"Barefaced swindler!" cried a gambler; "your cloak had as many rents as your conscience."
"In any other place," replied Perico, who was prudently edging toward the door, "you would have to give me satisfaction for this double insult. Señor," said he, appealing to me, "be my surety, as I have been yours; half of my winnings is yours; they were honestly come by. All this is but mere slander."
I was once more mentally cursing my intimacy with Perico, when an occurrence of a graver nature made a happy diversion to the scene in which I saw myself in danger of becoming an actor. A man rushed hurriedly out of one of the back rooms on the same floor. Close behind him another followed, knife in hand; a woman after, shrieking terribly, and her dress flying in disorder about her.
"Will you stand and see me murdered?" cried the pursued, piteously. "Will no one hand me a knife?"
"Let me bury my knife in this rascal's body, this destroyer of my honor!" gasped the outraged husband.
The women, doubtless through sympathy, shrieked in concert, and uttered the most dreadful cries, while a friend of the offender slyly slipped a long knife into his hand. The latter faced about, and rushed boldly at his adversary. The cries of the women increased; a dreadful confusion ensued. The infuriated fellows made prodigious efforts to get at one another. Blood was about to flow, when, in the struggle, the table on which the infant lay was overturned. The body fell on the floor with a dull, heavy sound, and the flowers were scattered about. A large circle formed round the profaned corpse. A piercing shriek rose over all the uproar, and the bereaved mother threw herself on her child's remains with a cry of intense agony.
I had seen too much. I rushed to the balcony to cast a second look into the street, to assure myself that escape was yet possible; but there was no egress in that way. A man had just emerged from one of the lanes which opened upon the opposite bank of the canal. Other men came behind him, brandishing their weapons. This Navaja, whom Perico acknowledged as one of the fraternity, had doubtless collected his troop, and I was about to see him terminate, without being able to help his victim, one of those nocturnal brawls, of which some of the léperos boast. The person they were pursuing soon reached the parapet, and set his back to it. I distinctly heard him exclaim,
"Back, you cowardly rascals, who fight five to one."
"At him, Muchachos!" cried the chief of the band; "there are a hundred piastres to be earned."