"We cannot doubt it, good mother," replied Monipodio. "Let the basket remain where it is; I will come at nightfall to fetch it away, and will then ascertain the quantity and quality of its contents, giving to every one the portion, due to him, faithfully and truly, as it is my habit to do."
"Let it be as you shall command," rejoined the old woman; "and now, as it is getting late, give me something to drink, if you have it there – something that will comfort this miserable stomach, which is almost famishing for want."
"That you shall have, and enough of it, mother," exclaimed Escalanta, the companion of Gananciosa; and, uncovering the basket, she displayed a great leather bottle, containing at least two arrobas27 of wine, with a cup made of cork, in which you might comfortably carry off an azumbre,28 or honest half-gallon of the same. This Escalanta now filled, and placed it in the hands of the devout old woman, who took it in both her own, and, having blown away a little froth from the surface, she said, —
"You have poured out a large quantity, Escalanta, my daughter; but God will give me strength." Whereupon, without once taking breath, and at one draught, she poured the whole from the cup down her throat. "It is real Guadalcanal,"29 said the old woman, when she had taken breath; "and yet it has just a tiny smack of the gypsum. God comfort you, my daughter, as you have comforted me; I am only afraid that the wine may do me some mischief, seeing that I have not yet broken my fast."
"No, mother; it will do nothing of the kind," returned Monipodio, "for it is three years old at the least."
"May the Virgin grant that I find it so," replied the old woman. Then turning to the girls, "See, children," she said "whether you have not a few maravedis to buy the candles for my offerings of devotion. I came away in so much haste, to bring the news of the basket of linen, that I forgot my purse, and left it at home."
"Yes, Dame Pipota," – such was the name of the old woman, – "I have some," replied Gananciosa; "here are two cuartos for you, and with one of them I beg you to buy a candle for me, which you will offer in my name to the Señor St. Michael, or if you can get two with the money, you may place the other at the altar of the Señor St. Blas, for those two are my patron-saints. I also wish to give one to the Señora Santa Lucia, for whom I have a great devotion, on account of the eyes;30 but I have no more change to-day, so it must be put off till another time, when I will square accounts with all."
"And you will do well, daughter," replied the old woman. "Don't be niggard, mind. It is a good thing to carry one's own candles before one dies, and not to wait until they are offered by the heirs and executors of our testament."
"You speak excellently, Mother Pipota," said Escalanta; and, putting her hand into her pocket, she drew forth a cuarto, which she gave the old woman, requesting her to buy two candles for her likewise, and offer them to such saints as she considered the most useful and the most likely to be grateful. With this old Pipota departed, saying,
"Enjoy yourselves, my dears, now while you have time, for old age will come and you will then weep for the moments you may have lost in your youth, as I do now. Commend me to God in your prayers, and I will remember you, as well as myself, in mine, that he may keep us all, and preserve us in this dangerous trade of ours from all the terrors of justice." These words concluded, the old woman went her way.
Dame Pipota having disappeared, all seated themselves round the mat, which Gananciosa covered with the sheet in place of a table-cloth. The first thing she drew from the basket was an immense bunch of radishes; this was followed by a couple of dozens or more of oranges and lemons; then came a great earthen pan filled with slices of fried ling, half a Dutch cheese, a bottle of excellent olives, a plate of shrimps, and a large dish of craw-fish, with their appropriate sauce of capers, drowned in pepper-vinegar: three loaves of the whitest bread from Gandul completed the collation. The number of guests at this breakfast was fourteen, and not one of them failed to produce his yellow-handled knife, Rinconete alone excepted, who drew his dudgeon dagger instead. The two old men in serge gowns, and the lad who had been the guide of the two friends, were charged with the office of cupbearers, pouring the wine from the bottle into the cork cup.
But scarcely had the guests taken their places, before they were all startled, and sprang up in haste at the, sound of repeated knocks at the door. Bidding them remain quiet, Monipodio went into one of the lower rooms, unhooked a buckler, took his sword in his hand, and, going to the door, inquired, in a rough and threatening voice, "Who is there?"
"All right Señor! it is I, Tagarote,31 on sentry this morning," replied a voice from without. "I come to tell you that Juliana de Cariharta32 is coming, with her hair all about her face, and crying her eyes out, as though some great misfortune had happened to her."
He had scarcely spoken when the girl he had named came sobbing to the door, which Monipodio opened for her, commanding Tagarote to return to his post; and ordering him, moreover, to make less noise and uproar when he should next bring notice of what was going forward, – a command to which the boy promised attention.
Cariharta, a girl of the same class and profession with those already in presence, had meanwhile entered the court, her hair streaming in the wind, her eyes swollen with tears, and her face covered with contusions and bruises. She had no sooner got into the Patio, than she fell to the ground in a fainting fit. Gananciosa and Escalanta33 sprang to her assistance, unfastened her dress, and found her breast and shoulders blackened and covered with marks of violence. After they had thrown water on her face, she soon came to herself, crying out as she did so, "The justice of God and the king on that shameless thief, that cowardly cut-purse, and dirty scoundrel, whom I have saved from the gibbet more times than he has hairs in his beard. Alas! unhappy creature that I am! see for what I have squandered my youth, and spent the flower of my days! For an unnatural, worthless, and incorrigible villain!"
"Recover yourself, and be calm, Cariharta," said Monipodio; "I am here to render justice to you and to all. Tell me your cause of complaint, and you shall be longer in relating the story than I will be in taking vengeance. Let me know if anything has happened between you and your respeto;34 and if you desire to be well and duly avenged. You have but to open your mouth."
"Protector!" exclaimed the girl. "What kind of a protector is he? It were better for me to be protected in hell than to remain any longer with that lion among sheep, and sheep among men! Will I ever eat again with him at the same table, or live under the same roof? Rather would I give this flesh of mine, which he has put into the state you shall see, to be devoured alive by raging beasts." So saying, she pulled up her petticoats to her knees, and even a little higher, and showed the wheals with which she was covered. "That's the way," she cried, "that I have been treated by that ungrateful Repolido,35