The interior of this suspicious rancho, honoured with the name of pulqueria, corresponded perfectly with the miserable aspect of the exterior. In a large room, only lighted by the dubious gleam of a smoky candle, a number of individuals, with ferocious countenances, dressed in filthy rags, and armed to the teeth, were collected round a few planks laid across empty barrels, and serving as a table. These men were drinking, and playing with that Mexican coolness which no event, however serious it may be, succeeds in disturbing, and staking piles of gold, which they drew from their patched calzoneras. It was in front of this unclean pothouse, from the broken door of which escaped a reddish steam, laden with pestilential emanations, that Ramirez stopped. "Where the deuce are you taking us?" Don Serapio asked him, with an expression of disgust he could not master at the repulsive appearance of this den. The sailor laid a finger on his lip. "Silence!" he said, "You shall know. Wait for me here an instant, but be careful to keep in the shade, so as not to be seen; the customers of this honest establishment have such numerous reasons to distrust spies, that if they saw you suddenly appear among them, they might be capable of playing you a trick." "Why enter such a den as this?" Ramirez smiled craftily. "Do you fancy, then," he said, "that if I had only some news to tell you, I should have brought you here?" "Why else, then?" "You will soon know; but I can tell you nothing at this moment." "Go on, then, as it is so; still, I beg you not to keep us too long at the door of this disgusting house." "All right, I will only go in and come out again." Then, after again recommending the officers to be prudent, he pushed the door of the pulqueria, which at once opened, and he went in. In the darkest corner of the room two men, almost completely hidden by the dense cloud of smoke that rose over the heads of the gamblers, carefully wrapped in their zarapés of Indian manufacture, with the brim of their hats pulled down over their eyes (a very needless precaution in the darkness where they were), and leaning on their long rifles, whose butts rested on the floor of the room, were whispering in each other's ear, while taking, at intervals, anxious glances at the leperos assembled a few paces from them. The gamblers, fully engaged, did not dream of watching the strangers, who, however, from their martial demeanour, and the cleanliness of their attire, formed a striking contrast to them, and evidently did not belong to the company that usually assembled at this rancho; hence the strangers had very unnecessarily taken their precautions to escape from inquisitive looks, supposing such were their object.