She meanwhile continued to talk to him in her own language. She became excited by degrees. Her eye became bloodshot and terrible to look at, her features contracted, and she stamped upon the floor. It seemed to me that she was earnestly urging him to do something which he evidently hesitated to do. What that something was, I fancied that I understood only too well, when I saw her draw her little hand swiftly back and forth under her chin. I was tempted to believe that it was a matter of cutting a throat, and I had some suspicion that the throat in question was my own. To all this torrent of eloquence Don José replied only by two or three words uttered in a sharp tone. Thereupon the gypsy bestowed on him a glance of supreme contempt; then seated herself Turkish fashion in a corner of the room, selected an orange, peeled it, and began to eat it. Don José seized my arm, opened the door and led me into the street. We walked about two hundred yards in absolute silence. Then he said, extending his hand: “Go straight ahead and you will come to the bridge.” With that he turned his back on me and walked rapidly away. I returned to my inn rather sheepishly and in a very bad temper. The worst feature of the affair was that when I undressed I found that my watch was missing. Various considerations deterred me from going the next day to demand it back, or from applying to the corregidor to recover it for me. I completed my work on the manuscript at the Dominican convent and departed for Seville. After wandering about Andalusia for several months, I determined to return to Madrid, and it was necessary for me to pass through Cordova once more. I did not propose to make a long stay there, for I had taken a violent dislike to that fair city and the bathers in the Guadalquivir. However, a few errands to do and some friends to call upon would detain me three or four days at least in the ancient capital of the Mussulman princes. When I appeared at the Dominican convent, one of the fathers, who had taken a lively interest in my investigations concerning the location of Munda, welcomed me with open arms. “Blessed be the name of God!” he cried. “Welcome, my dear friend! We all believed you to be dead, and I who speak to you, I have recited many _paters_ and _aves_, which I do not regret, for the welfare of your soul. So you were not murdered?--for robbed we know that you were.” “How so?” I asked, not a little astonished. “Why, yes--you know, that beautiful repeating watch that you used to make strike in the library when we told you that it was time to go to the choir. Well! it has been recovered; it will be restored to you.” “That is to say,” I interrupted, somewhat disconcerted, “I lost it----”