“Mira! Another who ‘cannot!’ It is contagious, then, this ‘no puedo!’ Oyez!” and now the command was sharp and stern, “Open me those boxes!”
Andrés backed off a step. His brown cheeks were unmistakably gray, and his voice faltered as he replied, humbly, but stolidly: “Do not shame me, Excellency. This viracocha hires me, treating me kindly. For arriero, yes—but even more, he has me to guard the machine when he is not beside it. For so many wish to peep in, and he has things in little flat boxes which he opens only at night in a room without candles, and not even smoking his cigarro. He says that to let in a so-little of light would destroy all. For that I am promised, that no one shall open them nor touch them. Do not ask me, then, excellency.”
“Ask thee, cannibal! A Jaúregui asking thee? Vaya! I order thee. And between winks, too, lest thou taste the quirt!” He snatched from his driver the short, leaden-butted bull whip.
Andrés backed away still farther, till he ran up against the pack of his dejected mule, which stood as if petrified there.
“No puedo, taita!” he repeated, with an appealing glance. Then, as the man reached forth to pluck the knot of the cinch rope, Andrés extended his arm as a barrier, crying, “Haniwa! Your excellency must not!”
At this actual obstruction the personage in the white hood clearly lost an already ruffled temper. He drew the quirt whistling around those sturdy, bare calves, and a blue welt stood up there. Another cut, and another. The stolid face changed little, but the legs shifted uneasily.
“Haniwa, is it?” The ambushed eyes seemed fairly outside the mask now, so angrily they shone. “Then we will see! To beat a little more manners into that thick skull.” He shifted the quirt in his hand, clubbing the loaded end over Andrés’s head. The arriero flung up his hands. He was a sinewy young man, very probably much more powerful than his tall assailant. Nor was he thinking of the odds of those two more in the carriage. It was tradition, not cowardice, that stayed his hands—how could this arriero and son of arrieros think to strike a don? For he was born and bred in a country where there is still such a thing as respect—sometimes misapplied, as now; but broadly so honorable that I wish some reciprocity treaty might enable us to import some of it for northern use.
The leaden butt fell across his guard, and one hand dropped to his side. The other he drew before his eyes.
“Come! Will thou open, or shall I crack that foolish squash-head?”