As one may easily suppose, the late occurrence caused the conversation to run very much upon robbers and their exploits; thus we heard stories of wanton cruelty sufficient to make the hair of a well-regulated Briton stand erect on end; but as these tales closely resembled the common stock of robber narratives, especially such as we are told by romancers, who have been smitten with what has been termed the bandittiphobia, I will not attempt to rehearse them all. One or two of these relations struck me as having something peculiar in them. "I was once passing through Antequera," began the venerable José Torquemada, "that city so famed for robbers and picaros-- "Ay de mi! señor padre," said a goatherd of Honda, "it was once famed lor something better." "True, my child," replied the old priest, approvingly; "for it was there Don Ferdinand the Just, the valiant Infante of Castile, in the fifteenth century, founded the noble order of the Jar of Lilies, in honour of our Blessed Lady, by whose aid his good and valiant knights stormed the city from the Moors, and slew fifteen thousand of those God-abandoned infidels. Ah mi hijo! it was something to be a Spaniard then! But to return; I was once passing through that same city of Antequera, when I had an adventure with Don Fabrique-- "With Fabrique de Urquija?" exclaimed all, drawing nearer the padre and lowering their voices. "Ave Maria!" exclaimed Don Joaquim, "this must indeed be something worth hearing." "The more so, as I realised a pretty round sum by it," continued the priest. "You all know Antequera, señores, a handsome town on the plain between Granada and Seville, and situated in a land that teems with oil and wine. One night when the hour was late, and no moon had risen, I was passing through the great street which leads to the old Moorish castle, and counting ever and anon in the pocket of my cassock three poor pistareens, which were all I possessed, but which I was hastening to bestow upon a poor widow. Her husband, a brave guerilla, had been taken in a skirmish at the Pena de los Enamorados (or Lover's Rock), which stands a league from Antequera, and, after a brave resistance, had been bound with cords, and shot that morning in the Plaza--" "By the Count de Morella?" cried Don Joaquim. "Yes, by Cabrera." "Bah--I thought so," said the major, grinding his teeth; "proceed, reverend padre." "The little pistareens were all I had in the world, and when I thought of the poor widow and her six children weeping by the corpse of their unburied father, and unable to buy masses for his sinful soul, I paused to gaze at the old castle of the Moors, and sighed to know the secret of the treasures that lay hid among its ruins; and then I craved pardon of Madonna for the thought, as all the gold of the infidels is buried under the spell of such enchantment as no man may break and live.