“Well, you look as if you were. But that’s your affair. I don’t know this Bizco,” and the man turned his back upon them.
“We’ve got to have a care around here,” whispered Ortiz. “If they ever find out what we’ve come for, we’ll get a drubbing that we’ll remember.”
They left the Tinsmiths’ quarter, crossed the river by a bridge over which the railroad ran, and continued along the banks of the Manzanares.
On the meadows by the stream, which were dazzling with verdure, the cows were at pasture. Some ragged figures were walking slowly, cautiously along, hunting crickets.
Manuel and Ortiz reached some country houses called La China; the officer made inquiries of a gardener. The man did not know El Bizco.
Leaving this place, they sat down upon the grass to rest. It was growing dark; Madrid, a reddish yellow, with its spires and domes, aglow with the last quivering rays of the setting sun, rose out of the distance. The glass panes of the Observatory flashed flame. A huge ball of copper, on the top of some edifice, beamed like a sun over the grimy roofs; here and there a star was already shining in the Prussian blue arch of heaven; the Guadarrama range, dark violet in the dusk, broke the distant horizon with its whitish peaks.
Ortiz and Manuel hastened back to the city. By the time they had reached the Paseo de Embajadores, it was night; they had a glass at the Manigua restaurant and kept their eyes open in the meantime.
“Have supper with me,” suggested Ortiz. “Tonight we’ll resume the hunt. We’ve got to ransack all Madrid.”
Manuel had supper with the officer and his family in the house at El Campillo del Mundo Nuevo. Thereupon they visited nearly every tavern on the Calle del Mesón de Paredes and the Calle de Embajadores, afterward going into the little café on the Calle de la Esgrima. The whole place was thronged with vagabonds; as the officer and Manuel took their seats, the news was quickly spread from one customer to the other. A boy who sat at a nearby table showing a ring and a comb made haste to conceal them as soon as he caught sight of Ortiz. The officer noticed this move and called to the boy.
“What do you want?” asked the youngster, suspiciously.