Our road at first lay across a rising plain, very wild and scrubby, as I imagine, by the frequent deviations of our beast, and then through a forest of cork oaks, which keep their leaves all the year through, and here, by reason of the great shade, we went, not knowing whither, as if blindfold, only we were conscious of being on rough, rising ground, by the jolting of our mules and the clatter of their hoofs upon stones; but after a wearisome, long spell of this business, the trees growing more scattered and a thin grey light creeping through, we could make out that we were all together, which was some comfort. From these oaks, we passed into a wood of chestnuts, and still going up and up, but by such devious, unseen ways, that I think no man, stranger to these parts, could pick it out for himself in broad daylight, we came thence into a great stretch of pine trees, with great rocks scattered amongst them, as if some mountain had been blown up and fallen in a huge shower of fragments.

And so, still for ever toiling and scambling upwards, we found ourselves about seven o'clock, as I should judge by the light beyond the trees and upon the side of the mountain, with the whole champaign laid out like a carpet under us on one side, prodigious slopes of rock on either hand, with only a shrub or a twisted fir here and there, and on the further side a horrid stark ravine with a cascade of water thundering down in its midst, and a peak rising beyond, covered with snow, which glittered in the sunlight like a monstrous heap of white salt.

After resting at this point half an hour to breathe our mules, the guides got into their saddles, and we did likewise, and so on again along the side of the ravine, only not of a cluster as heretofore, but one behind the other in a long line, the mules falling into this order of themselves as if they had travelled the path an hundred times; but there was no means of going otherwise, the path being atrociously narrow and steep, and only fit for wild goats, there being no landrail, coping, or anything in the world to stay one from being hurled down a thousand feet, and the mountain sides so inclined that 'twas a miracle the mules could find foothold and keep their balance. From the bottom of the ravine came a constant roar of falling water, though we could spy it only now and then leaping down from one chasm to another; and more than once our guides would cry to us to stop (and that where our mules had to keep shifting their feet to get a hold) while some huge boulder, loosened by the night's rain, flew down across our path in terrific bounds from the heights above, making the very mountain tremble with the shock. Not a word spoke we; nay, we had scarce courage at times to draw breath, for two hours and more of this fearful passage, with no encouragement from our guides save that one of them did coolly take out a knife and peel an onion as though he had been on a level, broad road; and then, reaching a flat space, we came to a stand again before an ascent that promised to be worse than that we had done. Here we got down, Moll clinging to our hands and looking around her with large, frighted eyes.

"Shall we soon be there?" she asked.

And the Don, putting this question in Spanish to the guides, they pointed upwards to a gap filled with snow, and answered that was the highest point. This was some consolation, though we could not regard the rugged way that lay betwixt us and that without quaking. Indeed, I thought that even Don Sanchez, despite the calm, unmoved countenance he ever kept, did look about him with a certain kind of uneasiness. However, taking example from our guides, we unloosed our saddle bags, and laid out our store of victuals with a hogskin of wine which rekindled our spirits prodigiously.

While we were at this repast, our guides, starting as if they had caught a sound (though we heard none save the horrid bursting of water), looked down, and one of them, clapping two dirty fingers in his mouth, made a shrill whistle. Then we, looking down, presently spied two mules far below on the path we had come, but at such a distance that we could scarce make out whether they were mounted or not.

"Who are they?" asks Don Sanchez, sternly, as I managed to understand.

"Friends," replies one of the fellows, with a grin that seemed to lay his face in two halves.



CHAPTER VIII.

How we were entertained in the mountains, and stand in a fair way to have our throats cut.

"We will go on when you are ready," says Don Sanchez, turning to us.

"Aye," growled Jack in my ear, "with all my heart. For if these friends be of the same kidney as Don Lopez, we may be persuaded to take a better road, which God forbid if this be a sample of their preference."

So being in our saddles forth we set once more and on a path no easier than before, but worse—like a very housetop for steepness, without a tinge of any living thing for succour if one fell, but only sharp, jagged rocks, and that which now added to our peril was here and there a patch of snow, so that the mules must cock their ears and feel their way before advancing a step, now halting for dread, and now scuttling on with their tails betwixt their legs as the stones rolled under them.

But the longest road hath an end, and so at length reaching that gap we had seen from below, to our great content we beheld through an angle in the mountain a tract of open country below, looking mighty green and sweet in the distance. And at the sight of this, Moll clapt her hands and cried out with joy; indeed, we were all as mad as children with the thought that our task was half done. Only the Don kept his gravity. But turning to Moll, he stretches out his hand towards the plain and says with prodigious pride, "My country!"

And now we began the descent, which was actually more perilous than the ascent, but we made light of it, being very much enlivened by the high mountain air and the relief from dread uncertainty, shouting out our reflections one to another as we jolted down the rugged path.

"After all, Jack," says I to him at the top of my voice, being in advance and next to Don Sanchez; "after all, Don Lopez was not such a bad friend to us."

Upon which, the Don, stopping his mule at the risk of being cast down the abyss, turns in his saddle, and says:

"Fellow, Don Lopez is a Spaniard. A Castilian of noble birth—" but here his mule deciding that this was no fit place for halting, bundled onward at a trot to overtake the guides, and obliged his rider to turn his attention to other matters.

By the look of the sun it must have been about two in the afternoon when, rounding a great bluff of rock, we came upon a kind of tableland which commanded a wide view of the plain below, most dazzling to our eyes after the gloomy recesses of the pass; and here we found trees growing and some rude attempt at cultivation, but all very poor and stunted, being still very high and exposed to the bleak winds issuing from the gorges.

Our guides, throwing themselves on the ground, repaired once more to their store of onions, and we, nothing loath to follow their examples, opened our saddle bags, and with our cold meat and the hogskin of wine made another good repast and very merry. And the Don, falling into discourse with the guides, pointed out to us a little white patch on the plain below, and told us that was Ravellos, where we should find one of the best posadas in the world, which added to our satisfaction. "But" says he, "'tis yet four hours' march ere we reach it, so we had best be packing quickly."

Thereupon we finished our meal in haste, the guides still lying on the ground eating onions, and when we were prepared to start they still lay there and would not budge. On this ensued another discussion, very indignant and passionate on the part of Don Sanchez, and as cool and phlegmatic on the side of the guides, the upshot of which was, as we learned from Don, that these rascals maintained they had fulfilled their bargain in bringing us over into Spain, but as to carrying us to Ravellos they would by no means do that without the permission of their zefe, who was one of those they had whistled to from our last halting place, and whom they were now staying for.

Then, beginning to quake a bit at the strangeness of this treatment, we looked about us to see if we might venture to continue our journey alone. But Lord! one might as easily have found a needle in a bundle of hay as a path amidst this labyrinth of rocks and horrid fissures that environed us; and this was so obvious that the guides, though not yet paid for their service, made no attempt to follow or to stay us, as knowing full well we must come back in despair. So there was no choice but to wait the coming up of the zefe, the Don standing with his legs astride and his arms folded, with a very storm of passion in his face, in readiness to confront the tardy zefe with his reproaches for this delay and the affront offered to himself, we casting our eye longingly down at Ravellos, and the guides silently munching their onions. Thus we waited until the fine ear of our guides catching a sound, they rose to their feet muttering the word "zefe," and pull off their hats as two men mounted on mules tricked out like our own, came round the corner and pulled up before us. But what was our surprise to see that the foremost of these fellows was none other than the Don Lopez de Calvados we had entertained to supper the night before, and of whose noble family Don Sanchez had been prating so highly, and not a thread better dressed than when we saw him last, and full as dirty. That which gave us most uneasiness, however, was to observe that each of these "friends" carried an ugly kind of musket slung across his back, and a most unpleasant long sheath knife in his waist cloth.

Not a word says our Don Sanchez, but feigning still to believe him a man of quality, he returns the other Don's salutation with all the ceremony possible. Then Don Lopez, smiling from ear to ear, begs us (as I learnt afterwards) to pardon him for keeping us waiting, which had not happened, he assures us, if we had not suffered him to oversleep himself. He then informs us that we are now upon his domain, and begs us to accept such hospitality as his Castillo will furnish, in return for our entertainment of last night. To this Don Sanchez replies with a thousand thanks that we are anxious to reach Ravellos before nightfall, and that, therefore, we will be going at once if it is all the same to him. With more bowing and scraping Don Lopez amiably but firmly declines to accept any refusal of his offer or to talk of business before his debt of gratitude is paid. With that he gives a sign to our guides, who at once lead off our mules at a brisk trot, leaving us to follow on foot with Don Lopez and his companion, whom he introduces as Don Ruiz del Puerto,—as arrant a cut-throat rascal to look at as ever I clapt eyes on.

So we with very dismal forebodings trudge on, having no other course to take, Don Sanchez, to make the best of it, warranting that no harm shall come to us while we are under the hospitable protection of a Spaniard, but to no great effect—our faith being already shaken in his valuation of Spaniards.

Quitting the tableland, ten minutes of leaping and scrambling brought us to a collection of miserable huts built all higgledy-piggledy along the edge of a torrent, overtopped by a square building of more consequence, built of grey stone and roofed with slate shingles, but with nothing but ill-shaped holes for windows; and this, Don Lopez with some pride told us was his castillo. A ragged crew of women and children, apprised of our coming by the guide, maybe, trooped out of the village to meet us and hailed our approach with shouts of joy, "for all the world like a pack of hounds at the sight of their keeper with a dish of bones," whispers Jack Dawson in my ear ominously. But it was curious to see how they did all fall back in two lines, those that had hats taking them off as Don Lopez passed, he bowing to them right and left, like any prince in his progress.

So we up to the castillo, where all the men of the village are assembled and all armed like Don Lopez, and they greet us with cries of "Hola!" and throwing up of hats. They making way for us with salutations on both sides, we enter the castillo, where we find one great ill-paved room with a step-ladder on one side leading to the floor above, but no furniture save a table and some benches of wood, all black and shining with grease and dirt. But indeed the walls, the ceiling, and all else about us was beyond everything for blackness, and this was easily to be understood, for a wench coming in with a cauldron lights a faggot of wood in a corner, where was no chimney to carry off the smoke, but only a hole in the wall with a kind of eaves over it, so that presently the place was so filled with the fumes 'twas difficult to see across it.

Don Lopez (always as gracious as a cat with a milkmaid) asks Moll through Don Sanchez if she would like to make her toilette, while dinner is preparing, and at this offer all of us jump—choosing anything for a change; so he takes us up the step-ladder to the floor above, which differs from that below in being cut up into half a dozen pieces by some low partition of planks nailed loosely together like cribs for cattle, with some litter of dry leaves and hay in each, but in other respects being just as naked and grimy, with a cloud of smoke coming up through the chinks in the floor.

"You will have the sole use of these chambers during your stay," says Don Lopez, "and for your better assurance you can draw the ladder up after you on retiring for the night."

But for the gravity of our situation and prospects I could have burst out laughing when Don Sanchez gave us the translation of this promise, for the idea of regarding these pens as chambers was not less ludicrous than the air of pride with which Don Lopez bestowed the privilege of using 'em upon us.

Don Lopez left us, promising to send a maid with the necessary appointments for Moll's toilette.

"A plague of all this finery!" growled Dawson. "How long may it be, think you, Senor, ere we can quit this palace and get to one of those posadas you promised us?"

Don Sanchez hunched his shoulders for all reply and turned away to hide his mortification. And now a girl comes up with a biggin of water on her head, a broken comb in her hand, and a ragged cloth on her arm that looked as if it had never been washed since it left the loom, and sets them down on a bench, with a grin at Moll; but she, though not over-nice, turns away with a pout of disgust, and then we to get a breath of fresh air to a hole in the wall on the windward side, where we stand all dumb with disappointment and dread until we are called down to dinner. But before going down Don Sanchez warns us to stand on our best behaviour, as these Spaniards, for all their rude seeming, were of a particularly punctilious, ticklish disposition, and that we might come badly out of this business if we happened to displease them.

"I cannot see reason in that, Senor," says Dawson; "for the less we please 'em, the sooner they are likely to send us hence, and so the better for us."

"As you please," replies the Don, "but my warning is to your advantage."

Down we go, and there stands Don Lopez with a dozen choice friends, all the raggedest, dirty villains in the world; and they saluting us, we return their civility with a very fair pretence and take the seats offered us—they standing until we are set. Then they sit down, and each man lugs out a knife from his waist-cloth. The cauldron, filled with a mess of kid stewed in a multitude of onions, is fetched from the fire, and, being set upon a smooth board, is slid down the table to our host, who, after picking out some titbits for us, serves himself, and so slides it back, each man in turn picking out a morsel on the end of his knife. Bearing in mind Don Sanchez's warning, we do our best to eat of this dish; but, Heaven knows! with little relish, and mighty glad when the cauldron is empty and that part of the performance ended. Then the bones being swept from the table, a huge skin of wine is set before Don Lopez, and he serves us each with about a quart in an odd-shaped vessel with a spout, which Don Sanchez and his countrymen use by holding it above their heads and letting the wine spurt into their mouths; but we, being unused to this fashion, preferred rather to suck it out of the spout, which seemed to them as odd a mode as theirs was to us. However, better wine, drink it how you may, there is none than the wine of these parts, and this reconciling us considerably to our condition, we listened with content to their singing of ditties, which they did very well for such rude fellows, to the music of a guitar and a tambourine. And so when our pots came to be replenished a second time, we were all mighty merry and agreeable save Jack Dawson, who never could take his liquor like any other man, but must fall into some extravagant humour, and he, I perceived, regarded some of the company with a very sour, jealous eye because, being warmed with drink, they fell to casting glances at Moll with a certain degree of familiarity. Especially there was one fellow with a hook nose, who stirred his bile exceedingly, sitting with his elbows on the table and his jaws in his hands, and would scarcely shift his eyes from Moll. And since he could not make his displeasure understood in words, and so give vent to it and be done, Jack sat there in sullen silence watching for an opportunity to show his resentment in some other fashion. The other saw this well enough, but would not desist, and so these two sat fronting each other like two dogs ready to fly at each other's throats. At length, the hook-nosed rascal, growing bolder with his liquor, rises as if to reach for his wine pot, and stretching across the table, chucks Moll under the chin with his grimy fingers. At this Jack flinging out his great fist with all the force of contained passion, catches the other right in the middle of the face, with such effect that the fellow flies clean back over his bench, his head striking the pavement with a crash. Then, in an instant, all his fellows spring to their feet, and a dozen long knives flash out from their sheaths.



CHAPTER IX.

Of the manner in which we escaped pretty fairly out of the hands of Senor Don Lopez and his brigands.

Up starts Jack Dawson, catching Moll by the arm and his joint stool by the leg, and stepping back a pace or two not to be taken in the flank, he swings his stool ready to dash the brains out of the first that nears him. And I do likewise, making the same show of valour with my stool, but cutting a poor figure beside Dawson's mighty presence.

Seeing their fellow laid out for dead on the floor, with his hook nose smashed most horridly into his face, the others had no stomach to meet the same fate, but with their Spanish cunning began to spread out that so they might attack us on all sides; and surely this had done our business but that Don Lopez, flinging himself before us with his knife raised high, cries out at the top of his voice, "Rekbah!"—a word of their own language, I am told, taken from the Moorish, and signifying that whosoever shall outrage the laws of hospitality under his roof shall be his enemy to the death. And at this word every man stood still as if by inchantment, and let fall his weapon. Then in the same high voice he gives them an harangue, showing them that Dawson was in the right to avenge an insult offered his daughter, and the other justly served for his offence to us. "For his offence to me as the host of these strangers," adds he, "Jose shall answer to me hereafter if he live; if he be dead, his body shall be flung to the vultures of the gorge, and his name be never uttered again beneath this roof."

"I bear no grudges, not I," says Dawson, when Don Sanchez gave him the English of this. "If he live, let his nose be set; and if dead, let him be buried decently in a churchyard. But hark ye, Senor, lest we fall out again and come out worse the next bout, do pray ask his worship if we may not be accommodated with a guide to take us on our way at once. We have yet two hours of daylight before us, there's not a cloud in the sky, and with such a moon as we had the night before last, we may get on well enough."

Poor Moll, who was all of a shake with the terror of another catastrophe, added her prayers to Dawson's, and Don Sanchez with a profusion of civilities laid the proposal before Don Lopez, who, though professing the utmost regret to lose us so soon, consented to gratify our wish, adding that his mules were so well accustomed to the road that they could make the journey as well in the dark as in broad day.

"Well, then," says Dawson, when this was told us, "let us settle the business at once, and be off."

And now, when Don Sanchez proposed to pay for the service of our guides, it was curious to see how every rascal at the table craned forward to watch the upshot. Don Lopez makes a pretence of leaving the payment to Don Sanchez's generosity; and he, not behindhand in courtesy, lugs out his purse and begs the other to pay himself. Whereupon, with more apologies, Don Lopez empties the money on the table and carefully counts it, and there being but about a score of gold pieces and some silver, he shakes his head and says a few words to Don Sanchez in a very reproachful tone of remonstrance, to which our Don replies by turning all the trifles out of his pocket, one after the other, to prove that he has no money.

"I thought as much," growls Jack in my ear. "A pretty nest of hornets we're fallen into."

The company, seeing there was no more to be got out of Don Sanchez, began to murmur and cast their eyes at us; whereupon Dawson, seeing how the land lay, stands up and empties his pockets on the table, and I likewise; but betwixt us there was no more than some French pennies and a few odds and ends of no value at all. Fetching a deep sigh, Don Lopez takes all these possessions into a heap before him, and tells Don Sanchez that he cannot believe persons of our quality could travel with so little, that he feels convinced Don Sanchez must have dropped a purse on the way, and that until it is found he can on no account allow us to leave the neighbourhood.

"This comes of being so mighty fine!" says Dawson, when Don Sanchez had explained matters. "Had we travelled as became our condition, this brigand would never have ensnared us hither. And if they won't believe your story, Senor, I can't blame 'em; for I would have sworn you had a thousand pounds to your hand."

"Do you reproach me for my generosity?" asks the Don.

