The happy animal seemed proud of his royal burthen; Sebastian then fell into a train of less distracted but equally wounding thought, till by degrees stupor succeeded to frenzy; his feelings became benumbed and “a waveless calm” spread over them: imperceptibly every agitating image faded away, till deep sleep, like midnight darkness, buried all things in profound oblivion. Early the next day, after seeing his nobler guests on their horses, Lopez came to learn how the poor traveller had rested; he found him asleep with Barémel. On advancing to awake them, the dog sprung and seized the good man by his coat--Sebastian opened his eyes, and at his command Barémel released old Lopez. “Thou’rt an honest fellow I’ll be sworn!” exclaimed the latter, “or this dog would not have taken a fancy to thee.--Come, get up and let me give thee some breakfast.” Briefly thanking him for his offer, the King enquired how he came to be in possession of a creature that had once belonged to their sovereign. Lopez eyed him curiously; “So, thou hast been a courtier, friend! or mayhap a soldier, and--” Sebastian interrupted him, willing to lull the curiosity which might otherwise annoy him. “I am a soldier,” he said, “lately escaped from Africa. After fourteen months slavery, I have returned to my country to find some friends dead, many perfidious; my rights usurped by others, and the woman I adored, false,--false as hell!” he paused, and the before pale gloom of his countenance, was now changed to the crimson flush of frenzy;--then recollecting himself, he added, “wonder not that I am half distracted--the sight of this dog, which I remember to have seen following the King, has brought back some ideas that ought never again to agitate this betrayed heart.--How did you get this dog?” “Why, by good luck,” replied Lopez, “one of my cousins, you see, is under scullion in the kitchen of the Donna Gonsalva Vimiosa--she that our last King was to have married. Sorrow on her! what a jade she has proved! worse, I reckon, than the woman you are raving about--Come, come man, don’t shake so; women were sad deceiving devils ever since the fall.--I dare say now, your jilt had not played the harlot with your cousin, as this Donna Gonsalva has done? all the world cried shame on her. You see, in less than five months after the King’s sailing for Africa, she brings into the world a chopping child, at first my lady tried to make it out the King’s, and said they were privately married; but on Don Emanuel de Castro’s getting back from Barbary, he disproved that story somehow, and she would have gone to die in the inquisition, had not the prior Antonio boldly owned her and the child, procured an absolution for them both from the Pope, and so forced the present King to pardon her.