"My dear friend," said Dom Diégo, stretching his large eyes, and feeling very uncomfortable on account of the cook's sardonic humour, "my dear friend, I pray you, explain yourself clearly."
"My lord canon, this day will prove a fatal one for you."
"My lord canon!" replied the cook, his arms crossed and his eyes fixed in a threatening manner on the canon.
And he took a step toward Dom Diégo, who recoiled from him with an expression of pain.
"I--I--am looking at you," stammered Dom Diégo, "but--"
"My lord canon, my face shall pursue you everywhere, in your sleep and in your waking hours! You shall see me always before you, with my cotton cap and white jacket, like a terrible and fantastic apparition."
"Ah, my God! it is all up with me!" murmured the canon, terrified. "My presentiments did not deceive me; this appetite was too miraculous, these dishes, these wines, too supernatural not to have some awful mystery, some infernal magic in them."
Just at this critical moment the canon fortunately saw his majordomo enter.
"My lord," said Pablo, "the lawyer has just arrived; you know the lawyer who--"
"Pablo, stop there!" cried Dom Diégo, seizing his majordomo by the arm and drawing him near to himself. "Do not leave me."
"My God, sir! what is the matter?" said Pablo. "You seem to be frightened."
"Ah, Pablo, if you only knew," said Dom Diégo, in a low, whining voice, without daring to turn his eyes away from the cook.
"My lord," replied Pablo, "I told you the lawyer had arrived."
"The one who comes to draw up in legal form your demand for the arrest of Captain Horace, guilty of the abduction of Senora Dolores."
"Pablo, it is impossible to occupy myself now with business. I have no head--I must be dreaming. Ah, if you only knew what had happened! This cook--oh, my presentiments!"
"Then, my lord, I am going to send the lawyer away."
"No!" cried the canon, "no, it is this miserable Captain Horace who is the cause of all my ills. If he had not destroyed my appetite, I should have already breakfasted this morning when this tempter in a white jacket introduced himself here, and I would not have been the victim of his sorcery. No," added Dom Diégo, in a paroxysm of anger, "tell this lawyer to wait; he shall write my complaint this very hour. But first let me get out of this awful perplexity," added he, throwing a frightened glance at the silent and formidable cook. "I must know what this mysterious being wants of me to terrify me so. Tell the lawyer to enter my study, and do not leave me, Pablo."