For Whom The Bell Tolls

"I doubt it," Robert Jordan told him. "Cowardly, yes."

It was so quiet in the cave, suddenly, that he could hear the hissing noise the wood made burning on the hearth where Pilar cooked. He heard the sheepskin crackle as he rested his weight on his feet. He thought he could almost hear the snow falling outside. He could not, but he could hear the silence where it fell.

I'd like to kill him and have it over with, Robert Jordan was thinking. I don't know what he is going to do, but it is nothing good. Day after tomorrow is the bridge and this man is bad and he constitutes a danger to the success of the whole enterprise. Come on. Let us get it over with.

Pablo grinned at him and put one finger up and wiped it across his throat. He shook his head that turned only a little each way on his thick, short neck.

"Nay, Ingles," he said. "Do not provoke me." He looked at Pilar and said to her, "It is not thus that you get rid of me."

"Sinverguenza," Robert Jordan said to him, committed now in his own mind to the action. "Cobarde."

"It is very possible," Pablo said. "But I am not to be provoked. Take something to drink, Ingles, and signal to the woman it was not successful."

"Shut thy mouth," Robert Jordan said. "I provoke thee for myself."

"It is not worth the trouble," Pablo told him. "I do not provoke."

"Thou art a bicho raro," Robert Jordan said, not wanting to let it go; not wanting to have it fail for the second time; knowing as he spoke that this had all been gone through before; having that feeling that he was playing a part from memory of something that he had read or had dreamed, feeling it all moving in a circle.

"Very rare, yes," Pablo said. "Very rare and very drunk. To your health, Ingles." He dipped a cup in the wine bowl and held it up. "Salud y cojones."

He's rare, all right, Robert Jordan thought, and smart, and very complicated. He could no longer hear the fire for the sound of his own breathing.

"Here's to you," Robert Jordan said, and dipped a cup into the wine. Betrayal wouldn't amount to anything without all these pledges, he thought. Pledge up. "Salud," he said. "Salud and Salud

again," you salud, he thought. Salud, you salud.

"Don Roberto," Pablo said heavily.

"Don Pablo," Robert Jordan said.

"You're no professor," Pablo said, "because you haven't got a beard. And also to do away with me you have to assassinate me and, for this, you have not cojones."

He was looking at Robert Jordan with his mouth closed so that his lips made a tight line, like the mouth of a fish, Robert Jordan thought. With that head it is like one of those porcupine fish that swallow air and swell up after they are caught.

"Salud, Pablo," Robert Jordan said and raised the cup up and drank from it. "I am learning much from thee."

"I am teaching the professor," Pablo nodded his head. "Come on, Don Roberto, we will be friends."

"We are friends already," Robert Jordan said.

"But now we will be good friends."

"We are good friends already."

"I'm going to get out of here," Agustin said. "Truly, it is said that we must eat a ton of it in this life but I have twenty-five pounds of it stuck in each of my ears this minute."

"What is the matter, negro?" Pablo said to him. "Do you not like to see friendship between Don Roberto and me?"

"Watch your mouth about calling me negro." Agustin went over to him and stood in front of Pablo holding his hands low.

"So you are called," Pablo said.

"Not by thee."

"Well, then, blanco--"

"Nor that, either."

"What are you then, Red?"

"Yes. Red. Rojo. With the Red star of the army and in favor of the Republic. And my name is Agustin."

"What a patriotic man," Pablo said. "Look, Ingles, what an exemplary patriot."

Agustin hit him hard across the mouth with his left hand, bringing it forward in a slapping, backhand sweep. Pablo sat there. The corners of his mouth were wine-stained and his expression did not change, but Robert Jordan watched his eyes narrow, as a cat's pupils close to vertical slits in a strong light.

"Nor this," Pablo said. "Do not count on this, woman." He turned his head toward Pilar. "I am not provoked."

Agustin hit him again. This time he hit him on the mouth with his closed fist. Robert Jordan was holding his pistol in his hand under the table. He had shoved the safety catch off and he pushed Maria away with his left hand. She moved a little way and he pushed her hard in the ribs with his left hand again to make her get really away. She was gone now and he saw her from the corner of his eye, slipping along the side of the cave toward the fire and now Robert Jordan watched Pablo's face.

The round-headed man sat staring at Agustin from his flat little eyes. The pupils were even smaller now. He licked his lips then, put up an arm and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, looked down and saw the blood on his hand. He ran his tongue over his lips, then spat.