"The Plaza Mayor was deserted."
[CHAPTER VII.]
A DARK HISIORY CONTINUED.
"Ancient Mexico was traversed by canals, like Venice, or, to speak more correctly, like Dutch towns, for generally in all the streets there was a path between the canal and the houses. At the present day, when all the streets are paved, and the canals have disappeared save in one quarter of the city, it is difficult to understand how Cervantes, in one of his novels, could compare Venice with Mexico; but if the canals are no longer visible, they still exist underground; and in certain low quarters, where they have been converted into drains, they manifest their presence by the foetid odours which they exhale, or by the heaps of filth and stagnant water."
"The sergeant, after so skilfully settling accounts with the hapless evangelista, crossed the Plaza, and entered the Calle de la Monterilla."
"He walked for a long time along the streets with the same quiet step he had adopted on leaving the evangelista's stall. At length, after about twenty minutes' walk through deserted streets and gloomy lanes, whose miserable appearance became with every step more menacing, he stopped before a house of more than suspicious aspect, above the door of which a flaring candle burned behind un retablo de las animas veneritas; the windows of the house were lit up, and on the azotea the watchdogs were mournfully baying the moon. The sergeant tapped twice on the door of this sinister abode with his vine stick."
"It was a long time ere he was answered. The shouts and singing suddenly ceased in the inside: at length the soldier heard a heavy step approaching; the door was partly opened—for everywhere in Mexico an iron chain is put up at night—and a drunken voice said harshly,—"
"'¿Quién es? (Who's there?)'"
"'Gente de paz,' the sergeant answered."