"Very amusing, but very barbarous!" added the captain. "My brother! A good soul! A saint!"
They all laughed at this. He maintained friendly relations with his brother, although with some frigidity, and he made no secret of the grievances he had against him. Captain Valls was the bohemian of the family, ever on the high seas or in distant lands, leading the life of a gay bachelor. He had enough money on which to live. On the death of his father his brother had taken charge of the business of the house, defrauding him of many thousands of dollars.
"The same as the Christians of olden times!" Pablo hastened to add. "In matters of inheritance there is neither race nor creed. Money recognizes no religion."
The interminable persecutions suffered by his ancestors infuriated Valls. Advantage was taken of every circumstance for trampling under foot the people of "the street." When the peasants had grievances against the nobles or when foreigners descended in armed bands upon the citizens of Palma, the difficulty was always settled by a joint attack upon the ward of the Chuetas, killing those who did not flee, and looting their shops. If a Majorcan batallion received orders to march to Spain in case of war, the soldiers mutinied, broke out of their barracks and sacked "the street." When the reaction followed the revolutions in Spain, the royalists, to celebrate their triumph, assaulted the silversmiths' shops of the Chuetas, took possession of their riches, and made bonfires of their furniture, hurling even their crucifixes into the flames. Crucifixes belonging to old Jews, that, of course, must be false!
"And who are the people of 'the street'?" shouted the captain. "Everybody knows; those who have noses and eyes like mine; and there are many who are flat-nosed and present nothing of the common type. On the other hand, how many are there who pretend to be caballeros of antiquity, of proud nobility, with faces like Abraham and Jacob?"
There existed a list of suspicious surnames for identifying the genuine Chuetas, but these same surnames were borne by long-time Christians, and it was additional caprice which separated one from the other. Only the descendants of those families beaten or burned by the Inquisition had remained permanently marked by popular odium. The famous catalogue of surnames was made up undoubtedly from the autos of the Holy Offices.