The neighbors gathered together and a large circle surrounded the corpse which was still swinging. In half an hour some officers and two cuaderilleros arrived. They took the body down and put it in a wheelbarrow. "Some people are in a hurry to die," said one of the officers, laughing, while he took out the pen from behind his ear. He asked some trifling questions; took the declaration of the servant, whom he tried to implicate, now looking at her with evil in his eyes, now threatening her and now attributing to her words which she did not say--so much so that the servant, believing that she was going to be taken to jail, began to weep and finished by declaring that she was looking for peas, but that ... and she called Teo to witness. In the meantime, a peasant with a wide hat and a large plaster on his neck, was examining the body, and the rope by which it was hanging. The face was no more livid than the rest of the body. Above the rope could be seen two scars and two small bruises. Where the rope had rubbed, there was no blood and the skin was white. The curious peasant examined closely the camisa and the pantaloons. He noted that they were full of dust and recently torn in some places. But what most attracted his attention were the "stick-tights" [22] on his clothing, even up to his neck. "What do you see?" asked the officer. "I was trying to identify him, señor," stammered the peasant, lowering his hat further from his uncovered head. "But haven't you heard that it was one Lucas? Were you sleeping?" All began to laugh. The peasant, embarrassed, muttered a few words, and went away with head down, walking slowly. "Here! Where are you going?" cried the old man. "You can't get out that way. That's the way to the dead man's house." "That fellow is still asleep," said the officer with a jeer. "We'll have to throw some water on him!" Those standing around laughed again. The peasant left the place where he had played so poor a part and directed his steps toward the church. In the sacristy, he asked for the sacristan mayor. "He is still sleeping!" they replied gruffly. "Don't you know that they sacked the convent last night?" "I will wait till he awakes." The sacristans looked at him with that rudeness characteristic of people who are in the habit of being ill-treated. In a dark corner, the one-eyed sacristan mayor was sleeping in a large chair. His spectacles were across his forehead among his long locks of hair. His squalid, bony breast was bare, and rose and fell with regularity. The peasant sat down near by, disposed to wait patiently, but a coin fell on the floor and he began looking for it with the aid of a candle, under the sacristan mayor's big chair. The peasant also noted "stick-tights" on the sleeping man's pantaloons and on the arms of his camisa. The sacristan awoke at last, rubbed his good eye, and, in a very bad humor, reproached the man. "I would like to order a mass said, señor," replied he in a tone of excuse.