"Padre Fernandez, would you like to take a hand?" asked Fray Sibyla.

"I'm a very poor player," replied the friar with a grimace.

"Then get Simoun," said the General. "Eh, Simoun! Eh, Mister, won't you try a hand?"

"What is your disposition concerning the arms for sporting purposes?" asked the secretary, taking advantage of the pause.

Simoun thrust his head through the doorway.

"Don't you want to take Padre Camorra's place, Senor Sindbad?" inquired Padre Irene. "You can bet diamonds instead of chips."

"I don't care if I do," replied Simoun, advancing while he brushed the chalk from his hands. "What will you bet?"

"What should we bet?" returned Padre Sibyla. "The General can bet what he likes, but we priests, clerics--"

"Bah!" interrupted Simoun ironically. "You and Padre Irene can pay with deeds of charity, prayers, and virtues, eh?"

"You know that the virtues a person may possess," gravely argued Padre Sibyla, "are not like the diamonds that may pa.s.s from hand to hand, to be sold and resold. They are inherent in the being, they are essential attributes of the subject--"

"I'll be satisfied then if you pay me with promises," replied Simoun jestingly. "You, Padre Sibyla, instead of paying me five something or other in money, will say, for example: for five days I renounce poverty, humility, and obedience. You, Padre Irene: I renounce chast.i.ty, liberality, and so on. Those are small matters, and I'm putting up my diamonds."

"What a peculiar man this Simoun is, what notions he has!" exclaimed Padre Irene with a smile.

"And _he_," continued Simoun, slapping his Excellency familiarly on the shoulder, "he will pay me with an order for five days in prison, or five months, or an order of deportation made out in blank, or let us say a summary execution by the Civil Guard while my man is being conducted from one town to another."

This was a strange proposition, so the three who had been pacing about gathered around.

"But, Senor Simoun," asked the high official, "what good will you get out of winning promises of virtues, or lives and deportations and summary executions?"

"A great deal! I'm tired of hearing virtues talked about and would like to have the whole of them, all there are in the world, tied up in a sack, in order to throw them into the sea, even though I had to use my diamonds for sinkers."

"What an idea!" exclaimed Padre Irene with another smile. "And the deportations and executions, what of them?"

"Well, to clean the country and destroy every evil seed."

"Get out! You're still sore at the tulisanes. But you were lucky that they didn't demand a larger ransom or keep all your jewels. Man, don't be ungrateful!"

Simoun proceeded to relate how he had been intercepted by a band of tulisanes, who, after entertaining him for a day, had let him go on his way without exacting other ransom than his two fine revolvers and the two boxes of cartridges he carried with him. He added that the tulisanes had charged him with many kind regards for his Excellency, the Captain-General.

As a result of this, and as Simoun reported that the tulisanes were well provided with shotguns, rifles, and revolvers, and against such persons one man alone, no matter how well armed, could not defend himself, his Excellency, to prevent the tulisanes from getting weapons in the future, was about to dictate a new decree forbidding the introduction of sporting arms.

"On the contrary, on the contrary!" protested Simoun, "for me the tulisanes are the most respectable men in the country, they're the only ones who earn their living honestly. Suppose I had fallen into the hands--well, of you yourselves, for example, would you have let me escape without taking half of my jewels, at least?"

Don Custodio was on the point of protesting; that Simoun was really a rude American mulatto taking advantage of his friendship with the Captain-General to insult Padre Irene, although it may be true also that Padre Irene would hardly have set him free for so little.

"The evil is not," went on Simoun, "in that there are tulisanes in the mountains and uninhabited parts--the evil lies in the tulisanes in the towns and cities."

"Like yourself," put in the Canon with a smile.

"Yes, like myself, like all of us! Let's be frank, for no Indian is listening to us here," continued the jeweler. "The evil is that we're not all openly declared tulisanes. When that happens and we all take to the woods, on that day the country will be saved, on that day will rise a new social order which will take care of itself, and his Excellency will be able to play his game in peace, without the necessity of having his attention diverted by his secretary."

The person mentioned at that moment yawned, extending his folded arms above his head and stretching his crossed legs under the table as far as possible, upon noticing which all laughed. His Excellency wished to change the course of the conversation, so, throwing down the cards he had been shuffling, he said half seriously: "Come, come, enough of jokes and cards! Let's get to work, to work in earnest, since we still have a half-hour before breakfast. Are there many matters to be got through with?"

All now gave their attention. That was the day for joining battle over the question of instruction in Castilian, for which purpose Padre Sibyla and Padre Irene had been there several days. It was known that the former, as Vice-Rector, was opposed to the project and that the latter supported it, and his activity was in turn supported by the Countess.

"What is there, what is there?" asked his Excellency impatiently.

"The pet.i.tion about sporting arms," replied the secretary with a stifled yawn.

"Forbidden!"

"Pardon, General," said the high official gravely, "your Excellency will permit me to invite your attention to the fact that the use of sporting arms is permitted in all the countries of the world."

The General shrugged his shoulders and remarked dryly, "We are not imitating any nation in the world."

Between his Excellency and the high official there was always a difference of opinion, so it was sufficient that the latter offer any suggestion whatsoever to have the former remain stubborn.

The high official tried another tack. "Sporting arms can harm only rats and chickens. They'll say--"

"But are we chickens?" interrupted the General, again shrugging his shoulders. "Am I? I've demonstrated that I'm not."

"But there's another thing," observed the secretary. "Four months ago, when the possession of arms was prohibited, the foreign importers were a.s.sured that sporting arms would be admitted."

His Excellency knitted his brows.

"That can be arranged," suggested Simoun.

"How?"

"Very simply. Sporting arms nearly all have a caliber of six millimeters, at least those now in the market. Authorize only the sale of those that haven't these six millimeters."

All approved this idea of Simoun's, except the high official, who muttered into Padre Fernandez's ear that this was not dignified, nor was it the way to govern.

"The schoolmaster of Tiani," proceeded the secretary, shuffling some papers about, "asks for a better location for--"

"What better location can he want than the storehouse that he has all to himself?" interrupted Padre Camorra, who had returned, having forgotten about the card-game.

"He says that it's roofless," replied the secretary, "and that having purchased out of his own pocket some maps and pictures, he doesn't want to expose them to the weather."

"But I haven't anything to do with that," muttered his Excellency. "He should address the head secretary, [22] the governor of the province, or the nuncio."

"I want to tell you," declared Padre Camorra, "that this little schoolmaster is a discontented filibuster. Just imagine--the heretic teaches that corpses rot just the same, whether buried with great pomp or without any! Some day I'm going to punch him!" Here he doubled up his fists.

"To tell the truth," observed Padre Sibyla, as if speaking only to Padre Irene, "he who wishes to teach, teaches everywhere, in the open air. Socrates taught in the public streets, Plato in the gardens of the Academy, even Christ among the mountains and lakes."

"I've heard several complaints against this schoolmaster," said his Excellency, exchanging a glance with Simoun. "I think the best thing would be to suspend him."

"Suspended!" repeated the secretary.