most part happy family parties, who wore contentedly the livery of golden mediocrity or even of plain poverty; the father, obese, gray-haired, red-faced, with gray or maroon coat, carrying on his shoulder the long fishing pole; the daughter wearing a dark woolen gown, a little black straw hat adorned with a single flower, carrying on her left arm the little basket containing the flies and other piscatorial appurtenances, and leading by the right hand the little brother who had outgrown his trousers and jacket and who showed the ankles of his boots, proudly holding the pail in which floated the foolish fishes, victims of the death-dealing pastime of his father.