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not long in coming out of his sleeping-room. In a little while he showed his jovial face at the door of the audience chamber.
He was a person of portly and robust figure; and it was easily seen that one leg of his ample pantaloons would have been sufficient to have made a pair for the thin limbs and meagre body of the escribano.
“Por Dios! Señor alcalde,” said the clerk, after having exchanged with his superior a profusion of matinal salutations, “what a splendid pair of pantaloons you have on!”
From the alcalde’s answer, it was evident that this was not the first time that Cagatinta had made the remark.
“Ah! Gregorio, amigo!” replied he, in a tone of good-humour, “you are growing tiresome with your repetitions. Patience, patience, señor escribano! you know that for the services you are to render me—I say nothing of those already rendered—I have promised you my liver-coloured breeches, which have been only a very little used: you have only to gain them.”
“But what services are to gain them, señor alcalde?” inquired the clerk, in a despairing tone.
“Eh—Dios!—who knows what—patience, amigo! Something may turn up all at once, that will give you that advantage over me. But come! let us to business—make out the deed of appropriation of the boat of that bad pay, Vicente Perez, who under pretence that he has six brats to feed, can’t reimburse me the twenty dollars I have advanced him.”
Cagatinta drew out from his little portfolio a sheet of stamped paper, and sitting down by the table proceeded to execute the order of the magistrate. He was interrupted by a hurried knocking at the outer door—which had been closed to prevent intrusion.
“Who dare knock in that fashion?” sharply inquired the alcalde.
“Ave Maria purisima!” cried a voice from without.
“Sin pecado concebida!” replied at the same time the two acolytes within.
And upon this formula, Gregorio hastened to the door, and opened it.
“What on earth can have brought you here at this hour, Don Juan de Dios Canelo?” inquired the alcalde in a tone of surprise, as the old steward of the Countess de Mediana appeared in the doorway, his bald forehead clouded with some profound chagrin.
“Ah, señor alcalde,” replied the old man, “a terrible misfortune has happened last night—a great crime has been committed—the Countess has disappeared, and the young Count along with her!”
“Are you sure of this?” shouted the alcalde.
“Alas—you will only have to go up into the balcony that overlooks the sea, and there you will see in what state the assassins have left the Countess’s chamber.”
“Justice! justice! Señor alcalde! Send out your alguazils over the whole country; find the villains—hang them!”
This voice came from a woman still outside in the street. It was the femme de chambre of the Countess, who, to show a devotion which she very little felt, judged it apropos to make a great outcry as she precipitated herself into the chamber of audience.
“Ta-ta-ta, woman! how you go on!” interrupted the alcalde. “Do you think I have a crowd of alguazils? You know very well that in this virtuous village there are only two; and as these would starve if they didn’t follow some trade beside their official one, they are both gone fishing hours ago.”
“Ah, me!” cried the femme de chambre, with a hypocritical whine, “my poor mistress!—who then is to help her?”
“Patience, woman, patience!” said the alcalde. “Don’t fear but that justice will be done.”
The chamber-maid did not appear to draw much hope from the assurance, but only redoubled her cries, her excited behaviour strongly contrasting with the quiet manner in which the faithful old steward exhibited the sincerity of his grief.
Meanwhile a crowd of women, old men, and children, had gathered around the alcalde’s door, and by little and little, were invading the sanctuary of the audience chamber itself.
Don Ramon advanced towards Cagatinta, who was rubbing his hands under his esclavina, charmed at the idea of the quantity of stamped paper he would now have an opportunity to blacken.
“Now, friend Gregorio,” said the alcalde, in a low voice, “the time has come, when, if you are sharp, you may gain the liver-coloured breeches.”
He said no more; but it was evident that the escribano understood him, at least, to a certain extent. The latter turned pale with joy, and kept his eye fixed upon every movement of his patron, determined to seize the first opportunity that presented itself of winning the breeches.
The alcalde reseated himself in his great leathern chair; and commanding silence with a wave of his hand, addressed his auditory in a long and pompous speech, with that profuse grandiloquence of which the Spanish language is so capable.
The substance of his speech was as follows:
“My children! We have just heard from this respectable individual, Don Juan de Dios Canelo, that a great crime has last night been committed; the full knowledge of this villainy cannot fail to arrive at the ears of justice, from which nothing can be kept hid. Not the less are we to thank Don Juan for his official communication; it only remains for him to complete the accusation by giving the names of the guilty persons.”
“But, señor alcalde,” interrupted the steward, “I do not know them, although, as you say, my communication may be official—I can only say that I will do all in my power to assist in finding them.”
“You understand, my children,” continued the alcalde, without taking notice of what the steward had said, “the worthy Canelo by his official communication asks for the punishment of the guilty persons. Justice will not be deaf to his appeal. I may now be permitted, however, to speak to you of my own little affairs, before abandoning myself to the great grief which the disappearance of the Countess and the young Count has caused me.”
Here the alcalde made a sign to Cagatinta, whose whole faculties were keenly bent to discover what service was expected from him, by which he was to gain the object of his ambition—the liver-coloured breeches.
The alcalde continued:—
“You all know, my children, of my attachment to the family of Mediana. You can judge, then, of the grief which this news has given me—news the more incomprehensible, since one neither knows by whom, or for what reason such a crime should be committed. Alas, my children! I lose a powerful protector in the Countess de Mediana; and in me the heart of the old and faithful servant is pierced with anguish, while as a man of business I am equally a sufferer. Yes, my children! In the deceitful security, which I felt no later than yesterday, I was up to the chateau, and had an important interview with the Countess in regard to my rents.”
“To ask time for their payment,” Cagatinta would have added, for the clerk was perfectly acquainted with the alcalde’s affairs. But Don Ramon did not allow him an opportunity of committing this enormous indiscretion, which would forever have deprived him of the promised breeches.
“Patience, worthy Cagatinta!” he exclaimed hastily, so as to prevent the other from speaking, “constrain this thirst for justice that consumes you!—Yes, my children!” he continued, turning to his auditory, “in consequence of this feeling of security, which I have now cause to regret, I placed in the hands of the unfortunate Countess,”—here the voice of Don Ramon quivered—“a sum equivalent to ten years of my rents in advance.”
At this unexpected declaration, Cagatinta bounded from his chair as if stung by a wasp; and the blood ran cold in his veins when he perceived the grand blunder he had been so near committing.
“You will understand, then, my children, the terrible situation in which this disappearance of the Countess has placed me, when I tell you that I took no receipt