"And have you done so?"
"Yes, master."
"Speak, then; who was here last night and this morning before these gentlemen came?"
"No one but me, I swear to you, master," cried the mulatto, throwing himself on his knees in the middle of the studio, and holding out his little hands in supplication before his master.
"Listen to me," pursued Murillo. "I wish to know who has sketched this head of the Virgin and all the figures which my pupils find every morning here on coming to the studio. This night, in place of going to bed, you shall keep watch, and if by to-morrow you do not discover who the culprit is, you shall have twenty-five strokes from the lash. You hear! I have said it. Now go and grind the colors; and you, gentlemen, to work."
From the commencement until the termination of the hour of instruction Murillo was too much absorbed with his pencil to allow a word to be spoken but what related to their occupation; but the moment he disappeared conversation began, and naturally turned to the subject in which they were all interested.
"Beware, Sebastian, of the lash," said Mendez, "and watch well for the culprit; but give me the Naples yellow."
"You do not need it, Señor Mendez; you have made it yellow enough already; and as to the culprit, I have already told you that it is the Zombi."
"Are these negroes fools with their Zombi?" said Gonzalo, laughing. "Pray what is a Zombi?"
"Oh, an imaginary being, of course. But take care, Señor Gonzalo," continued Sebastian, with a mischievous glance at his easel, "for it must be the Zombi who has stretched the left arm of your St. John to such a length that if the right resembles it he will be able to untie his shoe-strings without stooping."