How could I explain the easy, familiar tone which he had employed with the wretch to whom he was consigning the message to Pepito Rechifla? How the relations which appeared to exist between the bandit and the licentiate? The strange intimacy of a lawyer with thieves and assassins seemed, at first sight, not at all to be expected. The hope, however, of obtaining a solution of this seeming enigma decided me, and I left the Callejon del Arco with the intention of visiting it again two hours afterward.
CHAPTER II.
A Mexican Gambling-house.—Navaja, the Mexican Bravo.—John Pearce, the Yankee.
Night had come; one of those nights in May in which Mexico, seen by moonlight, assumes an appearance almost magical. The pale light of the moon sheds its soft radiance upon the stained steeples of the churches and the colored façades of the monuments. The moon here scatters her voluptuous light over the earth in a bounteous fashion, unknown in our northern regions. The crowd upon the Plaza Mayor was not so dense as before sunset; it was less noisy, and more scattered. The promenaders spoke in a low tone, as if they feared to break the silence which was brooding over all. The light noise produced by the waving of fans, the rustle of silk dresses, sometimes a peal of female laughter, melodious and clear as the tone of a crystal bell, or the striking of a church clock at a distance, alone broke the general silence. Veiled women, and men wrapped in long cloaks, glided like shad-