"Nay, Master, I love you for being free with your money while you have it, but 'tis a queer kind of generosity to bring us into these parts with no means of taking us back again. Hows'ever, we'll say no more about that if we get out of this cursed smoke-hole; and as we are like to come off ill if these Jack-thieves keep us here a week or so and get nothing by it, 'twill be best to tell 'em the honest truth, and acquaint them that we are no gentle folk, but only three poor English mountebanks brought hither on a wild goose chase."

This was a bitter pill for Don Sanchez to swallow; however, seeing no other cure for our ills, he gulped it down with the best face he could put on it. But from the mockery and laughter of all who heard him, 'twas plain to see they would not believe a word of his story.

"What would you have me do now?" asks the Don, turning to us when the clamour had subsided, and he told us how he had tried to persuade them we were dancers he was taking for a show to the fair at Barcelona, which they, by our looks, would not believe, and especially that a man of such build as Jack Dawson could foot it, even to please such heavy people as the English.

"What!" cries Jack. "I can't dance! We will pretty soon put them to another complexion if they do but give us space and a fair trial. You can strum a guitar, Kit, for I've heard you. And Moll, my chick, do you dash the tears from your cheek and pluck up courage to show these Portugals what an English lass can do."

The brigands agreeing to this trial, the table is shoved back to give us a space in the best light, and our judges seat themselves conveniently. Moll brushes her eyes (to a little murmur of sympathy, as I thought), and I, striking out the tune, Jack, with all the magnificence of a king, takes her hand and leads her out to a French pavan; and sure no one in the world ever stepped it more gracefully than our poor little Moll (now put upon her mettle), nor more lightly than Dawson, so that every rascal in our audience was won to admiration, clapping hands and shouting "Hola!" when it was done. And this warming us, we gave 'em next an Italian coranto, and after that, an English pillow dance; and, in good faith, had they all been our dearest friends, these dirty fellows could not have gone more mad with delight. And then Moll and her father sitting down to fetch their breath, a dispute arose among the brigands which we were at a loss to understand, until Don Sanchez explained that a certain number would have it we were real dancers, but that another party, with Don Lopez, maintained these were but court dances, which only proved the more we were of high quality to be thus accomplished.

"We'll convince 'em yet, Moll, with a pox of their doubts," cries Dawson, starting to his feet again. "Tell 'em we will give 'em a stage dance of a nymph and a wild man, Senor, with an excuse for our having no costume but this. Play us our pastoral, Kit. And sing you your ditty of 'Broken Heart,' Moll, in the right place, that I may get my wind for the last caper."

Moll nods, and with ready wit takes the ribbon from her head, letting her pretty hair tumble all about her shoulders, and then whipping up her long skirt, tucks one end under her girdle, thereby making a very dainty show of pink lining against the dark stuff, and also giving more play for her feet. And so thus they dance their pastoral, Don Sanchez taking a tambourine and tapping it lightly to the measure, up to Moll's song, which so ravished these hardy, stony men by the pathetic sweetness of her voice,—for they could understand nothing save by her expression,—that they would not let the dance go on until she had sung it through again. To conclude, Jack springs up as one enamoured to madness and flings out his last steps with such vigour and agility as to quite astound all.



And now the show being ended, and not one but is a-crying of "Hola!" and "Animo!" Moll snatches the tambourine from Don Sanchez's hand, and stepping before Don Lopez drops him a curtsey, and offers it for her reward. At this Don Lopez, glancing at the money on the table by his side, and looking round for sanction to his company (which they did give him without one voice of opposition), he takes up two of the gold pieces and drops them on the parchment. Thus did our Moll, by one clever hit, draw an acknowledgment from them that we were indeed no fine folks, but mere players, which point they might have stumbled over in their cooler moments.

But we were not quit yet; for on Don Sanchez's begging that we should now be set upon our road to Ravellos, the other replies that though he will do us this service with great pleasure, yet he cannot permit us to encounter the danger again of being taken for persons of quality. "Fine dress," says he, "may be necessary to the Senor and his daughter for their court dances, and they are heartily welcome to them for the pleasure they have given us, but for you and the musician who plays but indifferent well, meaner garb is more suitable; and so you will be good enough to step upstairs, the pair of you, and change your clothing for such as we can furnish from our store."

And upstairs we were forced to go, Don Sanchez and I, and there being stripped we were given such dirty foul rags and so grotesque, that when we came down, Jack Dawson and Moll fell a-laughing at us, as though they would burst. And, in truth, we made a most ludicrous spectacle, —especially the Don, whom hitherto we had seen only in the neatest and most noble of clothes,—looking more like a couple of scarecrows than living men.

Don Sanchez neither smiled nor frowned at this treatment, taking this misfortune with the resignation of a philosopher; only to quiet Dawson's merriment he told him that in the clothes taken from him was sewed up a bond for two hundred pounds, but whether this was true or not I cannot tell.

And now, to bring an end to this adventure, we were taken down the intricate passes of the mountain in the moonlight, as many of the gang as could find mules coming with us for escort, and brought at last to the main road, where we were left with nought but what we stood in (save Moll's two pieces), the robbers bidding us their adios with all the courtesy imaginable. But even then, robbed of all he had even to the clothes of his back, Don Sanchez's pride was unshaken, for he bade us note that the very thieves in Spain were gentlemen.

As we trudged along the road toward Ravellos, we fell debating on our case, as what we should do next, etc., Don Sanchez promising that we should have redress for our ill-treatment, that his name alone would procure us a supply of money for our requirements, etc., to my great content. But Dawson was of another mind.

"As for seeking redress," says he, "I would as soon kick at a hive for being stung by a bee, and the wisest course when you've been once bit by a dog is to keep out of his way for the future. With respect of getting money by your honour's name, you may do as you please, and so may you, Kit, if you're so minded. But for my part, henceforth I'll pretend to be no better than I am, and the first suit of rags I can get will I wear in the fashion of this country. And so shall you, Moll, my dear; so make up your mind to lay aside your fine airs and hold up your nose no longer as if you were too good for your father."

"Why, surely, Jack," says I, "you would not quit us and go from your bargain."

"Not I, and you should know me well enough, Kit, to have no doubt on that score. But 'tis no part of our bargain that we should bustle anybody but Simon the steward."

"We have four hundred miles to go ere we reach Elche," says Don Sanchez. "Can you tell me how we are to get there without money?"

"Aye, that I can, and I warrant my plan as good as your honour's. How many tens are there in four hundred, Kit?"

"Forty."

"Well, we can walk ten miles a day on level ground, and so may do this journey in six weeks or thereabouts, which is no such great matter, seeing we are not to be back in England afore next year. We can buy a guitar and a tabor out of Moll's pieces; with them we can give a show wherever we stay for the night, and if honest men do but pay us half as much as the thieves of this country, we may fare pretty well."

"I confess," says Don Sanchez, "your scheme is the best, and I would myself have proposed it but that I can do so little for my share."

"Why, what odds does that make, Senor?" cries Jack. "You gave us of the best while you had aught to give, and 'tis but fair we should do the same now. Besides which, how could we get along without you for a spokesman, and I marked that you drummed to our dance very tunefully. Come, is it a bargain, friend?"

And on Don Sanchez's consenting, Jack would have us all shake hands on it for a sign of faith and good fellowship. Then, perceiving that we were arrived at the outskirts of the town, we ended our discussion.



CHAPTER X.

Of our merry journeying to Alicante.

We turned into the first posada we came to—a poor, mean sort of an inn and general shop, to be sure, but we were in no condition to cavil about trifles, being fagged out with our journey and the adventures of the day, and only too happy to find a house of entertainment still open. So after a dish of sausages with very good wine, we to our beds and an end to the torment of fleas I had endured from the moment I changed my French habit for Spanish rags.

The next morning, when we had eaten a meal of goats' milk and bread and paid our reckoning, which amounted to a few rials and no more, Don Sanchez and I, taking what rested of Moll's two pieces, went forth into the town and there bought two plain suits of clothes for ourselves in the mode of the country, and (according to his desire) another of the same cut for Dawson, together with a little jacket and petticoat for Moll. And these expenditures left us but just enough to buy a good guitar and a tambourine—indeed, we should not have got them at all but that Don Sanchez higgled and bargained like any Jew, which he could do with a very good face now that he was dressed so beggarly. Then back to our posada, where in our room Jack and I were mighty merry in putting on our new clothes; but going below we find Moll still dressed in her finery, and sulking before the petticoat and jacket we had bought for her, which she would not put on by any persuasion until her father fell into a passion of anger. And the sight of him fuming in a short jacket barely covering his loins, and a pair of breeches so tight the seams would scarce hold together, so tickled her sense of humour that she fell into a long fit of laughter, and this ending her sulks she went upstairs with a good grace and returned in her hated petticoat, carrying her fine dress in a bundle. But I never yet knew the time when this sly baggage would not please herself for all her seeming yielding to others, and we were yet to have more pain from her than she from us in respect of that skirt. For ere we had got half way through the town she, dawdling behind to look first in this shop and then in that, gave us the slip, so that we were best part of an hour hunting the streets up and down in the utmost anxiety. Then as we were sweating with our exercise and trouble, lo! she steps out of a shop as calm as you please in a petticoat and jacket of her own fancy (and ten times more handsome than our purchase), a red shawl tied about her waist, and a little round hat with a bright red bob in it, set on one side of her head, and all as smart as a carrot.

