"Take care of that spring-matress," bellowed a flat-nosed gamin who was going about striking the sleepers with a stick in the shins. "Hey, there, you're rumpling the sheets!"
At Manuel's side, a rachetic urchin with thick lips and streaked eyes and one of his feet bandaged in dirty rags, was crying and groaning; Manuel, engrossed in his own thoughts, had not noticed him before.
"Some howling you're doing," came to the sufferer from a boy who was stretched out on the ground with his legs cramped close to his chest and his head pillowed against a rock.
"It hurts like anything."
"Then shut up, grin and bear it. Hang yourself."
Manuel thought that he heard El Carnicerín's voice and glanced toward the speaker. The fellow's hat was pulled down over his eyes and his face was not visible.
"Who's that?" asked Manuel of El Bizco.
"He's the captain of the cave gang: El Interprete."
"And what's he talking to the kid like that for?"
El Bizco shrugged his shoulders with a gesture of indifference.