One is in honor bound to state that Don Roque walked in front as the leader of the valorous enterprise, with his revolver in his left hand, and his sword-stick in his right, leaving his noble breast a mark for the enemy's bullet. Marcones, weighed down by the weight of his gun and his eighty-two years of age, walked six steps behind.
It was a moonlight night, but great black clouds occasionally darkened the sky, and the light of the petroleum lamps burning at the corners of the streets was not sufficient to banish the gloom in them.
Sarrio had five chief streets, known respectively as Rua Nueva, which runs to the harbor; the Calles of Carborana, of San Florencio, of La Herreria, and of Atras. These streets, long and narrow, run parallel to each other. The buildings are generally low and poor. Other smaller streets cross and communicate with the principal ones, and lead to branch roads where the spacious residences of the West Indians are built, and which constitute what may be termed the suburb of Sarrio.
As the party was passing through the Calle de Atras, near to that of Santa Brigida, they heard cries and lamentations, which obliged them to halt.
"What's that, Marcones?" asked the mayor.
The old official shrugged his shoulders philosophically:
"Nothing, señor; it is at Patina Santa's."
"How dare they commit these enormities? Let us go there. Let us proceed."
"Let us proceed," was a phrase both used and abused by Don Roque, as it conveyed his sense of the decision, rapidity, and energy of his authority to remedy all grievances. Patina Santa was the great high priest of one of the two temples of pleasure existing in Sarrio, but the sordid, wretched appearance of these temples was quite unlike the ancient famous ones of Greece.
"What scandal is this?" cried Don Roque in his stentorian voice as he approached the miserable dwelling.
Three or four lads in the street flew away like birds at the sight of the dignitary, but the doves remained.
Two of them stood at the door and two more were at the windows. Those at the door wished to withdraw at the sight of the mayor, but he caught hold of them.
The girls began to explain the cause of the commotion, but hardly had they uttered a word than Don Roque interrupted them, vociferating: