“‘I pay my debts, I pay my debts! That is the law of the cales.’[23]
“Ah! that day, señor! that day! When I think of it, I forget to-morrow!”
The bandit was silent for a moment; then, having relighted his cigar, he continued:
“We passed the whole day together, eating, drinking, and the rest. When she had eaten her fill of bonbons, like a child of six, she stuffed handfuls of them into the old woman’s water-jar.—‘That’s to make sherbet for her,’ she said. She crushed yemas by throwing them against the wall. ‘That’s to induce the flies to let us alone,’ she said. There is no conceivable trick and no folly that she did not commit. I told her that I would like to see her dance; but where was she to obtain castanets? She instantly took the old woman’s only plate, broke it in pieces, and in a moment she was dancing the romalis, clapping the pieces of crockery in as perfect time as if they had been castanets of ebony or ivory. One was never bored with that girl, I assure you.
“Night came on and I heard the drums beating the retreat.
“‘I must go to quarters for the roll-call,’ I said.
“‘To quarters?’ she repeated, contemptuously; ‘are you a negro, pray, that you allow yourself to be led by a stick? You are a regular canary, in dress and in temper![24] Go! you are a chicken-hearted fellow!’
“I remained, with my mind made up beforehand to the guard-room. The next morning, she was the first to mention parting.
“‘Look you, Joseito,’ she said, ‘have I paid you? According to our law, I owed you nothing, as you are a payllo; but you are a comely youth, and you took my fancy. We are quits. Good-day.’
“I asked her when I should see her again.