“Medinas, si,” the driver said.
Little boys clambered on to the caleche, asking for “Frencha penny. Ingles penny.” A fat, pale-faced young man hopped on to the step and poised there while he made his proposals.
“You want to see the sights?” he said. “I be your guide. I show you very funny sights. I show you not the usual sort of thing. You like a nice cock-fight, no? You like a quail-fight, no? See now, I take you to a special thing, not many knows about, a good dog-fight. There now, only three dollar. Well, I take you to a special thing to-night; something you never see, perhaps ever again. No? Well, you go to dam prayer-meeting, see? dam prayer-meeting.”
He swung off to seek for a client elsewhere. The caleche passed from the narrows into a broader space, went under an old archway of withering red and yellow plaster and came out into an avenue of palms lit by electric light. Turning from this through an ilex grove it stopped at the de Leyva palace.
Hi was admitted into a great cool hall built of white Otorin marble. All round it and against its columns were the stands of the de Leyva armour, some of which had marched in the Conquest. Carlotta joined him almost at once; he gave her the letter.
“I thought that perhaps you would bring a letter,” she said. “I suppose Rosa wants me to go back to her? My brother is against that.”
“I hope,” Hi said, “I do hope that Don Manuel will not be attacked by these Reds.”
“He is far away by this time.”
Hi felt that he had said a tactless thing, even to suggest that Don Manuel might be attacked, so he added:
“I should pity the man who attacked Don Manuel.”