009
"Stay here, Maria." "No," she said and did not smile at him. "I will go into the cave now." She picked up the iron plate they had eaten from and the four forks. She moved awkwardly as a colt moves, but with that same grace as of a young animal. "Do you want the cups?" she asked. Robert Jordan was still looking at her and she blushed again. "Don't make me do that," she said. "I do not like to do that." "Leave them," they gypsy said to her. "Here," he dipped into the stone bowl and handed the full cup to Robert Jordan who Watched the girl duck her head and go into the cave carrying the heavy iron dish. "Thank you," Robert Jordan said. His voice was all right again, now that she was gone. "This is the last one. We've had enough of this." "We will finish the bowl," the gypsy said. "There is over half a skin. We packed it in on one of the horses." "That was the last raid of Pablo," Anselmo said. "Since then he has done nothing." "How many are you?" Robert Jordan asked. "We are seven and there are two women." "Two?" "Yes. The _mujer_ of Pablo." "And she?" "In the cave. The girl can cook a little. I said she cooks well to please her. But mostly she helps the _mujer_ of Pablo." "And how is she, the _mujer_ of Pablo?" "Something barbarous," the gypsy grinned. "Something very barbarous. If you think Pablo is ugly you should see his woman. But brave. A hundred times braver than Pablo. But something barbarous." "Pablo was brave in the beginning," Anselmo said. "Pablo was something serious in the beginning." "He killed more people than the cholera," the gypsy said. "At the start of the movement, Pablo killed more people than the typhoid fever." "But since a long time he is _muy flojo_," Anselmo said. "He is very flaccid. He is very much afraid to die." "It is possible that it is because he has killed so many at the beginning," the gypsy said philosophically. "Pablo killed more than the bubonic plague." "That and the riches," Anselmo said. "Also he drinks very much. Now he would like to retire like a _matador de toros_. Like a bullfighter. But he cannot retire." "If he crosses to the other side of the lines they will take his horses and make him go in the army," the gypsy said. "In me there is no love for being in the army either." "Nor is there in any other gypsy," Anselmo said. "Why should there be?" the gypsy asked. "Who wants to be in an army? Do we make the revolution to be in an army? I am willing to fight but not to be in an army." "Where are the others?" asked Robert Jordan. He felt comfortable and sleepy now from the wine and lying back on the floor of the forest he saw through the tree tops the small afternoon clouds of the mountains moving slowly in the high Spanish sky. "There are two asleep in the cave," the gypsy said. "Two are on guard above where we have the gun. One is on guard below. They are probably all asleep." Robert Jordan rolled over on his side. "What kind of a gun is it?" "A very rare name," the gypsy said. "It has gone away from me for the moment. It is a machine gun." It must be an automatic rifle, Robert Jordan thought. "How much does it weigh?" he asked. "One man can carry it but it is heavy. It has three legs that fold. We got it in the last serious raid. The one before the wine." "How many rounds have you for it?" "An infinity," the gypsy said. "One whole case of an unbelievable heaviness." Sounds like about five hundred rounds, Robert Jordan thought. "Does it feed from a pan or a belt?" "From round iron cans on the top of the gun." Hell, it's a Lewis gun, Robert Jordan thought. "Do you know anything about a machine gun?" he asked the old man. "Nada," said Anselmo. "Nothing." "And thou?" to the gypsy. "That they fire with much rapidity and become so hot the barrel burns the hand that touches it," the gypsy said proudly. "Every one knows that," Anselmo said with contempt. "Perhaps," the gypsy said. "But he asked me to tell what I know about a _m醧uina_ and I told him." Then he added, "Also, unlike an ordinary rifle, they continue to fire as long as you exert pressure on the trigger." "Unless they jam, run out of ammunition or get so hot they melt," Robert Jordan said in English. "What do you say?" Anselmo asked him. "Nothing," Robert Jordan said. "I was only looking into the future in English." "That is something truly rare," the gypsy said. "Looking into the future in _Ingl閟_. Can you read in the palm of the hand?" "No," Robert Jordan said and he dipped another cup of wine. "But if thou canst I wish thee would read in the palm of my hand and tell me what is going to pass in the next three days." "The _mujer_ of Pablo reads in the hands," the gypsy said. "But she is so irritable and of such a barbarousness that I do not