"Si, señor; and would hand it over safe and sound to the reverend chaplain," continued the old man, in a manner so impressive that a chill came over me, the more so as I saw his sunken eyes shining in the dim moonlight like two bits of green glass; "you will beware, my son and comrade, how you taste the wine of Xeres to-night." "The wine of Xeres, father pastor," said I, with a loud laugh; "Heaven forgive you for the tempting thought; I am not likely to taste aught to-night but the chilling dew; yet if a good cup of Xeres did come my way----" "Avoid it as you would poison, or by the soul of St. Anthony you will repent it." At that name I raised my hand to my cap in salute, like a good soldier of the regiment of Lagos; while waving his hand authoritatively, the old man hobbled up the slope of the mountain pass and disappeared. As he did so I heard the tinkle of a bell, and for the first time perceived a little pig trotting by his side as he vanished in the shadow of the mountain and its moonlit rocks. The scales fell from my eyes; por el Santo de los Santos, he was no other than our Lord Saint Anthony, whom I had seen. Who but he would have termed me "son and comrade?" sinner and fool that I was. The hair of my flesh stood up, as the Scripture says, and with a prayer on my lips I gored my poor nag with the spurs and dashed along the pass of the Sierra for two leagues more until the poor animal almost sank beneath me; but perceiving rest necessary for him, I reined up at the door of a lonely wayside inn, in a part of the country which was entirely unknown to me, and which seemed to be overshadowed by mountain peaks and masses of rock, the features and outlines of which were strange, and to me gloomy and fantastic. In my excitement, and the holy terror under which I laboured, I had evidently lost the path, and thus mistaking my way, had ridden, Heaven and St. Anthony alone knew whither. Solitary, dark, and desolate as this posada seemed,--and it was just the kind of place we so often read of in romances as being a rendezvous for robbers, and for having a landlord in their interest, with trap-doors under the beds, stains of blood upon the floors, old skeletons in the cellars, and a terrible reputation for mysterious appearances and unaccountable disappearances--it was a welcome halting-place for one so weary, so thirsty, and anxious as I was then, and so full of supernatural fear, as I never, for an instant, doubted having seen the blessed patron of our regiment, and to me at that time the human countenance even of a robber had been thrice welcome.