"Twenty thousand duros!" exclaimed Manuel.

"Right-o! The next week we had lost it all, and Perez and I were left without a centavo. A few days we lived on guava-fruit and yam, until we fell in with some gymnasts on the Havana wharf who were down on their uppers. We joined them. They weren't at all bad performers; among them were acrobats, clowns, pantominists, bar artists, and a French ecuyere; we formed a company and made a tour through the island towns; and some magnificent tour that was. How they did welcome us and treat us in that country! 'Come right in, friend, and have a gla.s.s.'

'Many thanks.' 'The gentleman mustn't displease me; let's have a drink in that cantine, eh? ...' And the drink flowed to your heart's content. As I was the only one in the troupe that knew how to figure--for I've had an education," interposed Don Alonso, "and my father was a soldier--they named me director. In one of the towns I reinforced the company with a ballerina and a strong man. The dancer's name was Rosita Montanes; she's the one I thought of when you mentioned the Rosita you were looking for. This Montanes was Spanish and had married the strong man, an Italian whose real name was Napoleon Pitti. The couple had with them as secretary a Galician,--very intelligent chap, but as an artist, detestable. And between Rosita and him they deceived Hercules. This wasn't very hard, for Napoleon was one of the ugliest men I've ever laid eyes on. As for strength, there was never his match; he had a back as solid as a front wall; his ears were flattened from blows got in prize-fighting; he was a barbarian for fair, and you know what they say: 'Tell a man by his talk and a bullock by his horn.' And believe me, this little Galician chap led Hercules by the horn, all right. The cursed smarty fooled me, too, though not as he did Hercules, for I've always been a bachelor, thank the Lord, partly through fear and partly through design. Nor have I ever lacked women," added Don Alonso, boastfully.

"What was I saying, now? Oh, yes. I didn't know any English; the d.a.m.ned lingo isn't very hard, but I simply couldn't get it into my head. So I needed an interpreter, and I appointed the Galician as secretary of the company and ticket-seller. We had been together for almost a year when we reached an English island near Jamaica. The governor of the island, the queerest Englishman there ever was, with a pair of side-whiskers that looked like flames leaping from his cheeks, summoned me as soon as we landed. As there was no site for our performances, he made alterations in the munic.i.p.al school, which was a regular palace; he ordered all the part.i.tions removed and the ring and tiers of seats installed. Only the negroes of the town went to that school, and what need had those creatures of learning to read and write?

"We stayed there a month, and despite the fact that we had rent free and that we played to full houses every afternoon, and that we had practically no expenses, we didn't make any profit. 'How can it be?' I kept asking myself.--A mystery."

"And what was the reason?" asked Manuel.

"I'm coming to that. First I must explain that the governor with the flaming side-whiskers had fallen in love with Rosita, and without beating around the bush he had taken her off to his palace. Poor Hercules roared and crushed the dishes with his fingers, drowning his grief and his rage by committing all sorts of barbarities.

"The governor, a generous sort, invited the Galician and me to his residence, and there, in a garden of cedars and palms, we would draw up the program of the performances, and amuse ourselves at target-practice while we smoked the finest tobacco and drank gla.s.s after gla.s.s of rum. We paid court to Rosita and she'd laugh like a madwoman, and dance the tango, the _cachucha_ and the _vito_, and she'd fail the Englishman an awful number of times. One day the governor, who treated me as a friend, said to me: 'That secretary of yours is robbing you.'

'I think he is,' I answered. 'Tonight you'll have the proof.'

"We finished the performance; I went off home, had supper and was about to go to bed when a little negro servant comes in and tells me to follow him; all right; I follow; we both leave; we draw near the circus house, and in a nearby saloon I see the governor and the town chief of police. It was a very beautiful moonlit night, and there was no light in the saloon; we wait and wait, and soon a figure appears, and steals in through a window of the schoolhouse. '_Forwer_'

whispered the governor. That means Forward," interpreted Don Alonso.

"The three of us followed and entered noiselessly through the same window; on tiptoe we reached the entrance to the former school, which served as the circus vestibule and contained the ticket-office. We see the secretary with a lantern in his hand going through the money-box.

'Surrender in the name of the authorities!' shouted the governor, and with the revolver that he held in his hand he fired a shot into the air. The secretary was paralyzed at the sight of us; then the governor aimed the gun at the fellow's chest and fired again point blank; and the man wavered, turned convulsively in the air and fell dead.

"The governor was jealous and the truth is that Rosita was in love with the secretary. I never in my life saw grief as great as that woman's when she found her lover dead. She wept and dragged along after him, uttering wails that simply tore your soul in two. Napoleon, too, wept.

