The only noise in the cave now was the hissing from the hearth where snow was falling through the hole in the roof onto the coals of the fire.
 "Pilar," Fernando said. "Is there more of the stew?"
 "Oh, shut up," the woman said. But Maria took Fernando's bowl over to the big pot set back from the edge of the fire and ladled into it. She brought it over to the table and set it down and then patted Fernando on the shoulder as he bent to eat. She stood for a moment beside him, her hand on his shoulder. But Fernando did not look up. He was devoting himself to the stew.
 Agust璯 stood beside the fire. The others were seated. Pilar sat at the table opposite Robert Jordan.
 "Now, _Ingl廥_," she said, "you have seen how he is."
 "What will he do?" Robert Jordan asked.
 "Anything," the woman looked down at the table. "Anything. He is capable of doing anything."
 "Where is the automatic rifle?" Robert Jordan asked.
 "There in the corner wrapped in the blanket," Primitivo said. "Do you want it?"
 "Later," Robert Jordan said. "I wished to know where it is."
 "It is there," Primitivo said. "I brought it in and I have wrapped it in my blanket to keep the action dry. The pans are in that sack."
 "He would not do that," Pilar said. "He would not do anything with the _m嫭uina_."
 "I thought you said he would do anything."
 "He might," she said. "But he has no practice with the _m嫭uina_. He could toss in a bomb. That is more his style."
 "It is an idiocy and a weakness not to have killed him," the gypsy said. He had taken no part in any of the talk all evening. "Last night Roberto should have killed him."
 "Kill him," Pilar said. Her big face was dark and tired looking. "I am for it now."
 "I was against it," Agust璯 said. He stood in front of the fire, his long arms hanging by his sides, his cheeks, stubble-shadowed below the cheekbones, hollow in the firelight. "Now I am for it," he said. "He is poisonous now and he would like to see us all destroyed."
 "Let all speak," Pilar said and her voice was tired. "Thou, Andr廥?"
 "_Matarlo_," the brother with the dark hair growing far down in the point on his forehead said and nodded his head.
 "Eladio?"
 "Equally," the other brother said. "To me he seems to constitute a great danger. And he serves for nothing."
 "Primitivo?"
 "Equally."
 "Fernando?"
 "Could we not hold him as a prisoner?" Fernando asked.
 "Who would look after a prisoner?" Primitivo said. "It would take two men to look after a prisoner and what would we do with him in the end?"
 "We could sell him to the fascists," the gypsy said.
 "None of that," Agust璯 said. "None of that filthiness."
 "It was only an idea," Rafael, the gypsy, said. "It seems to me that the _facciosos_ would be happy to have him."
 "Leave it alone," Agust璯 said. "That is filthy."
 "No filthier than Pablo," the gypsy justified himself.
 "One filthiness does not justify another," Agust璯 said. "Well, that is all. Except for the old man and the _Ingl廥_."
 "They are not in it," Pilar said. "He has not been their leader."
 "One moment," Fernando said. "I have not finished."
 "Go ahead," Pilar said. "Talk until he comes back. Talk until he rolls a hand grenade under that blanket and blows this all up. Dynamite and all."
 "I think that you exaggerate, Pilar," Fernando said. "I do not think that he has any such conception."
 "I do not think so either," Agust璯 said. "Because that would blow the wine up too and he will be back in a little while to the wine."
 "Why not turn him over to El Sordo and let El Sordo sell him to the fascists?" Rafael suggested. "You could blind him and he would be easy to handle."
 "Shut up," Pilar said. "I feel something very justified against thee too when thou talkest."
 "The fascists would pay nothing for him anyway," Primitivo said. "Such things have been tried by others and they pay nothing. They will shoot thee too."
 "I believe that blinded he could be sold for something," Rafael said.
 "Shut up," Pilar said. "Speak of blinding again and you can go with the other."
 "But, he, Pablo, blinded the _guardia civil_ who was wounded," the gypsy insisted. "You have forgotten that?"
 "Close thy mouth," Pilar said to him. She was embarrassed before Robert Jordan by this talk of blinding.
 "I have not been allowed to finish," Fernando interrupted.
 "Finish," Pilar told him. "Go on. Finish."
 "Since it is impractical to hold Pablo as a prisoner," Fernando commenced, "and since it is repugnant to offer him--"
 "Finish," Pilar said. "For the love of God, finish."
 "--in any class of negotiation," Fernando proceeded calmly, "I am agreed that it is perhaps best that he should be eliminated in order that the operations projected should be insured of the maximum possibility of success."
 Pilar looked at the little man, shook her head, bit her lips and said nothing.
 "That is my opinion," Fernando said. "I believe we are justified in believing that he constitutes a danger to the Republic--"
 "Mother of God," Pilar said. "Even here one man can make a bureaucracy with his mouth."
 "Both from his own words and his recent actions," Fernando continued. "And while he is deserving of gratitude for his actions in the early part of the movement and up until the most recent time--"
 Pilar had walked over to the fire. Now she came up to the table.
 "Fernando," Pilar said quietly and handed a bowl to him. "Take this stew please in all formality and fill thy mouth with it and talk no more. We are in possession of thy opinion."
 "But, how then--" Primitivo asked and paused without completing the sentence.
 "_Estoy listo_," Robert Jordan said. "I am ready to do it. Since you are all decided that it should be done it is a service that I can do."
 What's the matter? he thought. From listening to him I am beginning to talk like Fernando. That language must be infectious. French, the language of diplomacy. Spanish, the language of bureaucracy.
 "No," Maria said. "No."
 "This is none of thy business," Pilar said to the girl. "Keep thy mouth shut."
 "I will do it tonight," Robert Jordan said.
 He saw Pilar looking at him, her fingers on her lips. She was looking toward the door.
 The blanket fastened across the opening of the cave was lifted and Pablo put his head in. He grinned at them all, pushed under the blanket and then turned and fastened it again. He turned around and stood there, then pulled the blanket cape over his head and shook the snow from it.
 "You were speaking of me?" he addressed them all. "I am interrupting?"
 No one answered him and he hung the cape on a peg in the wall and walked over to the table.
 "_Qu?tal?_" he asked and picked up his cup which had stoo............