THE CALLE DE LA MACHINCUEPA
that Don Mendo's millions of dollars would be theirs.
And then, Señor, just as the Palace clock was striking the half hour past eleven, the great doors of Don Mendo's house were opened; and out through the doorway came an open coach in which Doña Paz was seated, dressed in her richest ball dress and wearing the most magnificent of her jewels; and Doña Paz, pale as a dead woman, drove through the crowds on the streets and into the crowd on the Plaza Mayor; and then she walked, the crowd making way for her, to the very middle of it—where her servants had laid a rich carpet for her; and there, as the Palace clock struck twelve—complying precisely with Don Mendo's condition—Doña Paz bowed her head to the ground; and then, so bowing, she made the turn which among the common people of Mexico is called a machincuepa! So did Doña Paz win for herself Don Mendo's millions of dollars: and so did come into the soul of her the bitterness of shame that Don Mendo meant should come into it—in reward for the bitterness with which her cruelties had filled his dying years!
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