Mariquilla turned pale with the horror of it.
“I am thirsty,” she said to me.
I immediately tried to get some water for her from Manuela; but as the last glass she had was in use, quenching soldiers’ thirst, as she went from mouth to mouth with it, I took, in order to lose no time, one of the cups which Candiola had in his pile.
“Eh, you meddler,” he said, shaking his fist at me, “leave that cup here.”
“I am getting it to give water to the señorita,” I answered indignantly. “Are these things so valuable, Señor Candiola?”
The miser did not reply, but did not oppose my giving his daughter a drink. After her thirst was quenched, a wounded soldier reached out his hands eagerly for the cup, and, lo! it began to go the rounds also, passing from mouth to mouth. When I went to wait upon my comrades, Don Jerónimo followed me with his eyes, and watched with bad grace the forced loan that was so slow in returning to his hands.