"Long live the Pope, the head of all the kings of the earth!" exclaimed Fray Diego after a long silence, in which they both appeared to be asleep. At the same time he gave a great thump to the table which made all the glasses and bottles ring.
The baron took hardly any notice. He went on winking at the glass he had before him, and after swallowing the contents very leisurely, and licking his lips three or four times, he said:
"Gently, gently, Fray Diego! You don't know what the Popes are."
"Long live the Pope, the head of all the kings of the earth!" repeated the cleric, giving a still louder thump upon the table.
"Take care, Fray Diego! The Popes have always been very ambitious."
"Señor baron!" exclaimed the priest in a voice so emphatic as to be comic; "you have a soul as ugly as your face!"
The baron was unmoved at the insult, and after a time he said, with perfect tranquillity:
"Don't be a fool. What has my face to do with the matter? I am catholic, apostolic, Roman; but if to-morrow the king our señor" (here he raised his hand to his cap) "were to send me with a detachment to Rome, I would go like the Constable of Bourbon, sack it, and take the Pope."
"And I say that if his Holiness sent me to put a bayonet through the stomach of that constable, you may be sure I would put two."
"How no?" roared the chaplain, getting in a rage.
"Because the constable died three centuries ago."
"I am glad of it, for he has then been burning three centuries in hell."
"All this is very well, _Pater_, but the king is always to the fore, and others have only to be silent and obey."
"I should like to see it done! Presumption! presumption! a hundred times presumption! Who would dare to do it if Fray Diego de Areces were near?" cried the cleric convulsed with rage, and jumping up, whilst his eyes blazed with fury.
"Sit down, _Pater_, and calm yourself, and take another glass, for Fray Diego de Areces is only a common vessel."
The chaplain instantly calmed down, delicately poured out the liquor into the two glasses, and swallowed his own share with pleasure, after which his head fell on his breast, his eyelids dropped, and he was asleep. The baron, radiant with delight, looked at him sharply with cunning eyes, then, profiling by his companion's temporary obliviousness, he took another glass, saying, "The nones."