"Let's see if we can't play a dirty trick on that damned Cojo."
"Yes. Come on."
By a side path they climbed back to the spot where they had been on the previous afternoon. From the caves of San Blas hill came a few ragamuffins crawling out on all fours; frightened by the sound of voices and thinking, doubtless, that the police had come to make a raid, they set off on a mad run, naked, with their ragged clothing under their arms.
They made their way to Cojo's cave; El Mariané proposed that as a punishment for his not having let them go in the day before, they should pile a heap of grass before the entrance to the cave and set fire to the place.
"No, man, that's monstrous," objected El Canco. "The fellow hires out his cave to Rubia and Chata, who hang around here and have customers in the barracks. He has to respect his agreements with them."
"Well, we'll have to give him a lesson," retorted El Mariané. "You'll see." Whereupon he crawled into the cave and reappeared soon with El Cojo's wooden leg in one hand and a stewpot in the other.
"Cojo! Cojo!" he shouted.
At these cries the cripple stuck his head out of the entrance to the cave, dragging himself along on his hands, bellowing blasphemies in fury.
"Cojo! Cojo!" yelled El Mariané again, as if inciting a dog. "There goes your leg! And your dinner's following after!" As he spoke, he seized the wooden leg and the pot and sent them rolling down the slope.
Then they all broke into a run for the Ronda de Vallecas. Above the heights and valleys of the Pacífico district the huge red disk of the sun rose from the earth and ascended slowly and majestically behind a cluster of grimy huts.