For three days the town had been a prey to the gold fever. The governor, yielding to the supplications of several considerable merchants, had authorised for five days a feria de plata, or, literally, a silver fair.
Gambling tables, held by persons of distinction, were publicly open in the principal houses; but the fact which gave this festival a strangeness impossible to find elsewhere was, that monte tables were displayed in every street in the open air, on which gold tinkled, and where everybody possessed of a real had the right to risk it, without distinction of caste or colour.
In Mexico everything is done differently from other countries. The inhabitants of this country, having no reminiscences of the past which they wish to forget, no faith in the future in which they do not believe, only live for the present, and exist with that feverish energy peculiar to races which feel their end approaching.
The Mexicans have two marked tastes which govern them entirely, play and love. We say tastes, and not passions, for the Mexicans are not capable of those great emotions which conquer the will, and overthrow the human economy by developing an energetic power of action.
The groups round the monte tables were numerous and animated. Still, everything went on with an order and tranquility which nothing troubled, although no agent of the government was walking about the streets to maintain a good intelligence and watch the gamblers.
About halfway up the Calle de la Merced, one of the widest in Guaymas, and opposite a house of goodly appearance, there stood a table covered with a green baize and piled up with gold ounces, behind which a man of about thirty, with a crafty face, was stationed, who, with a pack of cards in his hand, and a smile on his lips, invited by the most insinuating remarks the numerous spectators who surrounded him to tempt fortune.
"Come, caballeros," he said in a honeyed tone, while turning a provocative glance upon the wretched men, haughtily draped in their rags, who regarded him with extreme indifference, "I cannot always win; luck is going to turn, I am sure. Here are one hundred ounces: who will cover them?"
No one answered.
The banker, not allowing himself to be defeated, let a tinkling cascade of ounces glide through his fingers, whose tawny reflection was capable of turning the most resolute head.
"It is a nice sum, caballeros, one hundred ounces: with them the ugliest man is certain of gaining the smiles of beauty. Come, who will cover them?"