“Speak, then; who was here last night and this morning before these gentlemen came? Speak, slave, or I shall make you acquainted with my dungeon,” said Murillo angrily to the boy, who continued to twist the band of his trowsers without replying.
“Ah, you don’t choose to answer,” said Murillo, pulling his ear.
“No one, master, no one,” replied the trembling Sebastian with eagerness.
“That is false,” exclaimed Murillo.
“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 hands in supplication before his master.
“Listen to me,” pursued Murillo. “I wish to know who has sketched the head of this virgin, and all the figures which my pupils find here every morning, on coming to this studio. This night, instead 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 till the termination of the hour of instruction, Murillo was too much absorbed with his pencil to allow a word to be spoken but what regarded their occupation, but the moment he disappeared, the pupils made ample amends for this restraint, and as the unknown painter occupied all their thoughts, the conversation naturally turned to that subject.
“Beware, Sebastian, of the lash,” said Mendez, “and watch well for the culprit. Give me the Naples yellow.”
“You do not need it, Senor 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 or asses, with their Zombi?” said Gonzalo, laughing; “pray what is a Zombi?”