[33] The clamberer.

“Recover yourself, and be calm, Cariharta,” said Monipodio; “I am here to render justice to you and to all.  Tell me your cause of complaint, and you shall be longer in relating the story than I will be in taking vengeance.  Let me know if anything has happened between you and your respeto;[34] and if you desire to be well and duly avenged.  You have but to open your mouth.”

[34] Protector, or more exactly “bully,”—­to defend and uphold in acts of fraud and violence.

“Protector!” exclaimed the girl.  “What kind of a protector is he?  It were better for me to be protected in hell than to remain any longer with that lion among sheep, and sheep among men!  Will I ever eat again with him at the same table, or live under the same roof?  Rather would I give this flesh of mine, which he has put into the state you shall see, to be devoured alive by raging beasts.”  So saying, she pulled up her petticoats to her knees, and even a little higher, and showed the wheals with which she was covered.  “That’s the way,” she cried, “that I have been treated by that ungrateful Repolido,[35] who owes more to me than to the mother that bore him.

[35] Dandy.

“And why do you suppose he has done this?  Do you think I have given him any cause?—­no, truly.  His only reason for serving me so was, that being at play and losing his money, he sent Cabrillas, his scout, to me for thirty reals, and I could only send him twenty-four.  May the pains and troubles with which I earned them be counted to me by heaven in remission of my sins!  But in return for this civility and kindness, fancying that I had kept back part of what he chose to think I had got, the blackguard lured me out to the fields this morning, beyond the king’s garden, and there, having stripped me among the olive trees, he took off his belt, not even removing the iron buckle—­oh that I may see him clapped in irons and chains!—­and with that he gave me such an unmerciful flogging, that he left me for dead; and that’s a true story, as the marks you see bear witness.”

Here Cariharta once more set up her pipes and craved for justice, which was again promised to her by Monipodio and all the bravos present.

The Gananciosa then tried her hand at consoling the victim; saying to her, among other things—­“I would freely give my best gown that my fancy man had done as much by me; for I would have you know, sister Cariharta, if you don’t know it yet, that he who loves best thrashes best; and when these scoundrels whack us and kick us, it is then they most devoutly adore us.  Tell me now, on our life, after having beaten and abused you, did not Repolido make much of you, and give you more than one caress?”

“More than one!” replied the weeping girl; “he gave me more than a hundred thousand, and would have given a finger off his hand if I would only have gone with him to his posada; nay, I even think that the tears were almost starting from his eyes after he had leathered me.”