Dame Pipota having disappeared, all seated themselves round the mat, which Gananciosa covered with the sheet in place of a table-cloth.  The first thing she drew from the basket was an immense bunch of radishes; this was followed by a couple of dozens or more of oranges and lemons; then came a great earthen pan filled with slices of fried ling, half a Dutch cheese, a bottle of excellent olives, a plate of shrimps, and a large dish of craw-fish, with their appropriate sauce of capers, drowned in pepper-vinegar:  three loaves of the whitest bread from Gandul completed the collation.  The number of guests at this breakfast was fourteen, and not one of them failed to produce his yellow-handled knife, Rinconete alone excepted, who drew his dudgeon dagger instead.  The two old men in serge gowns, and the lad who had been the guide of the two friends, were charged with the office of cupbearers, pouring the wine from the bottle into the cork cup.

But scarcely had the guests taken their places, before they were all startled, and sprang up in haste at the, sound of repeated knocks at the door.  Bidding them remain quiet, Monipodio went into one of the lower rooms, unhooked a buckler, took his sword in his hand, and, going to the door, inquired, in a rough and threatening voice, “Who is there?”

“All right Senor! it is I, Tagarote,[31] on sentry this morning,” replied a voice from without.  “I come to tell you that Juliana de Cariharta[32] is coming, with her hair all about her face, and crying her eyes out, as though some great misfortune had happened to her.”

[31] The quill-driver.

[32] Fat-face, puff-cheeks, or any other term describing fulness of face, in the least complimentary manner.

He had scarcely spoken when the girl he had named came sobbing to the door, which Monipodio opened for her, commanding Tagarote to return to his post; and ordering him, moreover, to make less noise and uproar when he should next bring notice of what was going forward,—­a command to which the boy promised attention.

Cariharta, a girl of the same class and profession with those already in presence, had meanwhile entered the court, her hair streaming in the wind, her eyes swollen with tears, and her face covered with contusions and bruises.  She had no sooner got into the Patio, than she fell to the ground in a fainting fit.  Gananciosa and Escalanta[33] sprang to her assistance, unfastened her dress, and found her breast and shoulders blackened and covered with marks of violence.  After they had thrown water on her face, she soon came to herself, crying out as she did so, “The justice of God and the king on that shameless thief, that cowardly cut-purse, and dirty scoundrel, whom I have saved from the gibbet more times than he has hairs in his beard.  Alas! unhappy creature that I am! see for what I have squandered my youth, and spent the flower of my days!  For an unnatural, worthless, and incorrigible villain!”