"Da!" says she, "where have you been running all this time?"

And we, betwixt joy at finding her and anger at her impudence, could say nothing; and yet we were fain to admire her audacity too. But how, not knowing one word of the language, she had made her wants known was a mystery, and how she had obtained this finery was another, seeing that we had spent all there was of her two pieces. Certainly she had not changed her French gown and things for them, for these in a cumbrous bundle had her father been carrying up and down the town since we lost the minx.

"If you han't stole 'em," says Dawson, finding his tongue at last, "where did you find the money to pay for those trappings, slut?"

"In my pocket, sir," says she, with a curtsey, "where you might have found yours had you not emptied it so readily for the robbers yesterday. And I fancy," adds she slyly, "I may still find some left to offer you a dinner at midday if you will accept of it."

This hint disposed us to make light of our grievance against her, and we went out of Ravellos very well satisfied to know that our next meal depended not solely upon chance. And this, together with the bright sunlight and the sweet invigorating morning air, did beget in us a spirit of happy carelessness, in keeping with the smiling gay aspect of the country about us.

It was strange to see how easily Moll fell into our happy-go-lucky humour, she, who had been as stately as any Roman queen in her long gown, being now, in her short coloured petticoat, as frolicsome and familiar as a country wench at a fair; but indeed she was a born actress and could accommodate herself as well to one condition as another with the mere change of clothes. But I think this state was more to her real taste than the other, as putting no restraint upon her impulses and giving free play to her healthy, exuberant mirth. Her very step was a kind of dance, and she must needs fall a-carolling of songs like a lark when it flies. Then she would have us rehearse our old songs to our new music. So, slinging my guitar in front of me, I put it in tune, and Jack ties his bundle to his back that he may try his hand at the tambourine. And so we march along singing and playing as if to a feast, and stopping only to laugh prodigiously when one or other fell out of tune,—the most mad, light-hearted fools in the world;—but I speak not of Don Sanchez, who, feel what he might, never relaxed his high bearing or unbent his serious countenance.

One thing I remember of him on this journey. Having gone about five miles, we sat us down on a bridge to rest a while, and there the Don left us to go a little way up the course of the stream that flowed beneath, and he came back with a posey of sweet jonquils set off with a delicate kind of fern very pretty, and this he presents to Moll with a gracious little speech, which act, it seemed to me, was to let her know that he respected her still as a young gentlewoman in spite of her short petticoat, and Moll was not dull to the compliment neither; for, after the first cry of delight in seeing these natural dainty flowers (she loving such things beyond all else in the world), she bethought her to make him a curtsey and reply to his speech with another as good and well turned, as she set them in her waist scarf. Also I remember on this road we saw oranges and lemons growing for the first time, but full a mile after Moll had first caught their wondrous perfume in the air. And these trees, which are about the size of a crab tree, grew in close groves on either side of the road, with no manner of fence to protect them, so that any one is lief to pluck what he may without let, so plentiful are they, and curious to see how fruit and blossom grow together on the same bush, the lemons, as I hear, giving four crops in the year, and more delicious, full, and juicy than any to be bought in England at six to the groat.

We got a dinner of bread and cheese (very high) at a roadside house, and glad to have that, only no meat of any kind, but excellent good wine with dried figs and walnuts, which is the natural food of this country, where one may go a week without touching flesh and yet feel as strong and hearty at the end. And here very merry, Jack in his pertinacious, stubborn spirit declaring he would drink his wine in the custom of the country or none at all, and so lifting up the spouted mug at arm's length he squirts the liquor all over his face, down his new clothes and everywhere but into his mouth, before he could arrive to do it like Don Sanchez; but getting into the trick of it, he so mighty proud of his achievement that he must drink pot after pot until he got as drunk as any lord. So after that, finding a retired place,—it being midday and prodigious hot (though only now in mid-April),—we lay down under the orange trees and slept a long hour, to our great refreshment. Dawson on waking remembered nothing of his being drunk, and felt not one penny the worse for it. And so on another long stretch through sweet country, with here and there a glimpse of the Mediterranean, in the distance, of a surprising blueness, before we reached another town, and that on the top of a high hill. But it seems that all the towns in these parts (save those armed with fortresses) are thus built for security against the pirates, who ravage the seaboard of this continent incessantly from end to end. And for this reason the roads leading up to the town are made very narrow, tortuous, and difficult, with watch-towers in places, and many points where a few armed men lying in ambush may overwhelm an enemy ten times as strong. The towns themselves are fortified with gates, the streets extremely narrow and crooked, and the houses massed all together with secret passages one to another, and a network of little alleys leading whither only the inhabitants knew, so that if an enemy do get into them 'tis ten to one he will never come out alive.

It being market day in this town, here Jack and his daughter gave a show of dancing, first in their French suits, which were vastly admired, and after in their Spanish clothes; but then they were asked to dance a fandango, which they could not. However, we fared very well, getting the value of five shillings in little moneys, and the innkeepers would take nothing for our entertainment, because of the custom we had brought his house, which we considered very handsome on his part.

We set out again the next morning, but having shown how we passed the first day I need not dwell upon those which followed before we reached Barcelona, there being nothing of any great importance to tell. Only Moll was now all agog to learn the Spanish dances, and I cannot easily forget how, after much coaxing and wheedling on her part, she at length persuaded Don Sanchez to show her a fandango; for, surely, nothing in the world was ever more comic than this stately Don, without any music, and in the middle of the high road, cutting capers, with a countenance as solemn as any person at a burying. No one could be more quick to observe the ludicrous than he, nor more careful to avoid ridicule; therefore it said much for Moll's cajolery, or for the love he bore her even at this time, to thus expose himself to Dawson's rude mirth and mine in order to please her.

We reached Barcelona the 25th of April, and there we stayed till the 1st of May, for Moll would go no further before she had learnt a bolero and a fandango—which dances we saw danced at a little theatre excellently well, but in a style quite different to ours, and the women very fat and plain. And though Moll, being but a slight slip of a lass, in whom the warmer passions were unbegotten, could not give the bolero the voluptuous fervour of the Spanish dancers, yet in agility and in pretty innocent grace she did surpass them all to nought, which was abundantly proved when she danced it in our posada before a court full of Spaniards, for there they were like mad over her, casting their silk handkerchiefs at her feet in homage, and filling Jack's tambourine three times over with cigarros and a plentiful scattering of rials. And I believe, had we stayed there, we might have made more money than ever we wanted at that time—though not so much as Don Sanchez had set his mind on; wherefore he would have us jogging again as soon as Moll could be brought to it.

From Barcelona, we journeyed a month to Valencia, growing more indolent with our easier circumstances, and sometimes trudging no more than five or six miles in a day. And we were, I think, the happiest, idlest set of vagabonds in existence. But, indeed, in this country there is not that spur to exertion which is for ever goading us in this. The sun fills one's heart with content, and for one's other wants a few halfpence a day will suffice, and if you have them not 'tis no such great matter. For these people are exceeding kind and hospitable; they will give you a measure of wine if you are thirsty, as we would give a mug of water, and the poorest man will not sit down to table without making you an offer to share what he has. Wherever we went we were well received, and in those poor villages where they had no money to give they would pay us for our show in kind, one giving us bed, another board, and filling our wallets ere we left 'em with the best they could afford.

'Twas our habit to walk a few miles before dinner, to sleep in the shade during the heat of the day, and to reach a town (if possible) by the fall of the sun. There would we spend half the night in jollity, and lie abed late in the morning. The inns and big houses in these parts are built in the form of squares, enclosing an open court with a sort of arcade all round, and mostly with a grape-vine running over the sunnier side, and in this space we used to give our performance, by the light of oil lamps hung here and there conveniently, with the addition, maybe, of moonlight reflected from one of the white walls. Here any one was free to enter, we making no charge, but taking only what they would freely give. And this treatment engenders a feeling of kindness on both sides (very different to our sentiment at home, where we players as often as not dread the audience as a kind of enemy, ready to tear us to pieces if we fail to please), and ours was as great a pleasure to amuse as theirs to be amused. I can recall to mind nothing of any moment occurring on this journey, save that we spent some time every day in perfecting our Spanish dances, I getting to play the tunes correctly, which at first I made sad bungling of, and Dawson in learning of his steps. Also, he and Moll acquired the use of a kind of clappers, called costagnettes, which they play with their hands in these fandangos and boleros, with a very pleasing effect.

At Valencia we stayed a week and three days, lingering more than was necessary, in order to see a bull-fight. And this pastime they do not as we with dogs, but with men, and the bull quite free, and, save for the needless killing of horses, I think this a very noble exercise, being a fair trial of human address against brute force. And 'tis not nearly so beastly as seeing a prize fought by men, and not more cruel, I take it, than the shooting of birds and hares for sport, seeing that the agony of death is no greater for a sturdy bull than for a timid coney, and hath this advantage, that the bull, when exhausted, is despatched quickly, whereas the bird or hare may just escape capture, to die a miserable long death with a shattered limb.

