"Thou my big good little pony," Pablo was saying to the horse in the dark; it was the big bay stallion he was speaking to.
"Thou lovely white-faced big beauty.
Thou with the big neck arching like the viaduct of my pueblo," he stopped.
"But arching more and much finer."
The horse was snatching grass, swinging his head sideways as he pulled, annoyed by the man and his talking.
"Thou art no woman nor a fool," Pablo told the bay horse.
"Thou, oh, thou, thee, thee, my big little pony.
Thou art no woman like a rock that is burning.
Thou art no colt of a girl with cropped head and the movement of a foal still wet from its mother.
Thou dost not insult nor lie nor not understand.
Thou, oh, thee, oh my good big little pony."
It would have been very interesting for Robert Jordan to have heard Pablo speaking to the bay horse but he did not hear him because now, convinced that Pablo was only down checking on his horses, and having decided that it was not a practical move to kill him at this time, he stood up and walked back to the cave.
Pablo stayed in the meadow talking to the horse for a long time.
The horse understood nothing that he said; only, from the tone of the voice, that they were endearments and he had been in the corral all day and was hungry now, grazing impatiently at the limits of his picket rope, and the man annoyed him.
Pablo shifted the picket pin finally and stood by the horse, not talking now.
The horse went on grazing and was relieved now that the man did not bother him.
6
Inside the cave, Robert Jordan sat on one of the rawhide stools in a corner by the fire listening to the woman.
She was washing the dishes and the girl, Maria, was drying them and putting them away, kneeling to place them in the hollow dug in the wall that was used as a shelf.
"It is strange," she said.
"That El Sordo has not come.
He should have been here an hour ago."
"Did you advise him to come?"
"No.
He comes each night."
"Perhaps he is doing something.
Some work."
"It is possible," she said.
"If he does not come we must go to see him tomorrow."
"Yes.
Is it far from here?"
"No.
It will be a good trip.
I lack exercise."
"Can I go?" Maria asked.
"May I go too, Pilar?"
"Yes, beautiful," the woman said, then turning her big face,
"Isn't she pretty?" she asked Robert Jordan.
"How does she seem to thee?
A little thin?"
"To me she seems very well," Robert Jordan said.
Maria filled his cup with wine.
"Drink that," she said.
"It will make me seem even better.
It is necessary to drink much of that for me to seem beautiful."
"Then I had better stop," Robert Jordan said.
"Already thou seemest beautiful and more."
"That's the way to talk," the woman said.
"You talk like the good ones.
What more does she seem?"