THE BARON'S JUSTICE
In a large room in the dreary house of the los Oscos, furnished with four old pieces of furniture, and carpeted with two inches of dust, two of our acquaintances in this story were seated at an oak table. One was the baron, the master of the house, the other, his friend Fray Diego. They had an empty jar of gin before them, another half full, and some drinking-cups.
Neither table-cloth, table-cover, nor tray were there. The table was only covered with many-shaped stains of gin and wine, which, in happy conjunction with the dust, had been left during the course of years and months. The room is dull because the Calle del Pozo is dull, and the dirty window-panes have not been cleaned for years, and the evening is closing in.
By the little light that penetrated, it could be seen that the faces of both men were excessively red, so red that it seemed wonderful that blood did not burst from their bloodshot eyes. The baron had arrived at the apotheosis of fiery and fearful ugliness. The crimson scar across his cheek stood out so sharp and black with corrugations, that it was fearful to see it. His fierce, waxed moustache was more white than black. He was dressed in black sheep skin, and he had a red flat cap on his head, of which the great tassel fell sometimes over his ears and sometimes over his nose, according to the movement of the ogre-like body. They were silent for some time. Fray Diego occasionally raised his hand to the bottle of gin, filled his friend's glass, then his own, which he gravely drank at one draught. The baron was not so quick; he took his glass, raised it to the level of his eyes, and made a series of faces at it, which were sometimes horrible to witness. Then he touched it with the edge of his lips, made faces again, touched it again, and finally, after many attempts and vacillations, decided to swallow it. It was in this grave, quiet way that the two old soldiers spent nearly every evening of the year. The town knew it, and it was a subject of bets with the jocose inhabitants which of the two would die first from apoplexy. Fray Diego had served in the ranks of the Pretender. Then he became a friar and went to the Philippines, and finally he left the monastic rule, and lived in Lancia as an independent priest. They had not known each other during the war, but when they came to Lancia they became united with indissoluble ties of friendship by their ideas being the same, by the recollection of the glorious battles in which they had taken part—and by the gin.
"Long live the Pope, the head of all the kings of the earth!" exclaimed Fray Diego after a long silence, in which they both appeared to be asleep. At the same time he gave a great thump to the table which made all the glasses and bottles ring.
The baron took hardly any notice. He went on winking at the glass he had before him, and after swallowing the contents very leisurely, and licking his lips three or four times, he said:
"Gently, gently, Fray Diego! You don't know what the Popes are."
"Long live the Pope, the head of all the kings of the earth!" repeated the cleric, giving a still louder thump upon the table.
"Take care, Fray Diego! The Popes have always been very ambitious."
"Señor baron!" exclaimed the priest in a voice so emphatic as to be comic; "you have a soul as ugly as your face!"