From Valencia we travelled five weeks (growing, I think, more lazy every day), over very hilly country to Alicante, a seaport town very strongly protected by a castle on a great rock, armed with guns of brass and iron, so that the pirates dare never venture near. And here I fully thought we were to dawdle away another week at the least, this being a very populous and lively city, promising much entertainment. For Moll, when not playing herself, was mad to see others play, and she did really govern, with her subtle wiles and winning smiles, more than her father, for all his masterful spirit, or Don Sanchez with his stern authority. But seeing two or three English ships in the port, the Don deemed it advisable that we should push on at once for Elche, and, to our great astonishment, Moll consented to our speedy going without demur, though why, we could not then discover, but did soon after, as I shall presently show.



CHAPTER XI.

Of our first coming to Elche and the strangeness of that city.

Being resolved to our purpose overnight, we set out fairly early in the morning for Elche, which lies half a dozen leagues or thereabouts to the west of Alicante. Our way lay through gardens of oranges and spreading vineyards, which flourish exceedingly in this part, being protected from unkind winds by high mountains against the north and east; and here you shall picture us on the white, dusty road, Moll leading the way a dozen yards in advance, a tambourine slung on her back with streaming ribbons of many colours, taking two or three steps on one foot, and then two or three steps on t'other, with a Spanish twist of her hips at each turn, swinging her arms as she claps her costagnettes to the air of a song she had picked up at Barcelona, and we three men plodding behind, the Don with a guitar across his back, Dawson with our bundle of clothes, and I with a wallet of provisions hanging o' one side and a skin of wine on the other—and all as white as any millers with the dust of Moll's dancing.

"It might be as well," says Don Sanchez, in his solemn, deliberate manner, "if Mistress Moll were advised to practise her steps in our rear."

"Aye, Senor," replied Dawson, "I've been of the same mind these last ten minutes. But with your consent, Don Sanchez, I'll put her to a more serious exercise."

The Don consenting with a bow, Jack continues:

"You may have observed that I haven't opened my lips since we left the town, and the reason thereof is that I've been turning over in my mind whether, having come thus far, it would not be advisable to let my Moll know of our project. Because, if she should refuse, the sooner we consider some other plan, the better, seeing that now she is in good case and as careless as a bird on the bough, and she is less tractable to our purposes than when she felt the pinch of hunger and cold and would have jumped at anything for a bit of comfort."

"Does she not know of our design?" asks the Don, lifting his eyebrows.

"No more than the man in the moon, Senor," answers Jack. "For, though Kit and I may have discoursed of it at odd times, we have been mighty careful to shut our mouths or talk of a fine day at her approach."

"Very good," says Don Sanchez. "You are her father."

"And she shall know it," says Jack, with resolution, and taking a stride or two in advance he calls to her to give over dancing and come to him.

"Have you forgot your breeding," he asks as she turns and waits for him, "that you have no more respect for your elders than to choke 'em with dust along of your shuffling?"

"What a thoughtless thing am I!" cries she, in a voice of contrition. "Why, you're floured as white as a shade!"

Then taking up a corner of her waist-shawl, she gently rubs away the dust from the tip of his nose, so that it stood out glowing red from his face like a cherry through a hole in a pie-crust, at which she claps her hands and rings out a peal of laughter.

"I counted to make a lady of you, Moll," says Jack, in sorrow, "but I see plainly you will ever be a fool, and so 'tis to no purpose to speak seriously."

"Surely, father, I have ever been what you wish me to be," answers she, demurely, curious now to know what he would be telling her.

"Then do you put them plaguy clappers away, and listen to me patiently," says he.

Moll puts her hands behind her, and drawing a long lip and casting round eyes at us over her shoulder, walks along very slowly by her father's side, while he broaches the matter to her. And this he did with some difficulty (for 'tis no easy thing to make a roguish plot look innocent), as we could see by his shifting his bundle from one shoulder to the other now and again, scratching his ear and the like; but what he said, we, walking a pace or two behind, could not catch, he dropping to a very low tone as if ashamed to hear his own voice. To all he has to tell she listens very attentively, but in the end she says something which causes him to stop dead short and turn upon her gaping like a pig.

"What!" he cries as we came up. "You knew all this two months ago?"

"Yes, father," answers she, primly, "quite two months."

"And pray who told you?" he asks.

"No one, father, since you forbade me to ask questions. But though I may be dumb to oblige you, I can't be deaf. Kit and you are for ever a-talking of it."

"Maybe, child," says Dawson, mightily nettled. "Maybe you know why we left Alicante this morning."

"I should be dull indeed if I didn't," answers she. "And if you hadn't said when we saw the ships that we might meet more Englishmen in the town than we might care to know hereafter, why,—well, maybe we should have been in Alicante now."

"By denying yourself that satisfaction," says Don Sanchez, "we may conclude that the future we are making for you is not unacceptable."

Moll stopped and says with some passion:

"I would turn back now and go over those mountains the way we came to ride through France in my fine gown like a lady."

"Brava! bravamente!" says the Don, in a low voice, as she steps on in front of us, holding her head high with the recollection of her former state.

"She was ever like that," whispers Dawson, with pride. "We could never get her to play a mean part willingly; could we, Kit? She was for ever wanting the part of a queen writ for her."

The next day about sundown, coming to a little eminence, Don Sanchez points out a dark patch of forest lying betwixt us and the mountains, and says:

"That is Elche, the place where we are to stay some months."

We could make out no houses at all, but he told us the town lay in the middle of the forest, and added some curious particulars as how, lying on flat ground and within easy access of the sea, it could not exist at all but for the sufferance of the Spaniards on one side and of the Barbary pirates on the other, how both for their own convenience respected it as neutral ground on which each could exchange his merchandise without let or hindrance from the other, how the sort of sanctuary thus provided was never violated either by Algerine or Spaniard, but each was free to come and go as he pleased, etc., and this did somewhat reassure us, though we had all been more content to see our destination on the crest of a high hill.

From this point we came in less than half an hour to Santa Pola, a small village, but very bustling, for here the cart-road from Alicante ends, all transport of commodities betwixt this and Elche being done on mules; so here great commotion of carriers setting down and taking up merchandise, and the way choked with carts and mules and a very babel of tongues, there being Moors here as well as Spaniards, and all shouting their highest to be the better understood of each other. These were the first Moors we had seen, but they did not encourage us with great hopes of more intimate acquaintance, wearing nothing but a kind of long, ragged shirt to their heels, with a hood for their heads in place of a hat, and all mighty foul with grease and dirt.

Being astir betimes the next morning, we reached Elche before midday, and here we seemed to be in another world, for this region is no more like Spain than Spain is like our own country. Entering the forest, we found ourselves encompassed on all sides by prodigious high palm trees, which hitherto we had seen only singly here and there, cultivated as curiosities. And noble trees they are, standing eighty to a hundred feet high, with never a branch, but only a great spreading crown of leaves, with strings of dates hanging down from their midst. Beneath, in marshy places, grew sugar-canes as high as any haystack; and elsewhere were patches of rice, which grows like corn with us, but thrives well in the shade, curiously watered by artificial streams of water. And for hedges to their property, these Moors have agaves, with great spiky leaves which no man can penetrate, and other strange plants, whereof I will mention only one, they call the fig of Barbary, which is no fig at all, but a thing having large, fleshy leaves, growing one out of the other, with fruit and flower sprouting out of the edges, and all monstrous prickly. To garnish and beautify this formidable defence, nature had cast over all a network of creeping herbs with most extraordinary flowers, delightful both to see and smell, but why so prickly, no man can say.

"Surely, this must be paradise," cries Moll, staying to look around her.

And we were of the same thinking, until we came to the town, which, as I have said, lies in the midst of this forest, and then all our hopes and expectations were dashed to the ground. For we had looked to find a city in keeping with these surroundings,—of fairy palaces and stately mansions; in place whereof was nought but a wilderness of mean, low, squalid houses, with meandering, ill-paved alleys, and all past everything for unsavoury smells,—heaps of refuse lying before every door, stark naked brats of children screaming everywhere, and a pack of famished dogs snapping at our heels.

Don Sanchez leads the way, we following, with rueful looks one at the other, till we reach the market-place, and there he takes us into a house of entertainment, where a dozen Moors are squatting on their haunches in groups about sundry bowls of a smoking mess, called cuscusson, which is a kind of paste with a little butter in it and a store of spices. Their manner of eating it is simple enough: each man dips his hand in the pot, takes out a handful, and dances it about till it is fashioned into a ball, and then he eats it with all the gusto in the world. For our repast we were served with a joint of roast mutton, and this being cut up, we had to take up in our hands and eat like any savages,—their religion denying these Moors anything but the bare necessities of life. Also, their law forbids the drinking of wine, which did most upset Jack Dawson, he having for drink with his meat nothing but the choice of water and sour milk; but which he liked least I know not, for he would touch neither, saying he would rather go dry any day than be poisoned with such liquor.

Whilst we were at our meal, a good many Moors came in to stare at us, as at a raree show, and especially at Moll, whose bright clothes and loose hair excited their curiosity, for their women do rarely go abroad, except they be old, and wear only long dirty white robes, muffling the lower part of their faces. None of them smiled, and it is noticeable that these people, like our own Don, do never laugh, taking such demonstration as a sign of weak understanding and foolishness, but watching all our actions very intently. And presently an old Moor, with a white beard and more cleanly dressed than the rest, pushing the crowd aside to see what was forward, recognised Don Sanchez, who at once rose to his feet; we, not to be behind him in good manners, rising also.

