Arrived at some five or six paces from the travellers:
"Hola, good people," said he, in a sardonic voice, "what do you do there? With a frightened air like nandus in a covey altogether. You do not intend, I suppose, to bar our passage?"
"We have no pretensions of the kind, Señor Captain," answered M. Dubois, in the best Castilian he could manage—Castilian which, notwithstanding his efforts, was deplorable; "we are peaceable travellers."
"¡Caray!" cried the officer, turning round and laughing; "Whom have we here; English, I suppose?"
"No, Señor; Frenchmen," said M. Dubois, with a somewhat nettled look.
"Bah! English or French, what matters?" pursued the officer, with raillery "They are all heretics."
At this manifestation of ignorance, the two travellers shrugged their shoulders with contempt.
"What does that mean?" said the officer.
"Parbleu," answered the painter, "it means that you are deceiving yourself grossly, that is all. We are as good Catholics as you are, if not better."
"Aye, rye, you crow very loud, my young cock."