retched 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 Caesar; "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 Caesar, 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, Caesar said:

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