"May Baba," says the old Moor; and repeating this phrase thrice (which is a sure sign of hearty welcome), he claps the Don's hand, without shaking it, and lays his own upon his breast, the Don doing likewise. Then Don Sanchez, introducing us as we understood by his gestures, the old Moor bends his head gravely, putting his right hand first to his heart, next to his forehead, and then kissing the two foremost fingers laid across his lips, we replying as best we could with a bowing and scraping. These formalities concluded, the Don and the old Moor walk apart, and we squat down again to our mutton bones.

After a lengthy discussion the old Moor goes, and Don Sanchez, having paid the reckoning, leads us out of the town by many crooked alleys and cross-passages; he speaking never a word, and we asking no questions, but marvelling exceedingly what is to happen next. And, following a wall overhung by great palms, we turn a corner, and find there our old Moor standing beside an open door with a key in his hand. The old Moor gives the key into Don Sanchez's hand, and with a very formal salutation, leaves us.

Then following the Don through the doorway, we find ourselves in a spacious garden, but quite wild for neglect; flower and weed and fruit all mingling madly together, but very beautiful to my eye, nevertheless, for the abundance of colour, the richness of the vegetables, and the graceful forms of the adjacent palms.

A house stood in the midst of this wilderness, and thither Don Sanchez picked his way, we at his heels still too amazed to speak. Beside the house was a well with a little wall about it, and seating himself on this, Don Sanchez opens his lips for the first time.

"My friend, Sidi ben Ahmed, has offered me the use of this place as long as we choose to stay here," says he. "Go look in the house and tell me if you care to live in it for a year."



CHAPTER XII.

How Don Sanchez very honestly offers to free us of our bargain if we will; but we will not.

The house, like nearly all Moorish houses of this class, was simply one large and lofty room, with a domed ceiling built of very thick masonry, to resist the heat of the sun. There was neither window nor chimney, the door serving to admit light and air, and let out the smoke if a fire were lighted within. One half of this chamber was dug out to a depth of a couple of feet, for the accommodation of cattle (the litter being thrown into the hollow as it is needed, and nought removed till it reaches the level of the other floor), and above this, about eight feet from the ground and four from the roof, was a kind of shelf (the breadth and length of that half), for the storage of fodder and a sleeping-place for the inhabitants, with no kind of partition, or any issue for the foul air from the cattle below.

"Are we to live a year in this hutch?" asks Moll, in affright.

"Have done with your chatter, Moll!" answers Jack, testily. "Don't you see I'm a-thinking? Heaven knows there's enough to swallow without any bugbears of your raising."

With that, having finished his inspection of the interior, he goes out and looks at it outside.

"Well," says Don Sanchez, "what think you of the house?"

"Why, Senor, 'tis no worse as I can see than any other in these parts, and hath this advantage, which they have not, of being in a sweet air. With a bit of contrivance we could make a shift to live here well enough. We should not do amiss neither for furniture, seeing that 'tis the custom of the country to eat off the floor and sit upon nothing. A pot to cook victuals in is about all we need in that way. But how we are to get anything to cook in it is one mystery, and" (clacking his tongue) "what we are going to drink is another, neither of which I can fathom. For, look you, Senor, if one may judge of men's characters by their faces or of their means by their habitations, we may dance our legs off ere ever these Moors will bestow a penny piece upon us, and as for their sour milk, I'd as lief drink hemlock, and liefer. Now, if this town had been as we counted on, like Barcelona, all had gone as merry as a marriage bell, for then might we have gained enough to keep us in jollity as long as you please; but here, if we die not of the colicks in a week, 'twill be to perish of starvation in a fortnight. What say you, Kit?"

I was forced to admit that I had never seen a town less likely to afford a subsistence than this.

Then Don Sanchez, having heard us with great patience, and waited a minute to see if we could raise any further objections, answers us in measured tones.

"I doubt not," says he, "that with a little ingenuity you may make the house habitable and this wilderness agreeable. My friend, Sidi ben Ahmed, has offered to provide us with what commodities are necessary to that end. I agree with you that it would be impossible to earn the meanest livelihood here by dancing; it would not be advisable if we could. For that reason, my knowledge of various tongues making me very serviceable to Sidi ben Ahmed (who is the most considerable merchant of this town), I have accepted an office in his house. This will enable me to keep my engagement with you. You will live at my charge, as I promised, and you shall want for nothing in reason. If the Moors drink no wine themselves, they make excellent for those who will, and you shall not be stinted in that particular."

"Come, this sounds fair enough," cries Dawson. "But pray, Senor, are we to do nothing for our keep?"

"Nothing beyond what we came here to do," replies he, with a meaning glance at Moll.

"What!" cries poor Moll, in pain. "We are to dance no more!"

The Don shook his head gravely; and, remembering the jolly, vagabond, careless, adventurous life we had led these past two months and more, with a thousand pleasant incidents of our happy junketings, we were all downcast at the prospect of living in this place—though a paradise—for a year without change.

"Though I promised you no more than I offer," says the Don, "yet if this prospect displease you, we will cry quits and part here. Nay," adds he, taking a purse from his pocket, "I will give you the means to return to Alicante, where you may live as better pleases you."

It seemed to me that there was an unfeigned carelessness in his manner, as if he would as lief as not throw up this hazardous enterprise for some other more sure undertaking. And, indeed, I believe he was then balancing another alternative in his mind.

At this generous offer Moll dashed away the tears that had sprung to her eyes, brightening up wonderfully, but then, casting her eyes upon the Don, her face fell again as at the thought of leaving him. For we all admired him, and she prodigiously, for his great reserve and many good qualities which commanded respect, and this feeling was tinged in her case, I believe, with a kind of growing affection.

Seeing this sentiment in her eyes, the Don was clearly touched by it, and so, laying his hand gently on her shoulder, he says:

"My poor child, remember you the ugly old women we saw dancing at Barcelona? They were not more than forty; what will they be like in a few years? Who will tolerate them? who love them? Is that the end you choose for your own life—that the estate to which our little princess shall fall?"

"No, no, no!" cries she, in a passion, clenching her little hands and throwing up her head in disdain.

"And no, no, no, say I," cries Dawson. "Were our case ten times as bad, I'd not go back from my word. As it is, we are not to be pitied, and I warrant ere long we make ourselves to be envied. Come, Kit, rouse you out of your lethargies, and let us consult how we may improve our condition here; and do you, Senor, pray order us a little of that same excellent wine you spoke of, if it be but a pint, when you feel disposed that way."

The Don inclined his head, but lingered, talking to Moll very gravely, and yet tenderly, for some while, Dawson and I going into the house to see what we could make of it; and then, telling us we should see him no more till the next day, he left us. But for some time after he was gone Moll sat on the side of the well, very pensive and wistful, as one to whom the future was opened for the first time.

Anon comes a banging at our garden gate, which Moll had closed behind the Don; and, going to it, we find a Moorish boy with a barrow charged with many things. We could not understand a word he said, but Dawson decided these chattels were sent us by the Don, by perceiving a huge hogskin of wine, for which he thanked God and Don Sanchez an hundred times over. So these commodities we carried up to the house, marvelling greatly at the Don's forethought and generosity, for here were a score of things over and above those we had already found ourselves lacking; namely, earthen pipkins and wooden vessels, a bag of charcoal, a box of carpenters' tools (which did greatly like Dawson, he having been bred a carpenter in his youth), instruments for gardening (to my pleasure, as I have ever had a taste for such employment), some very fine Moorish blankets, etc. So when the barrow was discharged, Dawson gives the lad some rials out of his pocket, which pleased him also mightily.

Then, first of all, Dawson unties the leg of the hogskin, and draws off a quart of wine, very carefully securing the leg after, and this we drank to our great refreshment; and next Moll, being awoke from her dreams and eager to be doing, sets herself to sort out our goods, such as belong to us (as tools, etc.), on one side, and such as belong to her (as pipkins and the rest) on the other. Leaving her to this employment, Dawson and I, armed with a knife and bagging hook, betake ourselves to a great store of canes stacked in one corner of the garden, and sorting out those most proper to our purpose, we lopped them all of an equal length, and shouldering as many as we could carried them up to our house. Here we found Moll mighty jubilant in having got her work done, and admirably she had done it, to be sure. For, having found a long recess in the wall, she had brushed it out clean with a whisp of herbs, and stored up her crocks according to their size, very artificial, with a dish of oranges plucked from the tree at our door on one side, and a dish of almonds on the other, a pipkin standing betwixt 'em with a handsome posey of roses in it. She had spread a mat on the floor, and folded up our fine blankets to serve for cushions; and all that did not belong to her she had bundled out of sight into that hollowed side I have mentioned as being intended for cattle.

After we had sufficiently admired the performance, she told us she had a mind to give us a supper of broth. "But," says she, "the Don has forgotten that we must eat, and hath sent us neither bread nor flesh nor salt."

This put us to a stumble, for how to get these things we knew not; but Moll declared she would get all she needed if we could only find the money.

