"Ay, it only needs the sharp knife to cut open the melon, and there are the seeds sure enough," said the peasant.
"The governor is ready enough with the knife, and he whets it sharp enough," gloomily observed the vendor of fruit. "To think of his ordering off to prison a caballero like Don Alcala de Aguilera!"
"Was it not he who was nearly killed by the bull?" inquired the man who had just emptied the tin in Spanish fashion—not touching the vessel with his lips, but throwing back his head, and pouring the contents into his mouth. The place at the fountain was now left free for Inez, but she had forgotten her thirst.
"Ay, ay; it's pity for him, I take it, that the bull did not kill him outright," said the fruit-man.
"Why, what will they do with him, if he is found guilty of Judaism, black or white?" asked the peasant.
The man who had just left the fountain took on himself to answer the question, while he made his bargain with the vendor of fruit.
"I'll tell you, friend, what they'll do. (What do you ask now for those figs?) The judge will find the caballero guilty, of course—for the folk at the court want such as he out of the way; then he'll be shipped off to Cuba to work on the plantations. (You may give me a bunch of those grapes.) At Cuba they chain each Spaniard to a woolly-headed nigger, two and two; (that's refreshing in weather like this!) and if the poor convict lag in his work, down comes the whip of the driver, who lays it smartly on his bare back, till perhaps the poor wretch drops down dead where he stands!"
The Andalusian went on, enjoying his luscious fruit, quite unconscious of the keen pang which his idle words had inflicted on a youthful and tender heart.