Page:Travels in Mexico and life among the Mexicans.djvu/143

Rh for the Aztecs are as treacherous and faithless as the people of Yucatan are honest and true.

After a second coffee we all sought our hammocks, where Alonzo and I reclined, smoking and chatting. I was anxious to go on to the coast for flamingoes, but my host told me I could not,—that I was at his disposal; which remark rather irritated me, until he added, with a smile, "And I am at yours, also." I had got accustomed to this polite insincerity, however. On the way I asked him if the horse he rode was his, and he replied: "Si, señor, y de usted, tambien,"—"Yes, sir, and yours as well." After that I ventured but one more question of the kind, and that was when, in the house of the young lady who had prepared our breakfast, I asked if she was his sweetheart. The customary reply came readily to his lips: "Si, amigo mio, and yours also."

I fell asleep, as soon as the insects feasting on me, ticks, sand-flies, fleas, and chinches, would permit, but soon awoke suddenly, conscious that Alonzo had darted out from under the mosquito bar and was in angry expostulation with the man with the evil eyes. This man, early in the evening, had gone raving to his hammock, and after crying there awhile he had come tearing out, and seized his wife,—the sympathetic one,—dragging her away from her work. She had submitted, though expecting a beating, merely glancing at her torn uipil; but one of the men jumped at him as he drew her along, and quieted him for a while. Now he had broken out afresh, threatening to kill Alonzo if he did not immediately pay him his wages, and brandishing a great machete furiously. Alonzo was in no wise frightened, but sprang at him like a jaguar, promising him a beating that would answer for his wages. And I have no doubt the Indian would have got it, though my friend is a little man, for in Ɔilam he had flown at a man who talked insolently to him, slapped his face, and pounded him well, until he ceased from talking. So they had it out in talk, and piled fresh fuel on the fire as though they intended to be at it all night, making my hut as light as day. The fight ended, Alonzo quietly entered the mosquito bar, which was made large enough for