Three days after the events recorded in our last chapter, at about two o'clock in the afternoon, five or six vaqueros and leperos were seated at a table in the drinking room of a pulquería (a public house) of New San Lucar, which is situated on the south bank of the river, and disputed vehemently, while they emptied, at long draughts, the pulque in the cups which circulated among them.
"¡Canarios!" exclaimed a tall and meagre fellow, with the mien and air of a brazen-faced scoundrel, "Are we not free men? If Señor Don Louis Pedrosa, our governor, persist in fleecing us in this fashion, the Tigercat is not too far off for a man to come to an understanding with him. Though he chooses to be an Indian chief today, he is a white man without alloy, and a caballero to the tips of his fingers."
"¡Calla la voz! be silent, Pablito!" said another; "You had better swallow your words with your pulque than utter such folly."
"I will speak!" said Pablito, who was washing the inside of his throat more than the others.
"Do you not know that invisible eyes are watching us from the shade, and that ears are open to gather up our words, and profit by them?"
"There you are again," replied the first speaker: "always in fear, Carlocho! I have no more respect for a spy than for an old cuarta" (hag).
"Pablito!" exclaimed the other, placing his finger on his lips.
"What! Am I not right? Why does Don Louis bear us so much malice?"
"You are wrong," interrupted a third, with a laugh. "Don Louis, on the contrary, is only too fond of you so he always keeps you under his thumb."
"This devil of a verado has a wit fit for such a rascal as he," roared Pablito, with shouts of laughter.