"What fly has stung you, my dear landlord? Are you mad to go out bareheaded in such weather, at the risk of catching a pleurisy?"
And then, while the locandero, terrified and confounded by this rude shock, tried to regain his balance and re-establish a little order in his ideas, the unknown, as coolly as if he were at home, had, with the help of some of the customers, to whom he made signs, shut the shutters and bolted the door with as much care as Sarzuela himself usually devoted to this delicate operation.
"There, now that is done," the stranger said, turning to the amazed host "suppose we have a chat, _compadre_? Ah, I suppose you do not recognise me?" he added, as he removed his hat and displayed a fine intelligent face, over which a mocking smile was at this moment playing.
"Oh, el Señor Don Gaëtano!" said Sarzuela, whom this meeting was far from pleasing, and who tried to conceal a horrible grimace.
"Silence!" the other said. "Come hither."
"With a gesture he drew the landlord into a corner of the room, and, leaning down to his ear, said in a low voice,--
"Look!" he said with a piteous glance, as he pointed to the still drinking customers, "that legion of demons invaded my house an hour back. They drink well, it is true; but there is something suspicious about them not at all encouraging to an honest man."
"The more reason that you should have nothing to fear. Besides, I am not alluding to them. I ask you if you have any strange lodgers? As for those men, you know them as well as I do, perhaps better."
"From top to bottom of my house I have no other persons than these caballeros, whom you say I know. It is very possible; but as ever since they have been here, thanks to the way in which they are muffled, it has been impossible for me to see the tip of a nose, I was utterly unable to recognise them."
"You are a donkey, my good friend. These men who bother you so greatly are all Dauph'yeers."
"Really!" the amazed host exclaimed: "then why do they hide their faces?"
"My faith, Master Sarzuela, I fancy it is probably because they do not wish to have them seen."
And laughing at the landlord, who was sadly out of countenance, the stranger made a sign. Two men rose, rushed on the poor fellow, and before he could even guess what they intended, he found himself so magnificently garroted that he could not even cross himself.