"Dog!" repeated the Mexican, and his right hand disappeared under his cloak—a movement which was immediately imitated by the owners of the white, black, brown, and greenish physiognomies by which he was surrounded. The three Spaniards stepped back as precipitately as they had advanced. Meanwhile, the fourth sergeant approached the table, and, seizing upon the cards, invited the company to stake their money against a bank which he put down. The effect of this invitation was no less extraordinary than rapid. The same men who, an instant before, had been ready to espouse their countryman's quarrel to the death—for such had been the meaning of the mysterious fumbling under the cloaks—no sooner perceived that the cards had changed masters, than they called to the Mexican with one voice—
"Por el amor de Dios, señor—leave us in peace, and God be with your señoria!"
"Ay, go, and the devil take you!" growled the Spaniards.
The young man gazed in turn at his countrymen and at the sergeants; and then, as if struck by the curious contrast between the courtesy of the former and the rudeness of the latter, he laughed right out, swept together his winnings, and walked away from the table, whistling a bolero.
The sort of ramble which the masked cavalier now commenced through the adjoining saloons, seemed for some time to have no particular object. He strutted across one, paused for a moment in the next to take a sip out of a friend's liqueur glass, dipped a biscuit into the chocolate of one acquaintance, and helped another to finish his sangaree; and so lounged and loitered about, till he found himself in the last of the suite of rooms, which was then unoccupied. Stepping up to a door at the further end of the apartment, he knocked at it, at the same time uttering the words, "Ave Maria purissima!"
The door was opened.
"Sin peccado concebida!" added the Mexican, when he saw that the occupants of the room did not make the usual reply to his pious but customary salutation. "For God's sake, señores, is there neither piety nor politeness among ye? Could you not say, 'Sin peccado concebida?'"
Chapter the Second.
"Verdades diré en camisa,
Poco menos que desnuda."
Quevedo.
The company assembled in the room which the masked cavalier entered consisted of some five-and-twenty young men, in whose picturesque Spanish-Mexican costume, velvets, silk, and gold embroidery had been employed with lavish profusion. The air of scornful superciliousness with which they glanced at the intruder, and the indifference with which they seemed to regard the heaps of gold that lay glittering on the table, denoted them to be practised gamblers, or, which in Mexico is the same thing, noblemen of the highest rank. The saloon was richly furnished; chairs, sofas, and tables of the most costly woods, and splendidly gilt, cushions, drapery, and chandeliers, after the newest fashion.