He soon seemed ashamed of his voracity, and after a few spoonsful stopped, thinking an explanation necessary.
"Since yesterday morning I have touched nothing but a scrap of bread and a drop of milk which they gave me in a shepherd's hut. Good appetite, gentlemen!"...
And he again attacked the dish, acknowledging Potaje's jests as to his voracity by winking and the continued working of his jaws.
The picador wished to make him drink. Intimidated by his master's presence, who was afraid of his drunkenness, he looked anxiously at the flasks of wine placed within reach of his hand.
"Drink, Plumitas. Dry food is bad; you must wet it."
But before the brigand could accept his invitation, Potaje drank and drank again hurriedly. Plumitas only now and then touched his glass, and even then with great hesitation. He was afraid of wine, and also he had lost the habit of drinking it. In the country he could not always get it. Besides, wine was the worst enemy for a man like himself, who had to live constantly wide awake and on guard.
"But you are here among friends," said the picador. "Think, Plumitas, that you are in Seville, beneath the very mantle of the Virgin de la Macarena. No one would touch you here. And if by any unlucky chance the civil guards did come, I should place myself by your side, seizing a garrocha, and we would not leave one of the blackguards alive.... It would take very little to make me a rider of the mountain! ... that has always attracted me!"
"Potaje!" ... roared the espada from the other end of the table, fearing his loquacity and his propinquity to the bottles.
Although the bandit drank little, his face was flushed and his blue eyes sparkled with pleasure. He had chosen his seat opposite the kitchen door, a place from which he enfiladed the entrance of the grange, seeing also part of the lonely road. Now and again, a cow or a pig or a goat would cross over the strip of road, their shadows projected by the sun in front of them. This was quite enough to startle Plumitas, who would drop his spoon and clutch his rifle.
He talked with his neighbours at table without ever diverting his attention from outside, with the habit of always living ready at any time for resistance or flight, feeling it a point of honour never to be surprised.