Close to the Cabildo, at the corner of the Plaza Mayor, stood a species of cabin, built of ships' planks, clumsily nailed together, which offered, in the stifling midday hours, a precarious shelter to the leperos and idlers of all sorts, who collected there to smoke, drink mezcal, or play at monte, that game so beloved by Spanish-Americans of all classes.
The interior of this suspicious rancho, honoured with the name of pulqueria, corresponded perfectly with the miserable aspect of the exterior. In a large room, only lighted by the dubious gleam of a smoky candle, a number of individuals, with ferocious countenances, dressed in filthy rags, and armed to the teeth, were collected round a few planks laid across empty barrels, and serving as a table. These men were drinking, and playing with that Mexican coolness which no event, however serious it may be, succeeds in disturbing, and staking piles of gold, which they drew from their patched calzoneras.
It was in front of this unclean pothouse, from the broken door of which escaped a reddish steam, laden with pestilential emanations, that Ramirez stopped.
"Where the deuce are you taking us?" Don Serapio asked him, with an expression of disgust he could not master at the repulsive appearance of this den.
The sailor laid a finger on his lip.
"Silence!" he said, "You shall know. Wait for me here an instant, but be careful to keep in the shade, so as not to be seen; the customers of this honest establishment have such numerous reasons to distrust spies, that if they saw you suddenly appear among them, they might be capable of playing you a trick."
"Why enter such a den as this?"
Ramirez smiled craftily.
"Do you fancy, then," he said, "that if I had only some news to tell you, I should have brought you here?"
"Why else, then?"