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El Sabio, being brought into the recess behind the idol, regarded us all with a doubting expression that even Pablo's repeated assurances that we meant well by him could not change into a look of trustfulness.
Evidently acting under orders, the men broke their platoons and closed in around us; and I was well convinced that this unsoldierly marching was adopted to the end that El Sabio might not be seen. Fray Antonio agreed with me that the Priest Captain was carrying matters with a dangerously high hand in thus opposing the will of the Council with armed force.
It was while we were thus engaged that Pablo begged that I would step aside with him for a moment that he might speak to my ear alone. I saw that there were tears upon his cheeks, and as he spoke he scarcely could restrain his sobs. "Señor," he said, "you know El Sabio?" "Surely, Pablo." "You know, señor, that he is a very small ass." "It is true."
The long ears of this unfortunate little donkey wagged in remonstrance against the unreasonable motions demanded of his unlucky legs, and every now and then he would twitch viciously his fuzzy scrap of a tail; but his master was inexorable, and it was not until Pablo's own desire to laugh became so strong that he no longer could play the mouth-organ that El Sabio was given rest.
As for El Sabio, it seemed as though he himself were like to die in the very moment of his victory; for with a sort of groan that, coming from a brute beast, was most pitiful to listen to, the poor terrified creature, utterly exhausted by his fright and his outlay of energy in furious violence, sank down panting by the side of the man whom he had slain.
He and El Sabio together were the visible sign which told that the prophecy touching the Priest Captain's downfall was about to be fulfilled; and, more than this, Pablo's simple statement of the condition of affairs among the modern Mexicans showing that the crisis in their fate that Chaltzantzin had foretold, and for which he had so well prepared, long since had come and gone would be far more convincing to the masses of the Aztlanecas than would be any exhibition of these same facts that we could make to them; for we were aliens among them, while Pablo was of their own race and class.
And then I managed to hold their interest for some minutes while I spoke about the devil that was in El Sabio, and about other devils of a like sort whom I had known in my time. While I thus spoke I heard a little tinkling sound, as of metal striking against stone but if the soldiers also heard it they paid no attention to it and then Young whispered, "We're solid now; come on!"
They built the citadel in 835, and the city dates its decline from the time that Alonzo el Sabio took it from them in 1229. Zámora is another ancient place. It was taken from the Moors in 939, when 40,000 of them are said to have been killed. The Moorish designs in the remarkable circular arches of La Magdalena are worthy of note.
Pablo, I am sure, had given half of his own scant allowance to El Sabio. The other animals it was all that we could do for them had only their dusty mouths and nostrils wiped out with a wet sponge. They were pitiable objects, with their bleeding legs, their haggard eyes, their out-hanging tongues, and their quivering flanks.
Both of those men had lived long in rough and dangerous regions, and both as I then instinctively believed, and as I came later to know fully were as true and as stanch and as brave as ever men could be. What they were laughing at, there in the court-yard, was an extraordinary performance in which the performers were Pablo and El Sabio.
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