So big a lump swelled in Antonio's throat that it was a long time before he could answer. At last he managed to utter his thanks and to declare stoutly that he would accept one pound only, to be repaid within the year. The cura grew angry, but the monk was firm. After much argument the dispute was ended by Antonio's accepting two half-pounds in English gold and a further half-pound in Portuguese _tostões_ and _vintens_.* * The Portuguese _real_ (plural _reis_) is an imaginary coin. Twenty _reis_ make one _vintem_ (plural _vintens_) the Portuguese penny. One hundred _reis_, or five _vintems_ made one _tostão_ (plural _tostões_). The large silver piece called _mil reis_ (1000 _reis_) is nominally worth 4_s._ 5_d._, but is practically a dollar. By this time the sun was pouring down floods of fire from the heights of heaven. The cura closed the shutters and insisted that Antonio should rest on his bed till the fiercest heat should be passed. He himself descended to the living-room to say his Office and to indite the letter to the Operto wine-merchants--an unfamiliar and formidable task, which was only achieved after two hours of grunting and groaning and ink-spilling and striding about. Lying on the straw-stuffed bed, with his head on a hard pillow less than ten inches square, Antonio tried to recall all that had happened since the clink of steel cut short his reverie on the roof of the cloister. But out of forty-eight hours he had slept barely five. Drowsiness crept over him, and he fell asleep. When he awoke and opened the shutters he knew by the sun that it must be about five o'clock in the afternoon. He hastened downstairs. A smell of salt fish and warmed-up beef and hot oil prepared him for the cura's pressing invitation to stay to dinner, which he gratefully and decisively refused. At the presbytery door a handsome young peasant, goad in hand, was waiting alongside a pair of bullocks and a cart. The bullocks, fawn-colored, with great soft eyes, had horns a yard long. The cart was of a type unchanged since the days of the Romans. The wheels were simply iron-bound disks of wood cut in one piece from the round trunks of big trees: the cart itself was stuck round with a dozen upright staves, to fence in the load. Wringing his benefactor's hand for the seventh time and uttering a final word of gratitude, Antonio was about to begin his march when the peasant came forward to help him into the cart. It was vain to protest. The cura, who had never walked three continuous leagues in his life, laughed to scorn the monk's earnest declaration that he preferred to go afoot. The cart, he said, was hired and paid for as far as the nearest town, and he was not going to have a thousand reis thrown away.