If I deceive, it shall be by horses, by jockeying. (58) If I
steal, it shall be on the road - I'll rob. You know already what I
am capable of, yet knowing that, you would have me tell fortunes
like yourself, or steal like Chicharona. Me dinela conche (it
fills me with fury) to be asked to tell fortunes, and the next
Busnee that talks to me of bajis, I will knock all her teeth out.'
THE SCORPION. - 'My sister is right; I, too, would sooner be a
salteadora (highwaywoman), or a chalana (she-jockey), than steal
with the hands, or tell bajis.'
MYSELF. - 'You do not mean to say, O Tuerta, that you are a jockey,
and that you rob on the highway.'
THE ONE-EYED. - 'I am a chalana, brother, and many a time I have
robbed upon the road, as all our people know. I dress myself as a
man, and go forth with some of them. I have robbed alone, in the
pass of the Guadarama, with my horse and escopeta. I alone once
robbed a cuadrilla of twenty Gallegos, who were returning to their
own country, after cutting the harvests of Castile; I stripped them
of their earnings, and could have stripped them of their very
clothes had I wished, for they were down on their knees like
cowards.
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