The emperor was very fond of living in the country, and had many palaces of different kinds in the province of Micomican. One day Juan was working in a kitchen garden near the road, when far away he saw the carriage of the emperor coming at a rate almost equal to that of a soul that the devil was trying to carry off. “I’ll bet you,” said Juan, “that the horses have escaped from his majesty, and some misfortune is going to happen! It would be a great pity, for under present circumstances an emperor is worth an empire.” Juan was not mistaken. The emperor’s horses had escaped, and the emperor was yelling: “God take pity on me! I’m going to break my neck over one of those precipices! Isn’t there a son of a gun to save me? To whoever throws himself at the head of these confounded horses, I’ll give whatever he asks, though it be the very shirt on my back.” But no one dared throw himself at the horses’ heads; for they tore along at such a furious rate that to rush at them was to rush into eternity. Juan, enraged at the cowardice of the other workmen, and moved by his love for the emperor as well as his natural propensity to do good without looking at the person to whom he did it, threw himself at the horses’ heads, and succeeded in stopping the coach, to the admiration of the emperor himself, who at that moment would not have given a brass farthing for his life. “Ask whatever you like,” said the emperor to him, “for everything appears to me small as a recompense to the man who has rendered me so signal a service.” “Sire!” said Juan to him, “I, under present circumstances, am a poor day laborer, and the day that I don’t gain a couple of _pesetas_ my wife and I have to fast. So, if your majesty will only assure me my day’s labor whether it rains or whether it is fine weather, my wife and I will sing our lives away in happiness, for we are people content with very little.” “That’s pretty clear. Well, go along, it’s granted. The day that you have nothing to do anywhere else, go to one of my palaces, whichever you like, and occupy yourself there in whatever way you please.” “Thank you, sire!” “What! No; no reason for thanks, man. That is a mere nothing.” The emperor went on his road happy enough, and Juan went on his, thinking of the great joy he was about to give his wife when he returned home at night, and told her that he had his day’s work secured for the rest of his life whether it rained or was fine weather. In fact, his wife was greatly rejoiced when he carried her the good news. They supped, and went to bed in peace and in the grace of God, and Juan slept like one of the blessed; but Ramona passed the whole night turning about in the bed like one who has some trouble or desire that will not let him sleep. “Do you know what I have been thinking the whole night long, Juan?” said Ramona, the following morning. “What?” “That yesterday you were a fool to ask so little from the emperor.” “Indeed! What more had I to ask?”