During the night CÆsar Moncada and Alzugaray chatted in the train. Alzugaray was praising this first Quixotic sally of his friend’s.

“We are going to cross the Rubicon, CÆsar,” he said, as he got into the train.

“We shall see.”

Many times Alzugaray had heard CÆsar explain his plans, but he had no great confidence in their realization. Nor did this particular moment seem to him opportune for beginning the campaign. Everybody believed that the Liberal Ministry was stronger than ever; people were still away for the summer; nothing was doing.

Nevertheless, CÆsar insisted that the crisis was imminent, and that it was the precise moment for him to enter politics. With this object he was taking a letter from Alarcos, the leader of the Conservatives, to Don Calixto GarcÍa Guerrero.

“Your Don Calixto will be at San Sebastian or at some water-cure,” said Alzugaray, taking his seat in the train.

“It’s all the same to me. I intend to follow him until I find him,” answered CÆsar.

“And you are decided to run as a Conservative?”

“Of course.”

“I hope you won’t be sorry later.”

“Pshaw! Later one jumps into the position that suits one. On these first rungs of political life, either you have to have great luck, or you have to go like a grasshopper, first here, then there. That is the take-off, and when you are there all the ambitious mediocrities unite against you if you have any talent. Naturally, I do not intend to do anything to exhibit mine. Spanish politics are like a pond; a strong, healthy stick of wood goes to the bottom; a piece of bark or cork or a sheaf of straw stays on the surface. One has to disguise oneself as a cork.”

“And later you will go on and make yourself known.”

“Naturally. Since I find myself in the vein for making comparisons, I will say that in Spanish politics we have a case like those in the old comedies of intrigue, where the lackeys pretend to be gentlemen. When I am once among the gentlemen, I shall know how to prove that I am more a master than the people surrounding me.”

“How conceited you are.”

“The confidence one feels in oneself,” said CÆsar ironically.

“But have you really got it, or do you only pretend to have?”

“What matter whether I have it or haven’t it, if I behave as if I had it?”

“It matters a lot. It matters whether you are calm or not in the moment of danger.”

“Calmness is the muse that inspires me. I haven’t it in my thoughts, but in active life you shall see me!”

The two friends stretched themselves out in their first-class compartment, and lay half asleep until dawn, when they got up again.

The train was running rapidly across the flat country; the yellow sunlight shone into the car; through the newly sowed fields rode men on horseback.

“These are not my dominions yet,” said CÆsar.

“We have two more stations till Castro Duro,” responded Alzugaray, consulting the time-table. They took off their caps, put them into the bag, CÆsar put on a fresh collar, and they sat down by the window.

“It is ugly enough, eh?” said Alzugaray.

“Naturally,” replied CÆsar. “What do you want; that there should be some of those green landscapes like in your country, which for my part irritate me?”

THE CLASSIC STAGECOACH

They arrived at Castro Duro. In the station they saw groups of peasants. The travellers with their baggage went out of the station. There were two shabby coaches at the door.

“Are you going to the Comercio?” asked one driver.

“No, they are going to the EspaÑa,” said the other.

“Then you two know more than we do,” answered Alzugaray, “because we don’t know where to go.”

“To the Comercio!”

“To the EspaÑa!”

“Whose coach is this one?” asked CÆsar, pointing to the less dirty of the two.

“The Comercio’s.”

“All right, then we are going to the Comercio.”

The coach, in spite of being the better of the two, was a rickety, worn-out old omnibus, with its windows broken and spotted. It was drawn by three skinny mules, full of galls. CÆsar and Alzugaray got in and waited. The coachman, with the whip around his neck, and a young man who looked a bit like a seminarian, began to chat and smoke.

At the end of five minutes’ waiting, CÆsar asked:

“Well, aren’t we going?”

“In a moment, sir.”

The moment stretched itself out a good deal. A priest arrived, so fat that he would have filled the vehicle all alone; then a woman from the town with a basket, which she held on her knees; then the postman got in with his bag; the driver closed the little window in the coach door, and continued joking with the young man who looked a bit like a seminarian and with one of the station men.

“We are in a hurry,” said Alzugaray.

“We are going now, sir. All right. Good-bye!”

“Good-bye!” answered the station man and the seminarian.

The driver got up on his seat, cracked his whip, and the vehicle began to move, with a noisy swaying and a trembling of all its wood and glass. A very thick cloud of dust arose in the road.

“Ya, ya, Coronela!” yelled the driver. “Why do you keep getting where you oughtn’t to get? Damn the mule! Montesina, I am going to give you a couple of whacks. Get on there, Coronela! Get up, get up.... All right! All right!... That’s enough.... That’s enough.... Let it alone, now! Let it alone, now!”

“What an amount of oratory that man is wasting,” exclaimed CÆsar; “he must think that the mules are going to go better for the efforts of his throat. It would be an advantage if he had stronger beasts, instead of these dying ones.”

The other travellers paid no attention to his observation, and Alzugaray said:

“These drivers drip oratory.”

While the shabby coach was going along the highway which encircles Castro hill, to the sound of the bells and the cracking of the whip, it was possible to remain seated in the vehicle with comparative ease; but on reaching the town’s first steep, crooked, rough-cobbled street, the swinging and tossing were such that the travellers kept falling one upon another.

The first street kept getting rapidly narrower, and as it grew narrower, the crags in its paving were sharper and more prominent. At the highest part of the street, in the middle, stood a two-wheeled cart blocking the way. The coachman got down, from his seat and started a long discussion with the carter, as to who was under obligations to make way.

“What idiots!” exclaimed CÆsar, irritated; then, calmer, he murmured, addressing Alzugaray, “The truth is, these people don’t care about doing anything but talk.”

As the discussion between the coachman and the carter gave signs of never ending, CÆsar said:

“Come along,” and then, addressing the man with the bag, he asked him, “Is it far from here to the inn?”

“No; it is right here, in the house where the cafÉ is.” THE INN

Sure enough, the inn was only a step away. They went into the damp, dark entrance, up the crooked stairs, and down the corridor to the kitchen.

“Good morning, good morning!” they shouted.

Nobody appeared.

“Might it be on the second floor?” asked Alzugaray.

“Let’s go see.”

They went up to the next floor, entered by a gallery of red brick, which was falling to pieces, and called several times. An old woman, from inside a dark bedroom where she was sweeping, bade them go down to the dining-room, where she would bring them breakfast.

The dining-room had balconies toward the country, and was full of sun; the bedrooms they were taken to, on the other hand, were dark, gloomy, and cavernous. Alzugaray requested the old woman to show them the other vacant chambers, and chose two on the second floor, which were lighter and airier.

The old woman told them she hadn’t wanted to take them there, because there was no paper on the walls.

“No doubt, in Castro, the prospect of bed-bugs is an agreeable prospect,” said CÆsar.

After he had washed and dressed, CÆsar started out to find and capture Don Calixto, and Alzugaray went to take a stroll around the town. It was agreed that they should each explore the region in his own way.