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 would find the authorities with their boots off, as it were.

Then he went away moodily to sit in an arm-chair, smoking a long, thin cigar, not very far from Don José, with whom, bending over sideways he exchanged a few words from time to time. He ignored the entrance of the priest, and whenever Father Corbelàn's voice was raised behind him, he shrugged his shoulders impatiently.

Father Corbelàn had remained quite motionless for a time, with that something vengeful in his immobility which seemed to characterize all his attitudes. A lurid glow of strong convictions gave its peculiar aspect to the black figure. But its fierceness became softened as the padre, fixing his eyes upon Decoud, raised his long, black arm slowly, impressively:

"And you—you are a perfect heathen," he said, in a subdued, deep voice.

He made a step nearer, pointing a forefinger at the young man's breast. Decoud, very calm, felt the wall behind the curtain with the back of his head. Then, with his chin tilted well up, he smiled.

"Very well," he agreed with the slightly weary nonchalance of a man well used to these passages. "But is it not perhaps that you have not discovered yet what is the God of my worship? It was an easier task with our Barrios."

The priest suppressed a gesture of discouragement. "You believe neither in stick nor stone," he said.

"Nor bottle," added Decoud without stirring. "Neither does the other of your reverence's confidants. I mean the capataz of the cargadores. He does not