'Sí, mi general, it is,' replied the guard. 'Nine bullets were fired at the count as he rode round the corner of the street mentioned in your dispatch.'
Tacon then ordered that the marriage and death of Count Almante should receive all publicity, and that legal steps should be taken for the purpose of showing that the property and name of the defunct were inherited by his disconsolate widow. When the general's commands had been fulfilled, and a decent period after the count's demise had transpired, it need scarcely be added that Pedro Mantanez married the countess, with whom he lived happily ever after.
'Rather a barbarous way of administering justice,' I remark, at the conclusion of Don Manuel's story. 'In my country,' I add, 'such an act as that which General Tacon committed would be called murder.'
'It is not looked upon in that light here,' says the officer. 'You must remember that the count had been already guilty of many crimes worthy the punishment of death, and as there had been no means of bringing him to justice, justice improved the occasion which his last offence presented, and, as it were, came to him!'
CHAPTER XI.
(VERY) HIGH ART IN CUBA.
On the Ceiling—'Pintar-monos'—A Chemist's Shop à la Polychrome—Sculpture under Difficulties—'Nothing like Leather'—A Triumph in Triumphal Arches—Cuban Carpenters—The Captain-General of Havana.
Our incarceration proves of professional service to us. It spreads our renown and procures us more congenial patronage than we have hitherto received. While I have been rusticating at La Socapa, my brother limner has been busily employed on work in which he takes especial delight.
A rich marquis having just returned from a visit to Europe, is inspired with the desire to decorate his new mansion, which has lately been purchased by him, in what he calls a 'tasteful' fashion. For this purpose all the decorative talent of the town is engaged. Nicasio is also applied to, and undertakes to adorn the ceiling of the long reception-room with four large oil paintings representing the seasons. The marquis has not perfected his taste for the fine arts by his visit to Europe, for he still persists in applying the vulgar term 'mono,' or monkey, to all paintings in which figures form the leading features, and of classifying everything else under the general denomination of 'paisaje.' All artists are to him 'pintar-monos,' or painters of monkeys, and when he summons my partner to arrange about the pictures which he desires to have affixed to his ceiling, he points to the octagonal spaces which these productions are destined to fill, and observes:
'Quiero cuatro monos para tapar estos hoyos,' which is equivalent to saying: I want four daubs (monkeys) to cover over those holes with.