"Don't shout so," said Roberto, provoked by this rumpus. "They'll
imagine that we've come here to assassinate you, at the very least."
"I shout because I please to."
"All right, man; shout away to your heart's content."
"Don't you talk to me like that or I'll push in your face," yelled
Tabuenca.
"_You'll_ push in _my_ face?" retorted Roberto, laughing;
then, turning to Manuel, he added, "These noseless fellows get on my
nerves and I'm going to let this flat-nose have it."
Tabuenca, his mind made up, withdrew and returned in a short while
with a rapier-cane, which he unsheathed; Roberto looked in every
direction for something with which he might defend himself, and found
a carter's stick; Tabuenca aimed a thrust at Roberto, who parried it
with the stick; then another thrust, and Roberto, as again he parried
it, smashed the lantern at the entrance, leaving the scene in
darkness. Roberto began to strike out right and left and he must have
landed once upon some delicate part of Tabuenca's anatomy, for the man
began to shout in horrible tones:
"Assassins! Murder!"
At this, several persons came running into the zaguan, among them a
stout mule-driver with an oil-lamp in his hand.
"What's the trouble?" he asked.
"These murderers are after my life," bellowed Tabuenca.
"Not a bit of it," replied Roberto in a calm voice.
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