"So the great Marquis de Pombul thought," L'Isle answered; "for when a great crowd had assembled to see him open a fountain he had erected in Lisbon, on a courtier's saying, 'See, my Lord, like Moses, you make water flow from the rock!' 'Yes,' replied the marquis, 'and here are the Jews looking at me.'" "And our host," said Mrs. Shortridge, "is doubtless one of these New Christians." "But has the commissary," Lady Mabel asked, "a right to make the requisition with which he threatens him?" "Not on his own authority," said L'Isle, laughing. "But these people would well deserve that we should sweep off every mule and yoke of oxen around Evora. Last year when we were collecting materials for the siege of Badajoz, the ungrateful rascals would not send a single cart to help us." "Why, were we not fighting their battles?" Lady Mabel exclaimed. "Would they not assist in their own defence?" "Badajoz is not within sight of Evora, and that was enough for these short-sighted patriots." "Has such blind selfishness a parallel?" asked Lady Mabel. "Many," said L'Isle. "We may at times find one at home, in the wisdom of a whig ministry, which consists in taking a microscopic view of the wrong side of things just under their noses." They now mounted their horses, and leaving the _praca_, had entered on a narrow and somewhat crooked street, where they suddenly met a funeral procession, with its priests, crucifix and tapers, the dead being carried by several persons on a bier, and followed by a few peasants. The travelers drew up their horses close to the adjacent wall, to leave room for the procession. The face of the dead was uncovered as usual, and the friar's dress which clothed the body, with the rosaries and other paraphernalia displayed about his person, led Lady Mabel to say, "I see that one of the good fathers is gone to his account." "He will now find out," said Moodie, "the worth of his beads, crucifix and holy water." "I am surprised," said Lady Mabel, "at so unpretending a funeral, in the case of a member of the great order of St. Francis." L'Isle asked a question of a Portuguese standing near, and then said, "The cowl does not make the monk, nor must you infer from his dress that this man was a friar. He lived all his life a peasant in a neighboring village." "Indeed!" exclaimed Lady Mabel.