“Behold,” I said to myself, “all that remains of the population of the ancient Munda Bœtica! O Cæsar! O Sextus Pompey! how surprised you would be, should you return to earth!” At sight of my companion, the old woman uttered an exclamation of surprise. “Ah! Señor Don José!” she cried. Don José frowned and raised his hand with an authoritative gesture which instantly silenced the old woman. I turned to my guide, and with an imperceptible sign gave him to understand that there was nothing that he could tell me concerning the man with whom I was about to pass the night. The supper was better than I anticipated. On a small table about a foot high we were served with an aged rooster, fricasseed with rice and an abundance of peppers; then with peppers in oil; and lastly with _gaspacho_, a sort of pepper salad. Three dishes thus highly seasoned compelled us to have frequent recourse to a skin of Montilla wine, which was delicious. After we had eaten, happening to spy a mandolin hanging on the wall,--there are mandolins everywhere in Spain,--I asked the little girl who waited on us if she knew how to play it. “No,” she replied, “but Don José plays it so well!” “Be good enough,” I said to him, “to sing me something; I am passionately fond of your national music.” “I can refuse no request of such a gallant gentleman, who gives me such excellent cigars,” said Don José, good-naturedly. And, having asked for the mandolin, he sang to his own accompaniment. His voice was rough, but very agreeable, the tune melancholy and weird; as for the words, I did not understand a syllable. “If I am not mistaken,” I said, “that is not a Spanish air. It resembles the _zorzicos_ which I have heard in the Provinces,[2] and the words must be Basque.” “Yes,” replied Don José, with a gloomy air. He placed the mandolin on the floor, and sat with folded arms, gazing at the dying fire with a strange expression of melancholy. His face at once noble and fierce, lighted by a lamp that stood on the low table, reminded me of Milton’s Satan. Perhaps, like him, my companion was thinking of the sojourn that he had left, of the banishment that he had incurred by a sin. I tried to revive the conversation, but he did not answer, absorbed as he was in his sad thoughts. The old woman had already retired in one corner of the room, behind an old torn blanket suspended by a cord. The little girl had followed her to that retreat, reserved for the fair sex. Thereupon my guide rose and invited me to accompany him to the stable; but at that suggestion Don José, as if suddenly awakened, asked him roughly where he was going. “To the stable,” was the guide’s reply. “What for? The horses have their feed. Sleep here; the señor will not object.” “I am afraid the señor’s horse is sick; I would like the señor to see him; perhaps he will know what to do for him.”