The great number of people who had congregated in the street prevented old Candiola from entering his own house. The gamins, who had come running from all over the neighborhood, took charge of him themselves. Some pulled him forward, others pushed him backward, tearing his clothing to shreds. Others, taking the offensive from afar, threw great chunks of street mud at him. In the mean time a woman came to meet those of us who had entered the lower floor where the storerooms were. At the first glance I recognized the beautiful Mariquilla, altered and trembling, wavering at every step, without power to stand erect or speak, paralyzed with terror. Her fear was so great that we all pitied her, even Montoria. "You are the daughter of Señor Candiola," he said, drawing from his pocket a handful of money, and making a brief reckoning on the wall with a bit of charcoal which he picked up from the floor. "Sixty-eight sacks of flour at forty-eight reales is three thousand two hundred and sixty-four. They are not worth half that, for they seem to me decidedly musty. Take it, child, here is the exact amount." Mariquilla Candiola made no movement whatever towards taking the money, and Montoria put it down upon a box, saying,-- "There it is!" Then the girl with a brusque and energetic movement which seemed, as it certainly was, the inspiration of her offended dignity, took the money, gold, silver, and copper, and threw it as if it were so many stones into the face of Montoria. The money was scattered all over the floor, and rolled out of the door without much promise of any one's finding it all in the future. Immediately afterwards the señorita went without a word into the street. She beheld her father jammed into the crowd; and presently, aided by some young men, unable to see with indifference a woman in distress, she freed him from the infamous captivity in which the boys held him. The father and daughter entered by the garden gate, as we were beginning to remove the flour. CHAPTER XIII When we had finished carrying out the flour, I went and looked for Augustine; but I could find him nowhere, neither in his father's house, nor at the headquarters of supplies, nor in the Coso, nor in Santa Engracia. At nightfall I found him in the powder mill near San Juan de los Panetes. I have forgotten to say that the Saragossans had improvised a work shop where were turned out daily nine or ten quintals of powder. I saw Augustine helping the workmen put into sacks and barrels the powder made during the day. He was working with feverish activity. "Do you see this enormous heap of powder?" he said to me when I approached him. "Do you see those sacks and those barrels all full of the same material? Well, Gabriel, it seems to me very little." "I don't know what you are trying to say."