"We buried the secretary and four or five days later the chief of police of the island informed us that the school could no longer serve as a circus and that we'd have to clear out. We obeyed the order, for there was no way out of it, and for another couple of years we wandered from town to town through Central America, Yucatan, Mexico, until we struck Tampico, where the company disbanded. As there was no outlook for us there, Perez and I took a vessel for New Orleans."

"Beautiful town, eh?" said Roberto.

"Beautiful. Have you been there?"

"Yes."

"Man, how happy I am to hear it!"

"What a river, eh?"

"An ocean! Well, to continue my story. The first time we performed in that city, gentlemen, what a success! The circus was higher than a church; I said to the carpenter; 'Place our trapeze as high as possible,' and after giving him these orders I went off for a bite.

"During our absence the impresario happened along and asked: 'Are those Spanish gymnasts going to perform at such a height?' 'That's what they said,' answered the carpenter. 'Let them know, then, that I don't want to be responsible for such barbarity.'

"Perez and I were in the hotel, when we received a message calling us to the circus at once."

"'What can it be?' my companion asked me. 'You'll see,' I told him.

'They're going to demand that we lower the trapeze.'

"And so it was. Perez and I go to the circus and we see the impresario. That was what he requested.

"'Nothing doing,' I told him. 'Not even if the President of the Republic of the United States himself comes here, together with his esteemed mother. I won't lower the trapeze an inch.' 'Then you'll be compelled to.' 'We'll see.' The impresario summoned a policeman; I showed the fellow my contract, and he sided with me; he told me that my companion and I had a perfect right to break our necks...."

"What a country!" murmured Roberto, ironically.

"You're right," agreed Don Alonso in all seriousness. "What a country.

That's what you call progress!

"That night, in the circus, before we went on, Perez and I listened to the comments of the public. 'What? Are these Spaniards going to perform at such an alt.i.tude?' the people were asking each other.

'They'll kill themselves.' And we listened calmly, all the time smiling.

"We were about to enter the ring, when along comes a fellow with sailor's chinwhiskers wearing a flat-brimmed high hat and a carrick, and in a tw.a.n.ging voice he tells us that we're in danger of having a terrible accident performing 'way up there, and that, if we wish, we can take out life insurance. All we'd have to do is to sign a few papers that he had in his hand. Lord! I nearly died. I felt like choking the fellow.

"Trembling and s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up our courage, Perez and I entered the ring.

We had to put on a little rouge. We wore a blue costume decorated with silver stars,--a reference to the United States flag; we saluted and then, up the rope.

"At first I thought that I was going to slip; my head was going 'round, my ears were humming; but with the first applause I forgot everything, and Perez and I performed the most difficult feats with most admirable precision. The public applauded wildly. What days those were!"

And the old gymnast smiled; then he made a bitter grimace; his eyes grew moist; he blinked so as to dry a tear that at last escaped and coursed down his earth-coloured cheek.

"I'm an old fool; but I can't help it," Don Alonso murmured in explanation of his weakness.

"And did you stay in New Orleans?" asked Roberto.

"Perez and I signed a contract there," replied Don Alonso, "with a big circus syndicate of New York that had about twenty or thirty companies touring all America. All of us gymnasts, ballet-dancers, ecuyeres, acrobats, pantominists, clowns, contortionists, and strong men travelled in a special train.... The majority were Italians and Frenchmen."

"Were there good-looking women, eh?" asked Manuel.

"Uf! ... Like this ..." replied Don Alonso, bringing his fingers all together. "Women with such muscles! ... There was no other life anything like it," he added, reverting to his melancholy theme. "You had all the money and women and clothes you wanted.... And above all, glory, applause...."

And the gymnast went into a trance of enthusiasm, staring rigidly at a fixed point.

Roberto and Manuel gazed at him in curiosity.

"And Rosita,--didn't you ever see her again?" asked Roberto.

"No. They told me that she had got a divorce from Napoleon so that she could marry again, in Boston, some millionaire from the West. Ah, women.... Who can trust them? ... But gentlemen, it's already eleven.

Pardon me; I'll have to be going. Thanks ever so much!" murmured Don Alonso, seizing Roberto and Manuel by the hands and pressing them effusively. "We'll meet again, won't we?"

"Oh, yes, we'll see each other," replied Roberto.

Don Alonso picked up his phonograph and wound in and out among the tables, repeating his phrase: "Novelty! Something new!" Then, after having saluted Roberto and Manuel once more, he disappeared.

"Nothing. I can't discover a thing," grumbled Roberto. "Good-bye. See you again."

Manuel was left alone, and musing upon Don Alonso's tales and upon the mystery surrounding Roberto, he returned to the Corralon and went to bed.

CHAPTER VII

The Kermesse on Pasion Street--"The Dude"--A Cafe Chantant.