"Though such a little beauty is not uncommon in Spain, the robbers of Don Julian gazed upon her with gloating eyes of evil admiration and longing; many of them licked their huge blubber lips with grim and grotesque glee, as if anticipating kisses; while the poor sinking girl shrunk from their bold and villainous gaze, as she would have done from the eyes of so many serpents or fiends. "'Teresa, hold up your head, my dear girl; do not droop before these base ladrones, stained as they are by a thousand atrocities. Dios! should innocence quail before guilt?' said the young peasant with a fearlessness that at once gained him my sympathy and admiration; and for a time I forgot my own troubles in those of the strangers. 'Be bold of heart, my sweet sister! We are possessed of that which can touch even the hearts of these bad men, and unlock the doors of their prison-house.' "'You are mistaken in this idea, Señor Perez el Cantarero,' said Don Julian, with a quiet sneer, while his band crowded round with lowering brows and gloating eyes. 'Quite mistaken, allow me to inform you. Your honest uncle, the abagado (O most honest lawyer of Santarem!) has refused to ransom you. Our messenger, the very reverend rabbi, Isacco Zendono, has come back just now empty-handed.' "The girl shrieked and hid her face in the bosom of her brother, who gazed around him with a look of rage, astonishment, and stupefaction. "Isacco, the Jew, burst into an uncontrollable fit of laughter, in which Don Julian and his comrades joined. "'Out upon ye, villains,' exclaimed Perez the potter, shaking his clenched hand at them. "'O Perez, por amor de mi,' urged his sister, in a breathless voice. "'Teresa, my poor Teresa,' muttered the brother through his hard-set teeth, 'I had doubts, dreadful doubts; but I expected not this. Answer, Señor Don Julian d'Aviero, does this black-hearted slave of Mammon, this villain of an abagado, forget that he retains in his repositories the inheritance left us by old Gil Perez, the alcalde of Santarem?' "'In truth, most blustering señor, most valiant cavalier of crocks and cans, your father's honest brother has not forgotten that important fact,' replied Julian d'Aviero, in his cool, dry way. 'The abagado will act true to his trade, by deceiving those who trust him. His trade! May the great Devil confound it, for it has stripped me of as fair an heritage as ever came from a miserly sire to a spendthrift son. Well, Señor Perez, in short, to possess himself of your two thousand dollars, and practise a little profitable conveyancing, your relative the lawyer has stoutly declined to ransom you, saith our messenger, swearing by the bones of St. James, he would not yield the hundredth part of a pezzo to save you from the jaws of hell.' "'Be it so,' muttered Perez, between his clenched teeth; 'in the world that is to come, he will meet with his reward.'