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            The two men stood facing each other in silence until she returned. Even then conversation was difficult. The Mayor said very slowly with a pause between each important word so that the girl had time to find it in her pocket dictionary, "If you have -- finished -- your breakfast. . ."

            "Desayuno means breakfast," the girl told her companion with an air of delighted discovery.

            ". . . could I have a bollo?"

            "Bollo -- a penny loaf, it says," the girl interpreted, "but ours cost a lot more than a penny."

            "Dictionaries are always out of date," her companion said. "You can't expect them to keep up with inflation."

            "I am very hungry," the Mayor told them, pronouncing the key word carefully.

            The girl flicked her pages over. "Ambriento -- wasn't that the word? I can't find it."

            "Try with an H. I don't think they pronounce the h's."

            "Oh then, here it is. 'Eager'. But what's he eager for?"

            "Isn't there another meaning?"

            "Oh yes, how crazy of me. 'Hungry'. That must be it. He's hungry for a penny loaf."

            "There are two left. Give him both. And look -- give the poor devil this as well," and he handed her a hundred-peseta note.

            The Mayor took the loaves and rejected the money. To explain the reason he pointed first at Rocinante and then at himself.

            "My goodness," the girl said, "it's his car and we go and offer him a hundred pesetas." She put both hands together and raised them in a rather Eastern gesture. The Mayor smiled. He realized that it was an apology.

            The young man said sullenly, "How was I to know?"

            The Mayor began to eat one of the rolls. The girl searched in the dictionary. "Mantequilla?" she asked.

            "Man take what?" her companion demanded in a disagreeable tone.

            "I'm asking if he'd like some butter."

            "I've finished it. It wasn't worth keeping."

            The Mayor shook his head and finished the roll. He put the other one in his pocket, "Para mi amigo," he explained.

            "Why! I understood that," the girl said with delight. "It's for his girl. Don't you remember in Latin -- amo I love, amas you love? I've forgotten how it goes on. I bet they've been making out in the bush like us."

            The Mayor put his hand to his mouth and shouted again, but there was no reply.

            "How can you tell it's a girl?" the man asked. He was determined to be difficult. "In Spanish it's probably like in French. An ami can be any sex unless you see it written."

            "Oh goodness," the girl said, "do you think it could be that corpse we saw them carrying. . .?"

            "We don't know it was a corpse. If it was a corpse why is he keeping that roll?"

            "Ask him."

            "How can I? You've got the dictionary."

            The Mayor tried shouting again. Only a faint echo answered.

            "It certainly looked like a corpse," the girl said.

            "They may have been just taking him to hospital."

            "You always have such uninteresting explanations of everything. Anyway, he wouldn't need a roll in hospital."

            "In underdeveloped countries the relations often have to bring food to the patient."

            "Spain isn't an underdeveloped country."

            "That's what you say."

            They seemed to be quarrelling about something and the Mayor wandered back to Father Quixote's sleeping place. The mystery of the disappearance and the memory of his dream weighed on the Mayor's spirits, and he returned to Rocinante.

            In his absence they had consulted the dictionary to some effect. "Camilla," the girl said, pronouncing it rather oddly so that the Mayor didn't at first catch the meaning.

            "Are you sure that you've got it right?" the man asked. "It sounds more like a girl's name than a stretcher. I don't see why you looked up stretcher anyway. They hadn't got a stretcher."

            "But don't you see it conveys the meaning?" the girl insisted. "Can you find one word in the dictionary which would describe someone being carried past us by the head and feet?"

            "What about simply 'carried'?"

            "The dictionary only gives the infinitive of verbs, but I'll try if you like. Transportar," she said, "Camilla." The Mayor suddenly understood what she was trying to say, but it was all he did understand.

            "Dónde?" he asked with a sense of despair. "Dónde?"

            "I think he means 'where'," the man said, and he became suddenly an inspired communicator. He strode to his car, he opened the door, he bent double and appeared to shovel something heavy inside. Then he waved his arms in the direction of León and said, "Gone with the wind."

            The Mayor sat abruptly down on a rock. What could have happened? Had the Guardia tracked them down? But surely the Guardia would have waited to catch Father Quixote's companion? And why should they carry Father Quixote off on a stretcher? Had they shot him and then taken fright at what they had done? His head was bowed under the pressure of his thoughts.

            "Poor man," the girl whispered, "he's mourning for his dead friend. I think we'd better go away quietly."

            They picked up their knapsacks and tiptoed to their car.

            "It's sort of exciting," the girl said as she settled herself down, "but it's terribly, terribly sad, of course. I feel like I was in church."

PART TWO

I

MONSIGNOR QUIXOTE ENCOUNTERS THE BISHOP

1

            When Father Quixote opened his eyes he was surprised to see that the countryside was in rapid motion on either side, while he lay quietly in almost the same position as the one in which he had fallen asleep. Trees pelted past him and then a house. He supposed his vision had been affected by the wine which he had drunk and with a sigh at his lack of wisdom and a resolve to be more restrained in future he closed them and was immediately asleep again.

            He was half woken a second time by a strange jolting motion that ceased abruptly and he felt his body sag and come to rest on what seemed like a cold sheet instead of the rather prickly ground on which he had been lying. It was all very odd. He put his hand behind his head to adjust the pillow. A woman's voice said with indignation, "And what in the name of the blessed Virgin have you done to the poor father?"

            Another voice said, "Don't worry, woman. He'll wake up in a minute. Go and make him a good strong cup of coffee."