"We have everything we require."
"All the better, for I could not have supplied you. Do not be impatient; I am coming down."
He disappeared from the wicket, and within five minutes could be heard unbarring the door, growling fearfully the while. The travellers then entered the yard of the mesón. The huésped had lied like the true landlord he was; he only had in the house two or three muleteers with their animals, and three travellers, who, by their dress, seemed to be hacenderos from the vicinity.
"Halloh!" Don Sebastian shouted, "someone to take my horse."
"If you begin in that way we shall not be friends long," the huésped said in the sharp tone he had previously employed. "Here, everyone, big or little, waits on himself, and attends to his own horse."
The colonel was far from being of a patient temper. If he had previously endured the host's insolence, it was solely because it was impossible to chastise him; but that reason no longer existed. Sharply dismounting, he drew his pistols from his holsters, thrust them in his belt, and walking boldly toward Señor Saccaplata, seized him by the collar and shook him roughly.
"Listen, master rogue!" he said to him. "A truce to your insolence, and wait on me, unless you would repent it."
The host was so amazed at this brusque way of replying to him, and this assault on his inviolability, that for a moment he remained dumb through confusion and wrath. His face became crimson, his eyes rolled, and he at length shouted in a strangled voice,—
"Help! Help me! Such an insult! By the body of Christ, I will not overlook it! Leave my house at once!"
"I shall not go," the colonel answered peaceably, but firmly; "and you will attend to me immediately."