San Antonio light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1911-1993, 1925-12-27
CHAPTER xxx.

THE gray half-light proclaimed
a heavy dawn, already well
established. Sidonia was
combing out her hair and plating
it. Then she slipped her feet into
her wooden shoes, reclasped the
velvet cloak about her throat, ana
shrouded all in a length of poor
black stuff that cnwrapped her.
hooding her head. She was ready
The subdued, querying yowl of
cat whose mind is troubled came
from the brooding glOam beyond
the hearth. Tib, who had been
abroad all night, had returned to
the loft by some grovelling entrance
hole known only to himself. Out
of the shadows he came, Sinking
with low-hung body, staring phos-
phorescent-eyed, uttering his ques-
tioning yowl.
"Tibr said the girl in a voice
that had little more substance than
a ghost.
He lifted his square. SCARED head
toward her-his whiskers cob
webby-and yowled again.
She could not leave him. Glib
was self Sufficicnt-in some subtle
way contemptuouS of all things.
He had no heart-he seemed to
know far too much and to be cyni-
cal about it. On him she could
turn her back without a qualm.'
But lib was her foster-child, and
he understood what had taken
place-what was about to take
place, and he was unhappy.
She stopped and lifted him. He
was heavy and smelt rank. She
tucked him, babe-fashion, into a
fold of her black shroud, holding
him on her left arm. He struggled.
"Tib must be good boy! Be
still"
He obeycd her. They were in
sympathy, like mother and child.
From a kitten, hardly bigger than
a rat, he had been under her hands.
In his own way he knew as much
as Glib did. His passive weight
dragged at Ter arm, and she APP
peared to be grading an infant of
two months old. She looked once
toward what had been her mother
"a look of relief. The black cat
watched by it, saturnine, preoccu-
pied with some concentration that
must remain nameless to others.
To raise the trapdoor and de-
scend the ladder, shod and bur-
dened as she was, was matter of
difficulty. Only the tethered
horses observed her. The yard
was empty. A soft, dull grayness
was uniform overhead. The air
was raw and moisture was out on
everything. Sidonia's wooder
shoes made clumsy sounds upoi
the cobbles-clat-clat! clat-clat!
She went as quickly as she could,
hurrying to find that which other
wise would surely overtake her in
her own despite.
In the Street of the Martyrs
hooded women, young and old,
went plodding with subdued intent
ness to attend mass for the dead,
for it was All Souls Day. Sidonia,
also in the cowled black of mourn
ing, was an unnoticed figure
some widowed young creature,
babe on arm. No candle would
flicker before any saint in effigy
or upon any altar for her dead.
To whom should she pray-the
witch's daughter? But the fire
that burnt before the inner sight
of the witch's daughter was upon
the nearer side of the death-veil.
What flames of pennance or of
damnation should she fear for
whom the actual pitch-soaked fag-
gots were, perhaps, already piled
in the market place? So the
women plodded toward the church,
and Sidonia, carrying her cat,
toward the city gate.
At the arched portal of the town
there was some congestion, for
country folk, with their little laden
asses, were coming in. The great
wooden doors, reconstructed, that
were closed in time of danger,
were set fully open, as usual. The
men on guard chaffed with the
peasants or genially insulted them.
An ass brayed.
Sidonia found herself halted, if
only for a matter of minutes.
Others were in the same case. At
her side two women were talking.