The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Edgar Allan Poe [868]
Nothing had been able to discover or bring the criminal to justice. The public voice had indeed cast suspicion on Verceslas Uriarte, a stranger, by birth of the province of Catalonia. His former mode of life was unknown; it was only presumed that, before the revolution of 1822, he had been a jailer in some prison of the Holy Office. He had also served in the Army of the Faith. Within a few years he had settled in the environs of Tortosa; but no one knew whence he derived the means of procuring his livelihood, though he lived like a noble. Notwithstanding his loudly professed piety, still he was believed wicked and vindictive. They related conversations of his, of such a nature as would induce the believe he was capable of the greatest crimes.
He was asked how one so well skilled in the use of the bow as he, did not love the chase?
“Because you must run some time before you find a hare; after shooting it, you must run to pick it up, and then run to sell it. It is easier to wait for a man; he comes of himself; and when you have killed him, you have only the trouble to search his wallet.”
At another time he got very angry with Antonio Pasquita Dirba for the most trifling cause. Having accompanied him to hunt in the Alfaques, they went into a fisherman’s hut to procure some refreshment. A salad was all they could get. Antonio, to dress it for his companion, handled the rude wooden dish given him very awkwardly. Antonio pretended he used it upside down, and that he was trying to hold the liquid in the convex part. Antonio maintained it was the hollow side. A quarrel, and a violent one, followed. In the meantime, a person who knew not their dispute came in, and they submitted the utensil to him. He declared at first sight it was a battledore, and consequently had no hollow on either side. Notwithstanding the cause of this altercation was so slight, still Uriate preserved a lively resentment of it, and three days after Antonio Pasquita Dirba was assassinated at the Col de Balaguer.
During Lent, in 1832, a troop of comedians had met with the greatest success at Tarragona, in playing a celebrated auto-sacramentale; the decollation of St. John the Baptist. Hoping for the same success at Tortosa, they set out for that place; the baggage was put on two mules; but Hernando Garcia, who played the part of St. John the Baptist, feared to trust the precious head he wore when acting the death-scene of the saint to the care of the muleteer; the head, with its moveable eyes of enamel, being not the least cause of adding effect. (Nothing is more common in the auto-sacramentale than the representation of the martydom of saints. They choose an actor of small stature, put a skull-cap on his head, to which, by means of springs, a head of pasteboard or wax is fastened; his clothes are made to rise above his own head, leaving only the false one apparent; this is cut off on the stage in such a manner as to produce an astonishing effect.) To carry it safely, Hernando fixed it on by way of head-dress; and, as it was growing late, and the mist rising from the sea being rather cold and uncomfortable, he abandoned himself to the fidelity of his steed, and covered his face and eyes with his cloak. He leisurely followed on at a little distance behind his comrades; when, on turning the rock, the explosion of fire-arms made his horse rear and fling him on the ground. Struggling to disentangle himself from his cloak, he saw a man dart by him, with a carbine in his hand. He jumped up and grasped his stiletto.
Uriate, for it was he, confounded for the first time in missing his aim, was about to escape; but, when he saw the two heads upon each other, the eyes of St. John the Baptist rolling in their orbit in the most horrible manner, the flashing eyes of Garcia beneath, fixed upon him, he believed he had encountered the devil, and was seized with inexpressible fear. He fled, but at every step his alpargatas † caught in the brambles; he