This man wore the gown of a monk; he had the ascetic face, with the harsh features and sharply-marked lines, that forms, as it were, the type of the Spanish monks of which Titian has so admirably caught the expression on his canvas. He passed through the adventurers, holding out right and left his wide sleeves, which they reverentially kissed. On approaching the two hunters he turned round.
"Continue your sports, my sons," he said to the company; "my presence need not disturb your frolics, for I only wish to speak for a few moments with those two gentlemen."
The adventurers did not let the invitation be repeated, but took their places again tumultuously, and soon cries and oaths recommenced with equal intensity. The monk smiled, took a butaca, and seated himself between the two hunters, while bending a searching glance on them. The latter had followed with a mocking eye all the interludes of this little scene, and without making a movement, they let the monk seat himself by their side. So soon as he had done so, Harry poured him out a large glass of pulque, and placed within his reach the squares of maize leaf and tobacco.
"Drink and smoke, señor padre," he said to him.
The monk, without any observation, rolled a cigarette, emptied the glass of pulque at a draught, and then leaning his elbows on the table and bending forward, said,—
"You are punctual."
"We have been waiting an hour," Dick observed in a rough voice.
"What is an hour in the presence of eternity?" the monk said with a smile.
"Let us not lose any more time," Harry continued. "What have you to propose to us?"
The monk looked around him suspiciously, and lowered his voice.