The Quest Part 9

"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_?"

"Becau--" added the urchin, and he made a coa.r.s.e gesture.

"Because they're a sly bunch," stammered Bizco. "You're awful simple."

Manuel contemplated Bizco scornfully, and asked his cousin:

"Do you mean to say that those little girls...?"

"They and their mothers," answered Vidal philosophically. "Almost all of 'em that live here."

The Pirates left the Casa del Cabrero, descended an embarkment after pa.s.sing a high, black fence, and at the middle of Casa Blanca turned into the Paseo de Yeserias.

They approached the morgue, a white structure near the river, situated at the foot of the Dehesa del Ca.n.a.l. They circled around it, trying to catch a glimpse of some corpse, but the windows were closed.

They continued along the banks of the Manzanares, amidst the twisted pines of la Dehesa. The river ran very thin, consisting of a few threads of murky water and pools above the mud.

At the end of the Dehesa de la Arganzuela, opposite a large, s.p.a.cious lot surrounded by a fence made of flattened oil cans nailed to posts, the gang paused to inspect the place, whose wide area was taken up with watering-carts, mechanical sweepers, ditch pumps, heaps of brooms and other tools and appurtenances of munic.i.p.al cleanliness.

In one corner of the lot arose a white edifice that, judging from its two towers and the vacant belfries, had formerly been a church or a convent.

The gang went nosing about the place and pa.s.sed under an arch bearing the inscription: "Stallion Stables." Behind the structure that looked like a convent they came upon some shanties furnished with filthy, grimy mats: African huts built upon a framework of rough sticks and cane.

Bizco went into one of these hovels and returned with a piece of cod in his hand.

Manuel was overcome by a horrible fear.

"I'm going," he said to Vidal.

"What do you mean!..." exclaimed one of the gang ironically. "Much nerve you've got!"

All at once another of the urchins cried:

"Skip. Somebody's coming!"

The pirates started on a run down the Paseo del Ca.n.a.l.

Madrid, with its yellowish dwellings veiled in a cloud of dust, came into view. The high window-panes were aglow with the reflection of the setting sun. From the Paseo del Ca.n.a.l, crossing a stubble patch, they reached the Plaza de las Penuelas, then, after going up another street they climbed the Paseo de las Acacias.

They entered the Corralon. Manuel and Vidal, after having arranged to meet the gang on the following Sunday, climbed the stairway to Senor Ignacio's house and as they drew near to the cobbler's door they heard cries.

"Father's giving the old lady a beating," murmured Vidal. "There won't be much to eat today. I'm going off to sleep."

"And how do I get to the other house?" asked Manuel.

"All you have to do is walk along the Ronda until you reach the Aguila street stairway. You can't miss it."

Manuel followed the directions. It was fearfully hot; the air was thick with dust. A few men were playing cards in tavern doorways, and in others they were dancing in embrace to the strains of a barrel-organ.