Part 34 (1/2)
”Did you ever know ot mine”
”That's because youryour ”
”Oh! bother Pepita Let's have an _albur_ of h, if it wasn't we could aht! But the stakes? I haven't a _cuartilla_--nay, not so much as a _claco_”
”_Carramba_! Nor I either I spent the last on a drink just before we got into the saddle It's bad; but we can bet upon the credit systees for counters”
”Ah, stay!”
At which he turned his eyes upon the dith a look of peculiar significance, cupidity the prevailing expression
The latter saith a heaviness of heart, and a shuddering throughout his frame All the time apprehensive about the plunder hich his pockets were cra
CHAPTER FIFTY TWO
A DANAE'S SHOWER
”Now, I shouldn't wonder,” continued the corporal, shi+fting upon his seat, and facing fully round to the dwarf ”I shouldn't at all wonder but that this dientlee us by a little loan, considering the occasion What say you, _Senor Enano_?”
”I haven't any,” was the ready answer ”And sorry to say it too--that I am”
”It don't look lance at the hunchback's tattered habiliments
”Looks are not always to be relied on,” persisted the corporal ”Who'd ever suspect a pearl inside an ugly oyster-shell?”
”I haven't, indeed, _Senor Cabo_,” once more protested the dith earnest emphasis ”If I had, you'd be welcoa in funds, I'm too like your worshi+ps--without a _claco_ I've been stripped of everything; and, if you knew my story, you'd pity me, I' curious
”Why, that I've been robbed of all the money I had It wasn't much, to be sure, only two _pesetas_ and a _real_, but still that was better than eo I was on et so; when not far from this, two men--footpads I suppose they were-- rushed out froht, the other left But I've good long ar too; and so I was able to keep theht hold of ain I believe I could have wrestled the-bladed knife, and threatened to cuthe was in earnest”
While giving this soinary adventure, he had started to his feet, and accoestures; dancing and flinging his ar hirotesqueness of the perforht--for he kept under the shadow--set his listeners to laughing
Little drea the them
But there was a third spectator of the scene, unknown to all of them, are of it The _cochero_ could not at first tell ere the things striking hi pelted with pebbles! But he could see they ca behind in his repeated contortions and gesticulations
Moreover, that they glistened while passing through the air, and looked whitish where they lay, after falling at his own feet
”Well; what did they do to you then?” asked the corporal, when he and his couffaw ”Stripped you clean, as you've said?”