"'They're still occupied with their sins,' Pablo shouted.
"'Clearly, there are twenty of them,' a man said.
"'More,' said another.
"'Among twenty there are many sins to recount.'
"'Yes, but I think it's a trick to gain time.
Surely facing such an emergency one could not remember one's sins except for the biggest.'
"'Then have patience.
For with more than twenty of them there are enough of the biggest sins to take some time.'
"'I have patience,' said the other.
'But it is better to get it over with.
Both for them and for us.
It is July and there is much work.
We have harvested but we have not threshed.
We are not yet in the time of fairs and festivals.'
"'But this will be a fair and festival today,' another said.
'The Fair of Liberty and from this day, when these are extinguished, the town and the land are ours.'
"'We thresh fascists today,' said one, 'and out of the chaff comes the freedom of this pueblo.'
"'We must administer it well to deserve it,' said another.
'Pilar,' he said to me, 'when do we have a meeting for organization?'
"'Immediately after this is completed,' I told him.
'In the same building of the _Ayuntamiento_.'
"I was wearing one of the three-cornered patent leather hats of the _guardia civil_ as a joke and I had put the hammer down on the pistol, holding it with my thumb to lower it as I pulled on the trigger as seemed natural, and the pistol was held in a rope I had around my waist, the long barrel stuck under the rope.
And when I put it on the joke seemed very good to me, although afterwards I wished I had taken the holster of the pistol instead of the hat.
But one of the men in the line said to me,
'Pilar, daughter. It seems to me bad taste for thee to wear that hat.
Now we have finished with such things as the _guardia civil_.'
"'Then,' I said, 'I will take it off.' And I did.
"'Give it to me,' he said.
'It should be destroyed.'
"And as we were at the far end of the line where the walk runs along the cliff by the river, he took the hat in his hand and sailed it off over the cliff with the motion a herdsman makes throwing a stone underhand at the bulls to herd them.
The hat sailed far out into space and we could see it smaller and smaller, the patent leather shining in the clear air, sailing down to the river.
I looked back over the square and at all the windows and all the balconies there were people crowded and there was the double line of men across the square to the doorway of the _Ayuntamiento_ and the crowd swarmed Outside against the windows of that building and there was the noise of many people talking, and then I heard a shout and some one said
'Here comes the first one,' and it was Don Benito Garcia, the Mayor, and he came out bareheaded walking slowly from the door and down the porch and nothing happened; and he walked between the line of men with the flails and nothing happened.
He passed two men, four men, eight men, ten men and nothing happened and he was walking between that line of men, his head up, his fat face gray, his eyes looking ahead and then flickering from side to side and walking steadily.
And nothing happened.
"From a balcony some one cried out, '_Que pasa, cobardes?_ What is the matter, cowards?' and still Don Benito walked along between the men and nothing happened.
Then I saw a man three men down from where I was standing and his face was working and he was biting his lips and his hands were white on his flail. I saw him looking toward Don Benito, watching him come on. And still nothing happened.
Then, just before Don Benito came abreast of this man, the man raised his flail high so that it struck the man beside him and smashed a blow at Don Benito that hit him on the side of the head and Don Benito looked at him and the man struck again and shouted,
'That for you, _Cabron_,' and the blow hit Don Benito in the face and he raised his hands to his face and they beat him until he fell and the man who had struck him first called to others to help him and he pulled on the collar of Don Benito's shirt and others took hold of his arms and with his face in the dust of the plaza, they dragged him over the walk to the edge of the cliff and threw him over and into the river.
And the man who hit him first was kneeling by the edge of the cliff looking over after him and saying,
'The Cabron!
The Cabron!
Oh, the Cabron!'
He was a tenant of Don Benito and they had never gotten along together.
There had been a dispute about a piece of land by the river that Don Benito had taken from this man and let to another and this man had long hated him.
This man did not join the line again but sat by the cliff looking down where Don Benito had fallen.
"After Don Benito no one would come out.
There was no noise now in the plaza as all were waiting to see who it was that would come out.
Then a drunkard shouted in a great voice, '_Que salga el toro!_ Let the bull out!'
"Then some one from by the windows of the _Ayuntamiento_ yelled,