Part 9 (1/2)

”Stuff and nonsense! If they call me a loose woman, and if I'm not, why, you see: a floral wreath. And if I am,--it's all the same in the end.”

Senor Ignacio, offended, s.h.i.+fted the conversation to the crime on Panuelas Street; a jealous organ-grinder had slain his sweetheart for a harsh word and the hearers were excited over the case, each offering his opinion. The meal over, Senor Ignacio, Leandro, Vidal and Manuel went out to the gallery to have a nap while the women remained inside gossiping.

All the neighbours had brought their sleeping-mats out, and in their unders.h.i.+rts, half naked, some seated, others stretched out, they were dozing on the galleries.

”Hey, you,” said Vidal to Manuel. ”Let's be off.”

”Where?”

”To the Pirates. We meet today. They must be waiting for us already.”

”What do you mean,--pirates?”

”Bizco and the others.”

”And why do they call 'em that?”

”Because they're like the old time pirates.”

Manuel and Vidal stepped into the patio and leaving the house, walked off down Embajadores lane.

”They call us the Pirates,” explained Vidal, ”from a certain battle of stones we had. Some of the kids from the Paseo de las Acacias had got some sticks and formed a company with a Spanish flag at the head; then I, Bizco, and three or four others, began to throw stones at them and made them retreat. The Corretor, a fellow who lives in our house, and who saw us chasing after them, said to us: 'Say, are you pirates or what? For, if you're pirates you ought to fly the black flag. Well, next day I swiped a dark ap.r.o.n from my father and I tied it to a stick and we got after the kids with the Spanish flag and came near making them surrender it. That's why they call us the Pirates.”

The two cousins came to a tiny, squalid district.

”This is the Casa del Cabrero,” said Vidal. ”And here are our chums.”

So it proved; the entire pirate gang was here encamped. Manuel now made the acquaintance of El Bizco, a cross-eyed species of chimpanzee, square-shaped, husky, long-armed, with misshapen legs and huge red hands.

”This is my cousin,” added Vidal, introducing Manuel to the gang; and then, to make him seem interesting, he told how Manuel had come to the house with two immense lumps that he had received in a Homeric struggle with a man.

Bizco stared closely at Manuel, and seeing that Manuel, on his side, was observing him calmly, averted his gaze. Bizco's face possessed the interest of a queer animal or of a pathological specimen. His narrow forehead, his flat nose, his thick lips, his freckled skin and his red, wiry hair lent him the appearance of a huge, red baboon.

As soon as Vidal had arrived, the gang mobilized and all the ragam.u.f.fins went foraging through la Casa del Cabrero.

This was the name given to a group of low tenement hovels that bounded a long, narrow patio. At this hot hour the men and women, stretched out half naked on the ground, were sleeping in the shade as in a trance. Some women, in s.h.i.+fts, huddled into a circle of four or five, were smoking the same cigar, each taking a puff and pa.s.sing it along from hand to hand.

A swarm of naked brats infested the place; they were the colour of the soil, most of them black, some fair, with blue eyes. As if already they felt the degradation of their poverty, these urchins neither shouted nor frolicked about the yard.

A few la.s.ses of ten to fourteen were chatting in a group. Bizco, Vidal and the rest of the gang gave chase to them around the patio. The girls, half naked, dashed off, shrieking and shouting insults.

Bizco boasted that he had violated some of the girls.

”They're all _puchereras_ like the ones on Ceres Street,” said one of the Pirates.

”So they make pots, do they?” inquired Manuel.

”Yes. Fine pots, all right!”

”Then why do you call them _puchereras_?”