“Look here, you unclean reptile,” cried Montoria, detaining him, “I have told you that I am not going without the flour. If you do not produce it with good grace, as every good Spaniard does, you shall be made to give it by force. I will pay you forty-eight reales per sack—its price before the siege.”
“Forty-eight reales,” exclaimed Candiola, with an expression of rancor, “I will sell my skin at that price before the flour. I would pay more than that for it. The accursed mob! Shall they be supported by me, Señor de Montoria?”
“You may thank them, miserable usurer, because they have not put an end to your useless life. Does not the generosity of this people surprise you? In the other siege, while we were enduring the greatest privations in order to get money together, your heart of stone remained insensible, and they could not pull out of you one old shirt to cover the nakedness of a poor soldier, or one piece of bread to appease his hunger. Saragossa has not forgotten your infamies. Do you not remember that after the battle of the fourth of August, when the wounded were distributed throughout the city, and two were assigned to you, and rang at your door, it was not possible for them to get their shadows into this wretched door? On the night of the fourth they arrived at your door, and with their weak hands they rang for you to open to them; but their moans and suffering did not move your heart of brass. You came to the door, and kicked them into the street, saying that your house was not a hospital. Unworthy son of Saragossa! but you have not the soul of a son of Saragossa. You were born a Mallorcan, of the blood of a Jew!”
The eyes of Candiola shot fire. His jaw quivered, and his fingers closed convulsively upon the cudgel in his right hand.
“Yes, you have the blood of a Mallorcan Jew. You are no son of this noble city. Do not the moans of those poor wounded men sound in your bat’s