The people of the inn had a slightly hang-dog look, but this was a circumstance about which we had long since ceased to concern ourselves, accustomed as we were to meet with faces more or less repulsive. A fragment of their conversation which we overheard proved that their sentiments corresponded to their faces. Thinking that we did not understand Spanish, they asked the _escopetero_ whether they could not do a little stroke of business by lying in wait for us a few leagues further on. Jose Maria's old associate replied, with most perfect nobleness and majesty, "I shall suffer nothing of the kind, as these two young gentlemen form part of the company in which I myself am travelling. Besides, they expect to be robbed, and have only as much as is strictly necessary for the journey, the rest of their money being in bills of exchange on Seville. Again, they are both strong tall men; as for the engineer, he is _my friend_, and we have four carbines in the _galera_." This persuasive mode of argument produced its effect on our host and his acolytes, who, on this occasion, contented themselves with the ordinary method of plundering that the innkeepers of all countries are permitted to practise. In spite of all the frightful stories about brigands which are related by travellers and the natives themselves, this was our only adventure, and the most dramatic incident during our long peregrinations through the provinces which are accounted the most dangerous in all Spain, and at a time that was certainly favourable for this kind of meeting: the Spanish brigand was for us a purely chimerical being, an abstraction, a poetic fiction. We never once perceived the least sign of a _trabuco_, and we became, as far as robbers were concerned, as incredulous as the English gentleman mentioned by Mérimée, and who, having fallen into the hands of a band of brigands who plundered him, would insist that they were only theatrical supernumeraries dressed up and posted there to play him a trick.