"On the jack!" he said, and to indicate the card placed a vertebra on top of it.
"Play!" called Lucas, as he dealt an ace with the fourth or fifth card.

"You've lost," he added.

"Now leave me alone so that I can try to make a raise." Elias moved away without a word and was soon swallowed up in the darkness.
Several minutes later the church-clock struck eight and the bell announced the hour of the souls, but Lucas invited no one to play nor did he call on the dead, as the superstition directs; instead, he took off his hat and muttered a few prayers, crossing and recrossing himself with the same fervor with which, at that same moment, the leader of the Brotherhood of the Holy Rosary was going through a similar performance.
Throughout the night a drizzling rain continued to fall.

By nine o'clock the streets were dark and solitary.

The coconut-oil lanterns, which the inhabitants were required to hang out, scarcely illuminated a small circle around each, seeming to be lighted only to render the darkness more apparent.