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 drip like an olla of cold water hung in the door."

Sergeant Olivera looked overhead. Hams and bacon hung thick on the joists fifteen feet above him, dim in the smoke and shadows.

"There's many a sweet morsel there, heh, soldier?" Borromeo licked his lip, his hunger moved by the piquant thought, full as he was of mutton, turning his broad face up to see, his curling short beard crisp as charcoal. More Jove than Vulcan he appeared in the candle's light.

"It would take a long arm to reach them, anyhow," the sergeant laughed. "Well, I have fared heartily at your table, Doña Magdalena," Sergeant Olivera rose, preparing to depart, laying hand on his sword-belt. "I do not envy the fathers their hams."

"It is nothing," said Magdalena, throwing out her hospitable hands.

"Tomorrow I shall not fare so well, doña; I shall eat a soldier's supper in the company of soldiers; there will be ashes on my bread."

"You would be welcome every day to this table, Sergeant Olivera. The house is yours, and all that is in it."

"And the fathers' hams, and the fathers' wine casks in the cellar—all yours, soldier; help yourself." Borromeo laughed, rolling back in his chair as the thought enlarged in him, smiting the table with his big sledge fist until the platters jumped. "And your bed, doña—of course that is his, also, at least half"