"He wear many shirts," began Mariquita, when Faquita pounced upon the basket and shook its contents to the grass.
"Aha! It seems that the Captain has sometimes the short legs and sometimes the long. Sometimes he put the tucks in his arms, I suppose. What meaning has this? Thou monster of hypocrisy!"
The old women scowled and snorted. The girls looked sympathetic: more than one midshipman had found favour in the lower quarter.
"Well," said Mariquita, sullenly, "if thou must know, it is the linen of the Lieutenant of La Tulita. Ana ask me to wash it, and I say I will."
At this announcement Faquita squared her elbows and looked at Mariquita with snapping eyes.
"Oho, señorita, I suppose thou wilt say next that thou knowest what
means this flirtation! Has La Tulita lost her heart, perhaps? And Don
Ramon—dost thou know why he leaves Monterey one hour after he comes?"
Her tone was sarcastic, but in it was a note of apprehension.
Mariquita tossed her head, and all pressed close about the rivals.
"What dost thou know, this time?" inquired the girl, provokingly. "Hast thou any letter to read today? Thou dost forget, old Faquita, that Ana is my friend—"
"Throw the clothes in the tubs," cried Faquita, furiously. "Do we come here to idle and gossip? Mariquita, thou hussy, go over to that tub by thyself and wash the impertinent American rags. Quick. No more talk. The sun goes high."
No one dared to disobey the queen of the tubs, and in a moment the women were kneeling in irregular rows, tumbling their linen into the water, the brown faces and bright attire making a picture in the colorous landscape which some native artist would have done well to preserve. For a time no sound was heard but the distant roar of the surf, the sighing of the wind through the pines on the hill, the less romantic grunts of the women and the swish of the linen in the water. Suddenly Mariquita, the proscribed, exclaimed from her segregated tub:—