As he came out of the ticket-office he was intercepted by the cake-sellers, who said to him:
"Señor, you have a wife, who is a remarkable woman." The old man turned to the zapatero.
The zapatero began to give an account of us.
"They are painters," he said; "they travel about the country making pictures with paint and brushes, not with a machine. Not content with that they are amateur musicians, and can play. There are their instruments. But better than all this they can read and write; and what is more I can prove it."
With an air of pride he drew from his bosom the card on which Jan had written Antonio's address.
The old man took it. He perched a pair of horn spectacles on his nose and read the address through from end to end.
Then he handed the treasure back solemnly to the zapatero.
We said good-bye to the zapatero, and the train drew out of the station some two hours late. Gradually the night darkened. There was a long wait at Alcantarilla, and we arrived at Murcia within the four hours' limit which one must place on the Spanish time-table. We left our van luggage to be collected in the morning, and carrying our instruments in our hands walked back to the Paseo de Corveras.
Next morning we sent Marciana to tell Jesus, the water-carrier, to bring our registered luggage from the station. After a long delay she came back saying that no luggage with a number corresponding to that of the receipt was to be found. We set off through the mud to the station, and after having suffered from some lack of courtesy on the part of one or two of the clerks we were able to convince ourselves that Jesus had spoken the truth. Our luggage, consisting of a suit-case, a rucksack and a hold-all, containing all our warm clothes, our painting materials, all our drawings of the past five months, was missing. We were assured that we had nothing to be anxious about. The next train from Lorca would arrive about six-thirty, and the things which _must_ have been left behind at Lorca would come on by it. But the Spanish reassurances had no foundation, the baggage did not come, and the baggage officials confessed themselves astounded. "Such a thing," they said, "has never happened before." The station-master, a short, portly, grumpy fellow, at first refused to listen to our complaints. When at last we compelled him to do so, he shrugged his shoulders and said, "It is a fatality." After some pressing, however, he consented to telegraph to Lorca, and to telephone to Alcantarilla, the junction.