“I will wait till he awakes.”
The sacristans looked at him with that rudeness characteristic of people who are in the habit of being ill-treated.
In a dark corner, the one-eyed sacristan mayor was sleeping in a large chair. His spectacles were across his forehead among his long locks of hair. His squalid, bony breast was bare, and rose and fell with regularity.
The peasant sat down near by, disposed to wait patiently, but a coin fell on the floor and he began looking for it with the aid of a candle, under the sacristan mayor’s big chair. The peasant also noted “stick-tights” on the sleeping man’s pantaloons and on the arms of his camisa. The sacristan awoke at last, rubbed his good eye, and, in a very bad humor, reproached the man.
“I would like to order a mass said, señor,” replied he in a tone of excuse.
“They have already finished all the masses,” said the one-eyed man, softening his accent a little. “If you want it for to-morrow.... Is it for souls in Purgatory?”
“No, señor;” replied the peasant, giving him a peso.
And looking fixedly in his one eye, he added:
“It is for a person who is going to die soon.” And he left the sacristy. “I could have seized him last night,” he added, sighingly as he removed the plaster from his neck. And he straightened up and regained the stature and appearance of Elias.