"Why, how?" asks Jack. "You know not their gibberish."

"That may be," answers she, "but I warrant the same language that bought me this petticoat will get us a supper."

So we gave her what money we had, and she went off a-marketing, with as much confidence as if she were a born Barbary Moor. Then Jack falls to thanking God for blessing him with such a daughter, at the same time taking no small credit to himself for having bred her to such perfection, and in the midst of his encomiums, being down in the hollow searching for his hammer, he cries:

"Plague take the careless baggage! she has spilled all our nails, and here's an hour's work to pick 'em up!"

This accident was repaired, however, and Moll's transgression forgotten when she returned with an old woman carrying her purchases. Then were we forced to admire her skill in this business, for she had bought all that was needful for a couple of meals, and yet had spent but half our money. Now arose the difficult question how to make a fire, and this Jack left us to settle by our own devices, he returning to his own occupation. Moll resolved we should do our cooking outside the house, so here we built up a kind of grate with stones; and, contriving to strike a spark with the back of a jack-knife and a stone, upon a heap of dried leaves, we presently blew up a fine flame, and feeding this with the ends of cane we had cut and some charcoal, we at last got a royal fire on which to set our pot of mutton. And into this pot we put rice and a multitude of herbs from the garden, which by the taste we thought might serve to make a savoury mess. And, indeed, when it began to boil, the odour was so agreeable that we would have Jack come out to smell it. And he having praised it very highly, we in return went in to look at his handiwork and praise that. This we could do very heartily and without hypocrisy, for he had worked well and made a rare good job, having built a very seemly partition across the room, by nailing of the canes perpendicularly to that kind of floor that hung over the hollowed portion, thus making us now three rooms out of one. At one end he had left an opening to enter the cavity below and the floor above by the little ladder that stood there, and these canes were set not so close together but that air and light could pass betwixt them, and yet from the outer side no eye could see within, which was very commodious. Also upon the floor above, he had found sundry bundles of soft dried leaves, and these, opened out upon the surface of both chambers, made a very sweet, convenient bed upon which to lie. Then Dawson offering Moll her choice, she took the upper floor for her chamber, leaving us two the lower; and so, it being near sundown by this time, we to our supper in the sweet, cool air of evening, all mightily content with one another, and not less satisfied with our stew, which was indeed most savoury and palatable. This done, we took a turn round our little domain, admiring the many strange and wonderful things that grew there (especially the figs, which, though yet green, were wondrous pleasant to eat); and I laying out my plans for the morrow, how to get this wilderness into order, tear out the worthless herbs, dig the soil, etc., Dawson's thoughts running on the building of an outhouse for the accommodation of our wine, tools, and such like, and Moll meditating on dishes to give us for our repasts. And at length, when these divers subjects were no more to be discussed, we turned into our dormitories, and fell asleep mighty tired, but as happy as princes.



CHAPTER XIII.

A brief summary of those twelve months we spent at Elche.

The surprising activity with which we attacked our domestic business at Elche lasted about two days and a half,—Dawson labouring at his shed, I at the cultivation of the garden, and Moll quitting her cooking and household affairs, as occasion permitted, to lend a helping hand first to her father and then to me. And as man, when this fever of enterprise is upon him, must for ever be seeking to add to his cares, we persuaded Don Sanchez to let us have two she-goats to stall in the shed and consume our waste herbage, that we might have milk and get butter, which they do in these parts by shaking the cream in a skin bag (a method that seems simple enough till you have been shaking the bag for twenty minutes in vain on a sultry morning) without cost. But the novelty of the thing wearing off, our eagerness rapidly subsided, and so about the third day (as I say), the heat being prodigious, we toiled with no spirit at all.

Dawson was the first to speak his mind. Says he, coming to me whilst I was still sweating over my shovel:

"I've done it, but hang me if I do more. There's a good piece of work worth thirty shillings of any man's money, but who'll give me a thank ye for it when we leave here next year?"

And then he can find nothing better to do than fall a-commenting on my labours, saying there was but precious little to show for my efforts, that had he been in my place he would have ordered matters otherwise, and begun digging t'other end, wagering that I should give up my job before it was quarter done, etc., all which was mighty discouraging and the more unpleasant because I felt there was a good deal of truth in what he said.

Consequently, I felt a certain malicious enjoyment the next morning upon finding that the goats had burst out one side of his famous shed, and got loose into the garden, which enabled me to wonder that two such feeble creatures could undo such a good thirty shillings' worth of work, etc. But ere I was done galling him, I myself was mortified exceedingly to find these mischievous brutes had torn up all the plants I had set by the trees in the shade as worthy of cultivation, which gave Jack a chance for jibing at me. But that which embittered us as much as anything was to have Moll holding her sides for laughter at our attempts to catch these two devilish goats, which to our cost we found were not so feeble, after all; for getting one up in a corner, she raises herself up on her hind legs and brings her skull down with such a smack on my knee that I truly thought she had broke my cramp-bone, whilst t'other, taking Dawson in the ankles with her horns, as he was reaching forward to lay hold of her, lay him sprawling in our little stream of water. Nor do I think we should ever have captured them, but that, giving over our endeavours from sheer fatigue, they of their own accord sauntered into the shed for shelter from the sun, where Moll clapt to the door upon them, and set her back against the gap in the side, until her father came with a hammer and some stout nails to secure the planks. So for the rest of that day Jack and I lay on our backs in the shade, doing nothing, but exceedingly sore one against the other for these mischances.

But our heart burnings ended not there; for coming in to supper at sundown, Moll has nothing to offer us but dry bread and a dish of dates, which, though it be the common supper of the Moors in this place, was little enough to our satisfaction, as Dawson told her in pretty round terms, asking her what she was good for if not to give us a meal fit for Christians, etc., and stating very explicitly what he would have her prepare for our dinner next day. Moll takes her upbraiding very humbly (which was ever a bad sign), and promises to be more careful of our comfort in the future. And so ended that day.

The next morning Dawson and I make no attempt at work, but after breakfast, by common accord, stretch us out under the palms to meditate; and there about half past ten, Don Sanchez, coming round to pay us a visit, finds us both sound asleep. A sudden exclamation from him aroused us, and as we stumbled to our feet, staring about us, we perceived Moll coming from the house, but so disfigured with smuts of charcoal all over her face and hands, we scarce knew her.

"God's mercy!" cries the Don. "What on earth have you been doing, child?"

To which Moll replies with a curtsey:

"I am learning to be a cook-wench, Senor, at my father's desire."

"You are here," answers the Don, with a frown, "to learn to be a lady. If a cook-wench is necessary, you shall have one" (this to us), "and anything else that my means may afford. You will do well to write me a list of your requirements; but observe," adds he, turning on his heel, "we may have to stay here another twelvemonth, if my economies are not sufficient by the end of the first year to take us hence."

This hint brought us to our senses very quickly, and overtaking him ere he reached our garden gate, Dawson and I assured the Don we had no need of any servant, and would be careful that Moll henceforth did no menial office; that we would tax his generosity no more than we could help, etc., to our great humiliation when we came to reflect on our conduct.

Thenceforth Dawson charged himself with the internal economy of the house, and I with that part which concerned the custody and care of the goats, the cultivation of pot-herbs and with such instruction of Moll in the Italian tongue as I could command. But to tell the truth, we neither of us did one stroke of work beyond what was absolutely necessary, and especially Dawson, being past everything for indolence, did so order his part that from having two dishes of flesh a day, we came, ere long, to getting but one mess a week; he forcing himself and us to be content with dates and bread for our repasts, rather than give himself the trouble of boiling a pot. Beyond browsing my goats, drawing their milk (the making of butter I quickly renounced), and watering my garden night and morn (which is done by throwing water from the little stream broadcast with a shovel on either side), I did no more than Dawson, but joined him in yawning the day away, for which my sole excuse is the great heat of this region, which doth beget most slothful humours in those matured in cooler climes.

With Moll, however, the case was otherwise; for she, being young and of an exceeding vivacious, active disposition, must for ever be doing of something, and lucky for us when it was not some mischievous trick at our expense—as letting the goats loose, shaking lemons down on our heads as we lay asleep beneath it, and the like. Being greatly smitten with the appearance of the Moorish women (who, though they are not permitted to wander about at will like our women, are yet suffered to fetch water from the public fountains), she surprised us one morning by coming forth dressed in their mode. And this dress, which seems to be nought but a long sheet wound loosely twice or thrice about the body, buckled on the shoulder, with holes for the arms to be put through in the manner of the old Greeks, became her surprisingly; and we noticed then for the first time that her arms were rounder and fuller than when we had last seen them bare. Then, to get the graceful, noble bearing of the Moors, she practised day after day carrying a pitcher of water on her head as they do, until she could do this with perfect ease and sureness. In this habit the Don, who was mightily pleased with her looks, took her to the house of his friend and employer, Sidi ben Ahmed, where she ingratiated herself so greatly with the women of his household that they would have her come to them again the next day, and after that the next,—indeed, thenceforth she spent far more of her time with these new friends than with us. And here, from the necessity of making herself understood, together with an excellent memory and a natural aptitude, she learned to speak the Moorish tongue in a marvellously short space of time. Dawson and I were frequently asked to accompany Moll, and we went twice to this house, which, though nothing at all to look at outside, was very magnificently furnished within, and the entertainment most noble. But Lord! 'twas the most tedious, wearisome business for us, who could make out never a word of the civil speeches offered us without the aid of Don Sanchez and Moll, and then could think of no witty response, but could only sit there grinning like Gog and Magog. Still, it gave us vast pleasure to see how Moll carried herself with this company, talking as freely as they, yet holding herself with the dignity of an equal, and delighting all by her vivacity and sly, pretty ways.



