Page:Vagabond life in Mexico.djvu/44

42. Some strange, vague sounds escaped now and then from one of the lanes leading to the canal. Presently I fancied I heard the crunching of unsteady steps on the gravel. With my body leaning over the balcony, and listening intently, I waited for the moment when the awful stillness would be broken by some cry of anguish. The sound of voices, loud in dispute, again drew my attention to the room on which my back was turned. The orgie was this moment at its height. The Zaragate, surrounded by a group of angry gamblers, whose suspicions had been roused by his run of good luck, was trying, but in vain, to wrap around him the shreds of his olive cloak, which had been torn into ribbons by the furious hands of his adversaries.

The most stinging epithets were launched against him from all sides.

"I am a man of substance," cried the fellow, impudently, "as much as those whose uncivil hands have torn to tatters the handsomest cloak I ever possessed."

"Barefaced swindler!" cried a gambler; "your cloak had as many rents as your conscience."

"In any other place," replied Perico, who was prudently edging toward the door, "you would have to give me satisfaction for this double insult. Señor," said he, appealing to me, "be my surety, as I have been yours; half of my winnings is yours; they were honestly come by. All this is but mere slander."

I was once more mentally cursing my intimacy with Perico, when an occurrence of a graver nature made a happy diversion to the scene in which I saw myself in danger of becoming an actor. A man rushed hurriedly out of one of the back rooms on the same floor. Close behind him another followed, knife in hand; a