“What is it?” Captain Cary asked.
“A hawk, sir; it came down and struck and carried away a little bird just over the ring.”
“That is what they call an omen of something.”
“An omen that the better fighter is going to win, sir.”
They were still almost the only whites in the arena. They chatted or were silent while the other side of the arena filled up with negroes and half-breeds who had come to cheer the Carib. Many of these, being young men, were dressed in what was then the extreme fashion among the coloured peoples. This fashion was based on the belief that youth is irresistible: it dressed men to look young. That there might be no doubt about it, the costumes chosen were those of little boys of six or seven years of age. About a hundred of the young bloods of Las Palomas were wearing little round straw sailor hats, with ribbons hanging from the bands over their faces. On their bodies they wore little sailor suits, with flopping collars and very short knickerbockers. Their legs were mostly bare from above the knee to the ankle. Little white socks and tennis shoes covered their feet. Had they carried little spades and buckets, they would have looked like little boys dressed for the seashore. As it was, they carried little parasols of red and blue stuff: many of them had opened these and sat beneath them in their places: the rest carried fans or handkerchiefs of bright colours. They were exceedingly noisy and merry: they seemed to make the arena-side to flash with their teeth. Until about twenty minutes past three, many of them shouted insults at the two whites, who sat unmoved, not knowing the debased dialect of the Occidental. After twenty minutes past three, many white men entered: the insults stopped, a drummer, a zither-player and a bone-rattler struck up a jig to which the negroes kept time with Hues and stamping.
“Very late in beginning,” Captain Cary complained. “It is half-past three now. If they mention a time, they ought to keep to it. They used not to be like this in the Occidental. They used to be people of their words, like the Chinese. But they have lost their religion since they began to make their fortunes, and now they are regular hasta mañana people.”
“They will not be long now, Captain Cary.”
“I ought to have known that they would be thoroughly late. We could have gone to the dock and then we could have gone to the cutting and seen the new steam-shovel that they talk about. That would have done us more good than sitting here all this time.”
“Things seem to be beginning to move now, sir.”
Indeed, things were beginning to move, for the bone-rattler had roused two negroes to leap into the ring to step-dance. This they did with extraordinary skill and invention against each other, among Hues and laughter. All the negroes present kept time with their feet to the slap and rattle of the dancers’ feet. The little boy bloods sang songs. Lemonade-sellers came round with drinks; cake-and-sweetmeat men, each in a cloud of flies, sold sticky messes for pennies. Then two men standing at the ringside with guitars, began to sing in falsetto about the cruelty of love; and a littleish skilly-faced man, whose head, having been clipped for ringworm, had a look of prison, offered to reveal the result of the big fight for a half peseta down. The Angel Gabriel had revealed the matter to him in a vision, so he said.