An Indian girl, bedizened with scarfs and gold chains, kept off the
flies with a fan of feathers; and by him, in a pail of ice from the
Horqueta (the gift of some pious Spanish lady, who had "spent" an Indian
or two in bringing down the precious offering), stood more than one
flask of virtuous wine of Alicant. But he was not so selfish, good man,
as to enjoy either ice or wine alone; Don Pedro, colonel of the soldiers
on board, Don Alverez, intendant of his Catholic majesty's customs at
Santa Marta, and Don Paul, captain of mariners in The City of the
True Cross, had, by his especial request, come to his assistance that
evening, and with two friars, who sat at the lower end of the table,
were doing their best to prevent the good man from taking too bitterly
to heart the present unsatisfactory state of his cathedral town, which
had just been sacked and burnt by an old friend of ours, Sir Francis
Drake.
"We have been great sufferers, senors,--ah, great sufferers," snuffled
the bishop, quoting Scripture, after the fashion of the day, glibly
enough, but often much too irreverently for me to repeat, so boldly were
his texts travestied, and so freely interlarded by grumblings at Tita
and the mosquitoes. "Great sufferers, truly; but there shall be a
remnant,--ah, a remnant like the shaking of the olive tree and the
gleaning grapes when the vintage is done.
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