We send for wine, Don Jorge, and the
nationals become wild, Don Jorge, dancing and drinking through the
night, whilst Baltasarito strums the guitar and sings them songs of
Germania:
"Una romi sin pachi
Le peno a su chindomar," &c., &c.
That is Gitano, Don Jorge; I learnt it from the toreros of
Andalusia, who all speak Gitano, and are mostly of Gypsy blood. I
learnt it from them; they are all friends of mine, Montes Sevilla
and Poquito Pan. I never miss a function of bulls, Don Jorge.
Baltasar is sure to be there with his amiga. Don Jorge, there are
no bull-functions in the winter, or I would carry you to one, but
happily to-morrow there is an execution, a funcion de la horca; and
there we will go, Don Jorge.
We did go to see this execution, which I shall long remember. The
criminals were two young men, brothers; they suffered for a most
atrocious murder, having in the dead of night broke open the house
of an aged man, whom they put to death, and whose property they
stole. Criminals in Spain are not hanged as they are in England,
or guillotined as in France, but strangled upon a wooden stage.
They sit down on a kind of chair with a post behind, to which is
affixed an iron collar with a screw; this iron collar is made to
clasp the neck of the prisoner, and on a certain signal it is drawn
tighter and tighter by means of the screw, until life becomes
extinct.
