"There, desirous in vain to breathe a vein and flash once more in battle, it lay long unnoticed and covered with rust, till, by command of her master, a greasy kitchen-wench stuck it through a large capon, and thus forced that which had been a rapier of high renown, arming the hands of the noble and valiant, to degenerate into a mere spit! "About this time, it likewise chanced that a clownish paisano, by the sport of fortune became a hidalgo at court, and as he must needs have a sword, he repaired to the booth of an espadero, who no sooner saw the kind of customer he had to deal with, than he knew that anything having a hilt and scabbard would do, and so desired him to call next day. "Against the time of his coming he furbished up an old spit that lay in his kitchen, and sold it to our courtier as Tisona, the very same blade with which the Cid Rodrigo of Bivar made the Arabian Khalifs skip at Cordova, and the Moorish dogs at Jaen. Hence we see that the innkeeper was a very great fool, and the espadero a very great rogue." "And what am I to understand by all this?" asked Quentin, who with some impatience had permitted the Spaniard to read thus far. "Simply, senor, that though by the vicissitudes of fortune, I seem a spit at present, I may prove in the end to be a good Toledo blade; for we should never judge solely by appearances;" and pointing to a hole in his sheepskin zamarra, he laughed and added, "Farewell--I go towards the mountains." "And I towards Spain: I have but two wishes--to reach Herreruela, and to avoid the French in Valencia." "Truly, they are well and wisely avoided," said the Spaniard through his clenched teeth, while his face became distorted and convulsed by concentrated hate and passion. "Save myself and another, my whole family have perished under their hands. Not even our aged mother was spared, for she died like my helpless old father by their bayonets, on the night that Junot entered Salamanca; and well would it have been if some of the young had suffered the same fate _first_. I had three sisters, senor--three lovelier girls, or three more loving, good, and gentle, God's blessed sun never shone on. Two suffered such wrongs on that night of horrors at Salamanca, that they could not or would not survive them; the youngest, Isidora, happily escaped by being in the convent of Santa Engracia, at Portalegre." Impressed by the undoubted earnestness of the Spaniard, Quentin said-- "I am bound to the frontier, bearer of a secret despatch." "To whom?" "Honour ties my tongue for the present, senor."