"You look ill, Baron; how did you sleep?"
"Dthank you, I sleep not at all till yust dthe time to rise—dtherefore am I late. If your dthings air ready ve vill start at once." He sends a servant upstairs after our various purchases and wraps, etc., and we find them all stowed in the carriage waiting at the entrance, when we come down a few minutes later. The Baron stands by the landau, waiting to help us in. On our drive to the station he points out this and that bit of interest, quite in his usual way.
"You zee dthat, Madame?" He points to a circular roof supported on stone pillars sheltering water-tanks and primitive laundry essentials "Dthat ees a 'pila,' a place vhere dthe vomans vash dthe garments." It is surrounded by buxom young girls with dripping linen in their hands which they seemed to be beating on stone slabs. "Dthat tree dthat grow beside ees palma cristi."
"Why, it's only what we call the castor-bean, only this is larger," I venture to say.
"Of course, my dear! 'A palma cristi by the pila' is the Baron's way of saying a castor-oil bean by the wash-house."
My laugh is a little forced, I'm afraid, and the Baron seems not to have heard.
"What is growing inside that fence?" I ask, with a stern determination to keep up appearances.
"A kind off cactus," says the Baron, "vhat cochineal bugs lif on—dthey—how you say it?—'raise' much cochineal bugs in Guatemala."
The three volcanoes loom up mightily. The smoke is denser and darker to-day, the "spirits" of Air, Fire and Water look down with menacing aspect on the white city in the plain.