I think no country in Europe can be richer than this Elche in fruits and vegetation, more beautiful in its surrounding aspects of plain and mountain, more blessed with constant, glorious sunlight; and the effect of these charms upon the quick, receptive spirit of our Molly was like a gentle May upon a nightingale, so that the days were all too short for her enjoyment, and she must need vent her happiness in song; but on us they made no more impression than on two owls in a tower, nay, if anything they did add to that weariness which arose from our lack of occupation. For here was no contrast in our lives, one day being as like another as two peas in a pod, and having no sort of adversities to give savour to our ease, we found existence the most flat, insipid, dull thing possible. I remember how, on Christmas day, Dawson did cry out against the warm sunshine as a thing contrary to nature, wishing he might stand up to his knees in snow in a whistling wind, and taking up the crock Moll had filled with roses (which here bloom more fully in the depth of winter than with us in the height of summer), he flung it out of the door with a curse for an unchristian thing to have in the house on such a day.

As soon as the year had turned, we began to count the days to our departure, and thenceforth we could think of nought but what we would do with our fortune when we got it; and, the evenings being long, we would set the bag of wine betwixt us after our supper of dates, and sit there for hours discussing our several projects. Moll being with us (for in these parts no womankind may be abroad after sundown), she would take part in these debates with as much gusto as we. For though she was not wearied of her life here as we were, yet she was possessed of a very stirring spirit of adventure, and her quick imagination furnished endless visions of lively pleasures and sumptuous living. We agreed that we would live together, and share everything in common as one family, but not in such an outlandish spot as Chislehurst. That estate we would have nothing to do with; but, selling it at once, have in its place two houses,—one city house in the Cheap, and a country house not further from town than Bednal Green, or Clerkenwell at the outside, to the end that when we were fatigued with the pleasures of the town, we might, by an easy journey, resort to the tranquillity of rural life, Dawson declaring what wines he would have laid down in our cellars, I what books should furnish our library, and Moll what dresses she would wear (not less than one for every month of the year), what coaches and horses we should keep, what liveries our servants should wear, what entertainments we would give, and so forth. Don Sanchez was not excluded from our deliberations; indeed, he encouraged us greatly by approving of all our plans, only stipulating that we would guard one room for him in each of our houses, that he might feel at home in our society whenever he chanced to be in our neighbourhood. In all these arguments, there was never one word of question from any of us as to the honesty of our design. We had settled that, once and for all, before starting on this expedition; and since then, little by little, we had come to regard the Godwin estate as a natural gift, as freely to be taken as a blackberry from the hedge. Nay, I believe Dawson and I would have contested our right to it by reason of the pains we were taking to possess it.

And now, being in the month of June, and our year of exile (as it liked us to call it) nigh at an end, Dawson one night put the question to Don Sanchez, which had kept us fluttering in painful suspense these past six months, whether he had saved sufficient by his labours, to enable us to return to England ere long.

"Yes," says he, gravely, at which we did all heave one long sigh of relief, "I learn that a convoy of English ships is about to sail from Alicante in the beginning of July, and if we are happy enough to find a favourable opportunity, we will certainly embark in one of them."

"Pray, Senor," says I, "what may that opportunity be; for 'tis but two days' march hence to Alicante, and we may do it with a light foot in one."

"The opportunity I speak of," answers he, "is the arrival, from Algeria, of a company of pirates, whose good service I hope to engage in putting us aboard an English ship under a flag of truce as redeemed slaves from Barbary."

"Pirates!" cry we, in a low breath.

"What, Senor!" adds Dawson, "are we to trust ourselves to the mercy and honesty of Barbary pirates on the open sea?"

"I would rather trust to their honesty," answers the Don, dropping his voice that he might not be heard by Moll, who was leading home the goats, "than to the mercy of an English judge, if we should be brought to trial with insufficient evidence to support our story."

Jack and I stared at each other aghast at this talk of trial, which had never once entered into our reckoning of probabilities.

"If I know aught of my fellow-men," continues the Don, surely and slow, "that grasping steward will not yield up his trust before he has made searching enquiry into Moll's claim, act she her part never so well. We cannot refuse to give him the name of the ship that brought us home, and, learning that we embarked at Alicante, jealous suspicion may lead him to seek further information there; with what result?"

"Why, we may be blown with a vengeance, if he come ferreting so nigh as that," says Dawson, "and we are like to rot in gaol for our pains."

"You may choose to run that risk; I will not," says the Don.

"Nor I either," says Dawson, "and God forgive me for overlooking such a peril to my Moll. But, do tell me plainly, Senor, granting these pirates be the most honest thieves in the world, is there no other risk to fear?"

The Don hunched his shoulders.

"Life itself is a game," says he, "in which the meanest stroke may not be won without some risk; but, played as I direct, the odds are in our favour. Picked up at sea from an Algerine boat, who shall deny our story when the evidence against us lies there" (laying his hand out towards the south), "where no man in England dare venture to seek it?"

"Why, to be sure," says Dawson; "that way all hangs together to a nicety. For only a wizard could dream of coming hither for our undoing."

"For the rest," continues the Don, thoughtfully, "there is little to fear. Judith Godwin has eyes the colour of Moll's, and in all else Simon must expect to find a change since he last saw his master's daughter. They were in Italy three years. That would make Judith a lisping child when she left England. He must look to find her altered. Why," adds he, in a more gentle voice, as if moved by some inner feeling of affection and admiration, nodding towards Moll, "see how she has changed in this little while. I should not know her for the raw, half-starved spindle of a thing she was when I saw her first playing in the barn at Tottenham Cross."

Looking at her now (browsing the goats amongst my most cherished herbs), I was struck also by this fact, which, living with her day by day, had slipped my observation somewhat. She was no longer a gaunt, ungainly child, but a young woman, well proportioned, with a rounded cheek and chin, brown tinted by the sun, and, to my mind, more beautiful than any of their vaunted Moorish women. But, indeed, in this country all things do mature quickly; and 'twas less surprising in her case because her growth had been checked before by privation and hardship, whereas since our coming hither it had been aided by easy circumstances and good living.



CHAPTER XIV.

Of our coming to London (with incidents by the way), and of the great address whereby Moll confounds Simon, the steward.

On the third day of July, all things falling in pat with the Don's design, we bade farewell to Elche, Dawson and I with no sort of regret, but Moll in tears at parting from those friends she had grown to love very heartily. And these friends would each have her take away something for a keepsake, such as rings to wear on her arms and on her ankles (as is the Moorish fashion), silk shawls, etc., so that she had quite a large present of finery to carry away; but we had nothing whatever but the clothes we stood in, and they of the scantiest, being simply long shirts and "bernouses" such as common Moors wear. For the wise Don would let us take nought that might betray our sojourn in Spain, making us even change our boots for wooden sandals, he himself being arrayed no better than we. Nor was this the only change insisted on by our governor; for on Dawson bidding Moll in a surly tone to give over a shedding of tears, Don Sanchez turns upon him, and says he:

"It is time to rehearse the parts we are to play. From this day forth your daughter is Mistress Judith Godwin, you are Captain Robert Evans, and you" (to me), "Mr. Hopkins, the merchant. Let us each play our part with care, that we do not betray ourselves by a slip in a moment of unforeseen danger."

"You are in the right, Senor," answers Jack, "for I doubt it must be a hard task to forget that Mistress Judith is my daughter, as it is for a loving father to hold from chiding of his own flesh and blood; so I pray you, Madam" (to Moll), "bear that in mind and vex me no more."

We lay this lesson seriously to heart, Dawson and I, for the Don's hint that we might end our career in gaol did still rankle woundily in our minds. And so very soberly we went out of the forest of Elche in the night on mules lent us by Sidi ben Ahmed, with a long cavalcade of mules charged with merchandise for embarking on board the pirates' vessel, and an escort of some half-dozen fierce-looking corsairs armed with long firelocks and a great store of awesome crooked knives stuck in their waist-cloths.

After journeying across the plain, we came about midday to the seaboard, and there we spied, lying in a sheltered bay, a long galley with three masts, each dressed with a single cross-spar for carrying a leg-of-mutton sail, and on the shore a couple of ship's boats with a company of men waiting to transport our goods and us aboard. And here our hearts quaked a bit at the thought of trusting ourselves in the hands of these same murderous-looking pirates. Nevertheless, when our time came we got us into their boat, recommending ourselves very heartily to God's mercy, and so were rowed out to the galley, where we were very civilly received by an old Moor with a white beard, who seemed well acquainted with Don Sanchez. Then the merchandise being all aboard, and the anchor up, the men went to their oars, a dozen of each side, and rowed us out of the bay until, catching a little wind of air, the sails were run up, and we put out to sea very bravely.