"I don't know," gravely replied the lépero; "only I was resuscitated so quickly as not only to resume my place among the spectators of the fight, but even to attempt another ascension. I had just been confessed and received absolution, and it was a capital opportunity for risking my life without endangering my soul. I wished to profit by it, and it brought me good fortune; for this time, although the bull gave me another pitch in the air with his horns, I fell on my feet, to the great delight of the public, who showered reals and half reals upon me. Then finding myself, thanks to you especially, with a tolerably well-lined purse, I thought it my duty to satisfy my love for dress; I went to a baratillo, and purchased this garb, which gives me quite a respectable appearance. You saw with what consideration the alcalde treated me. There is nothing like being well dressed, señor."
I saw clearly that the fellow had done me once more, and that his pretended agony, like his confession, had been only simulated for the purpose of getting more money out of me. I must confess, however, that my anger was disarmed at this moment by the comic dignity with which the lépero strutted about in his torn cloak all the time he was holding forth in this strange way. I determined to rid myself of company that was becoming troublesome to me, and said to Perico, with a smile,
"If I reckon accurately, your children's illness, your wife's confinement, and your own shroud have cost me little less than a hundred piastres; to release you of the whole debt will, I would fain hope, be a sufficient reward for the service you have rendered me. I will therefore return home immediately; and I again thank you for your kindness."
"Home, señor! What are you thinking about?" cried Perico; "why, by this time your house will be in the hands of the soldiers; they are seeking you among all your friends. You do not know the alcalde you have to do with."
"Do you know him, then?"
"I know all the alcaldes, señor; and what proves how little I deserve the surname bestowed upon me is, that all the alcaldes do not know me; but of all his fellows, the one in pursuit of you is the most cunning, the most rapacious, and the most diabolical."
Although I felt that this portrait was exaggerated, I was for a moment shaken in my resolution. Perico then represented to me, in very moving terms, the happiness his wife and children would receive by seeing their benefactor indebted to them for a night's lodging. Having a choice between two protectors equally disinterested, I allowed myself to be convinced by the one whose rapacity seemed most easily satisfied; I decided upon once more following the lépero.
Meanwhile, night came on; we traversed suspicious lanes, deserted places, streets unknown to me, and shrouded in darkness. The serenos (policemen) became more and more scarce. I felt myself hurried away into the heart of those dreadful suburbs where justice dares not penetrate; I was unarmed, and at the mercy of a man whose frightful confession I had just heard. Hitherto the Zaragate, I must confess, in spite of his crimes so unblushingly avowed, did not seem to me to stand out in glaring relief among a people demoralized by ignorance, want, and civil wars; but at that hour, amid a labyrinth of dark lanes, and in the silence of the night, my imagination gave fantastic and colossal dimensions to his picaresque figure. My position was a difficult one. To leave such a guide suddenly in this cut-throat quarter was dangerous, to follow him not less so.
"Where the devil do you live?" said I. The lépero scratched his head in answer. I asked him again.
"To say the truth," replied he at last, "having no fixed abode, I live a little every where."