Did
you also bring some cards?"

"No."

"Then?"

"It is simple. Just as you act as 'banker' for them, so I hope that
they will 'bank' for me." (In monte the banker deals the cards and
bets that one of the cards in either the albur or gallo is turned up
by dealing off the pack, before the card chosen by the other person
is turned up. A banker can play against two others.)

"And if the shades do not care to 'bank'?"

"What can be done? The game is not obligatory upon the dead."

There was a moment's silence.

"Did you come armed? What if you have to fight with the shades of
the dead?"

"I'll use my fists," replied the taller of the two.

"Ah! The devil! Now, I remember! The dead do not bet when there is
more than one live person around. There are two of us."

"Is that true? Well, I don't want to go away."

"Nor I. I need some money," replied the smaller one. "But let us do
this: We will decide by the cards which one shall go away."

"All right!" replied the other, showing a certain amount of
displeasure.

"Then let us go in. Have you any matches?"

They entered the cemetery and in the obscurity they searched for a
place where they might decide the question with the cards. They soon
found a niche upon which they sat down. The shorter one took from
his hat some playing cards and the other lighted a match.

Each one looked at the other in the light which the match made, but,
judging from the expression on their faces, they did not recognize
each other. However, we can recognize in the taller one, the one with
the manly voice, Elias; and in the smaller one, Lucas, with the scar
on his cheek.

"Cut the cards!" said the latter, without ceasing to look at the other.

He pushed aside some bones which were found on the niche and turned up
an ace and a jack for the albur. Elias lighted one match after another.

"On the jack!" said he and, in order to show which of the cards he
was betting on, he placed upon it a piece of vertebrae.

"I deal!" said Lucas and, after turning up four or five cards, an
ace came up.

"You have lost," he added. "Now leave me alone so that I may win
some money."

Elias, without saying a word, disappeared in the darkness.

Some minutes afterward, the clock in the church struck eight and the
bell announced the hour of prayer. But Lucas did not invite anybody
to play with him. He did not call out the shades, as superstition
demanded. Instead, he uncovered his head, murmured some