know if she will do it." Robert Jordan sat up now and took a swallow of the wine. "Let us see the _mujer_ of Pablo now," he said. "If it is that bad let us get it over with." "I would not disturb her," Rafael said. "She has a strong hatred for me." "Why?" "She treats me as a time waster." "What injustice," Anselmo taunted. "She is against gypsies." "What an error," Anselmo said. "She has gypsy blood," Rafael said. "She knows of what she speaks." He grinned. "But she has a tongue that scalds and that bites like a bull whip. With this tongue she takes the hide from any one. In strips. She is of an unbelievable barbarousness." "How does she get along with the girl, Maria?" Robert Jordan asked. "Good. She likes the girl. But let any one come near her seriously--" He shook his head and clucked with his tongue. "She is very good with the girl," Anselmo said. "She takes good care of her." "When we picked the girl up at the time of the train she was very strange," Rafael said. "She would not speak and she cried all the time and if any one touched her she would shiver like a wet dog. Only lately has she been better. Lately she has been much better. Today she was fine. Just now, talking to you, she was very good. We would have left her after the train. Certainly it was not worth being delayed by something so sad and ugly and apparently worthless. But the old woman tied a rope to her and when the girl thought she could not go further, the old woman beat her with the end of the rope to make her go. Then when she could not really go further, the old woman carried her over her shoulder. When the old woman could not carry her, I carried her. We were going up that hill breast high in the gorse and heather. And when I could no longer carry her, Pablo carried her. But what the old woman had to say to us to make us do it!" He shook his head at the memory. "It is true that the girl is long in the legs but is not heavy. The bones are light and she weighs little. But she weighs enough when we had to carry her and stop to fire and the2GB Spy DVR Camera Sunglasses cheapest touch screen mp3 laptop notebook cover protective skin sticker buy china cheap wholesale vaio keyboard site sales of electronics china 2GB Business card MP3 Movable electronic hard disk USB2.0 FLASH DISK,MP3/WMA X6 Quad Band Dual Card With Java Mobile TV Unlocked Cell Phone buy electronics online mp3 video players cheap dual sim with wifi 4.3 inch GPS Navigator+PMP+PDA 2.8 Inch 1GB 1.3M pixel camera high clear QVGA touch screen MP4 FM record unlocked cell phones china 7 Inch LED Touch Screen Car DVD Player with GPS/Bluetooth/TV/FM/AM/E-book 1.5 Inch Mini Digital Photo Frame. with TF card slot,high quality unlocked cell phone for sale i68++ Quad Band Dual card With Java Bluetooth Unlock Cell Phone 1GB Sunglass Headset MP3/WAV/WMA china mp3 watch 11-inch Flip-Down DVD player (DS1100DT) New style. 1.8 inch 8GB 3rd mp4 260K TFT MP4 FM stereo radio and recording usa buy cheap unlocked flip phone emolux filter review 6.2 Inch TFT LCD Screen 2 Din DVD Player - USB and SD/MMC Port 7 inch lcd display car dvd player touchscreen bluetooth unlocked cell phone china ciphone c6 purchase cect n97 side 10.2-inch Super Slim Roof Mounted Car Monitor/DVD/DIVX/IR/VGA/FM/USB/SD ciphone c5 windows mobile 6.1 with wifi electronics wholesale china Mini SD Card 1G cell for sale wholesalers electronics 2.4 inch screen 2GB 2.0M Pixel Camera with Game and AV OUT buy mobile online buy phones china 666 Quad Band Dual Card With FM Unlocked Cell Phone M810 Tri Band Single Card With Camera Touch Screen Watch Phone buy china cheap wholesale 2 din car dvd player touch screen mp3 wholesale 8.5 Inch central armrest TFT-LED Car DVD Player with Video/MP3/MP4/JPEG/USB/FM wholesale tv for sale PC Camera - 16Megapixels - Driver-free e88 mobile Camera Pen 1GB With Written Function t737b e73pro TV D95 Dual Band Dual Card With Bluetooth Unlocked Cell Phone cellphones china n carry her again with the old woman lashing at Pablo with the rope and carrying his rifle, putting it in his hand when he would drop the girl, making him pick her up again and loading the gun for him while she cursed him; taking the shells from his pouches and shoving them down into the magazine and cursing him. The dusk was coming well on then and when the night came it was all right. But it was lucky that they had no cavalry." "It must have been very hard at the train," Anselmo said. "I was not there," he explained to Robert Jordan. "There was the band of Pablo, of El Sordo, whom we will see tonight, and two other bands of these mountains. I had gone to the other side of the lines." "In addition to the blond one with the rare name--" the gypsy said. "Kashkin."
TAG:
