Page:A Set of Rogues.djvu/81

 Don Sanchez hunched his shoulders for all reply and turned away to hide his mortification. And now a girl comes up with a biggin of water on her head, a broken comb in her hand, and a ragged cloth on her arm that looked as if it had never been washed since it left the loom, and sets them down on a bench, with a grin at Moll; but she, though not over-nice, turns away with a pout of disgust, and then we to get a breath of fresh air to a hole in the wall on the windward side, where we stand all dumb with disappointment and dread until we are called down to dinner. But before going down Don Sanchez warns us to stand on our best behaviour, as these Spaniards, for all their rude seeming, were of a particularly punctilious, ticklish disposition, and that we might come badly out of this business if we happened to displease them.

"I cannot see reason in that, Señor," says Dawson; "for the less we please 'em, the sooner they are likely to send us hence, and so the better for us."

"As you please," replies the Don, "but my warning is to your advantage."

Down we go, and there stands Don Lopez with a dozen choice friends, all the raggedest, dirty villains in the world; and they saluting us, we return their civility with a very fair pretence and take the seats offered us they standing until we are set. Then they sit down, and each man lugs out a knife from his waist-cloth. The cauldron, filled with a mess of kid stewed in a multitude of onions, is fetched from the fire, and, being set upon a smooth board, is slid down the table to our host, who, after picking out some titbits for us, serves himself, and so slides it back, each man in turn picking out a morsel on the end of his knife.