“May you live a thousand years—that is, nine hundred and ten years more!”
“Ruffians!” gasped Tia Marta, as soon as she could get her voice for fury. “Cheese-rinds! If only there was a man, an Andalusian, here!”
And she glared on Pedrillo, who, more embarrassed than he had ever been in his life, was standing on one foot and scratching his bushy head.
“An Andalusian!” taunted Bastiano. “Much good that would do you. Everything with the Andalusians passes off in talk. They are all mouth. Crabs with broken claws could fight better than your Andalusian fiddlers.”
“What is Andalusia?” mocked Hilario. “A Paradise where the fleas are always dancing to the tunes played by the mosquitoes.”
Thereupon something like a diminutive battering-ram took Hilario in the stomach and he sat down so unexpectedly that he tripped up the long legs of Tenorio, who bit the dust beside him. Then Rafael, his black eyes blazing, leapt on Bastiano, who, stumbling back in his surprise against Blanco, was dealt a well-deserved mule-kick that sent him, too, sprawling on the cobblestones.
“Now they will kill me,” thought Rafael and drew his small figure erect to meet his fate like a hero. At least, if he had not captured five Moorish kings, he had brought three Galician arrieros low, and perhaps his prowess would be sung in ballads yet to be. But to his astonishment, and somewhat to his discomfiture, the courtyard rang with friendly laughter and applause, in which Hilario and Tenorio, quickly regaining their feet, heartily joined.
“Good for young Cockahoop!”
“Bravo! Bravo!”
“As valiant as the Cid!”