Part 49 (1/2)

”To the Espana!”

”Whose coach is this one?” asked Caesar, pointing to the less dirty of the two.

”The Comercio's.”

”All right, then we are going to the Comercio.”

The coach, in spite of being the better of the two, was a rickety, worn-out old omnibus, with its windows broken and spotted. It was drawn by three skinny mules, full of galls. Caesar and Alzugaray got in and waited. The coachman, with the whip around his neck, and a young man who looked a bit like a seminarian, began to chat and smoke.

At the end of five minutes' waiting, Caesar asked:

”Well, aren't we going?”

”In a moment, sir.”

The moment stretched itself out a good deal. A priest arrived, so fat that he would have filled the vehicle all alone; then a woman from the town with a basket, which she held on her knees; then the postman got in with his bag; the driver closed the little window in the coach door, and continued joking with the young man who looked a bit like a seminarian and with one of the station men.

”We are in a hurry,” said Alzugaray.

”We are going now, sir. All right. Good-bye!”

”Good-bye!” answered the station man and the seminarian.

The driver got up on his seat, cracked his whip, and the vehicle began to move, with a noisy swaying and a trembling of all its wood and gla.s.s.

A very thick cloud of dust arose in the road.

”Ya, ya, Coronela!” yelled the driver. ”Why do you keep getting where you oughtn't to get? d.a.m.n the mule! Montesina, I am going to give you a couple of whacks. Get on there, Coronela! Get up, get up.... All right!

All right!... That's enough.... That's enough.... Let it alone, now! Let it alone, now!”

”What an amount of oratory that man is wasting,” exclaimed Caesar; ”he must think that the mules are going to go better for the efforts of his throat. It would be an advantage if he had stronger beasts, instead of these dying ones.”

The other travellers paid no attention to his observation, and Alzugaray said:

”These drivers drip oratory.”

While the shabby coach was going along the highway which encircles Castro hill, to the sound of the bells and the cracking of the whip, it was possible to remain seated in the vehicle with comparative ease; but on reaching the town's first steep, crooked, rough-cobbled street, the swinging and tossing were such that the travellers kept falling one upon another.

The first street kept getting rapidly narrower, and as it grew narrower, the crags in its paving were sharper and more prominent. At the highest part of the street, in the middle, stood a two-wheeled cart blocking the way. The coachman got down, from his seat and started a long discussion with the carter, as to who was under obligations to make way.

”What idiots!” exclaimed Caesar, irritated; then, calmer, he murmured, addressing Alzugaray, ”The truth is, these people don't care about doing anything but talk.”

As the discussion between the coachman and the carter gave signs of never ending, Caesar said:

”Come along,” and then, addressing the man with the bag, he asked him, ”Is it far from here to the inn?”