The newcomer began dancing on air, waving his ladylike hands, on which gleamed several rings, above him. Eloquence worthy of a world congress poured from his lips; his eyes seemed to spurt fire.
“No hay,” repeated the landlady, in the same dead voice.
“But señora, it is imperative. I have a lady with me! Anything will do—such as these rooms.”
“Family rooms,” snapped the caucana, as if reciting a learned dialogue.
“But your guest rooms?”
“One this señor has with his wife and baby. The other belongs to the arrieros—and also,” jerking her head slightly toward us, “to these two caballeros.”
“But what am I to do?” shrieked the Colombian, “and a lady with me?”
The woman muttered a “Quién sabe” with a careless shrug of the shoulders and continued her sewing without looking up. After a last vain oration the Colombian dashed off angrily, his horseback garments standing out at excited angles, and rode away into the night the way we had come, toward better luck perhaps among the huts at the bottom of the valley.
Bedtime comes at about seven in these wintry, fireless, lightless regions. The landlady, now thoroughly mollified, broke off some story of the wonders of the Cauca to say:
“Next to the room of the arrieros is a harness-room where you can sleep alone. Many ingleses—all light-haired foreigners are “Englishmen” to the rural Colombian—have slept in it.”