The Waves Sounded Mournfully;
Everything Seemed To Have Changed Since The Morning.
I even
thought that the horse's feet sounded differently, as it trotted
slowly over the moist firm sand.
The driver, however, was by no
means mournful, nor inclined to be silent long: he soon commenced
asking me an infinity of questions as to whence I came and whither
I was bound. Having given him what answers I thought most proper,
I, in return, asked him whether he was not afraid to drive along
that beach, which had always borne so bad a character, at so
unseasonable an hour. Whereupon, he looked around him, and seeing
no person, he raised a shout of derision, and said that a fellow
with his whiskers feared not all the thieves that ever walked the
playa, and that no dozen men in San Lucar dare to waylay any
traveller whom they knew to be beneath his protection. He was a
good specimen of the Andalusian braggart. We soon saw a light or
two shining dimly before us; they proceeded from a few barks and
small vessels stranded on the sand close below Bonanza: amongst
them I distinguished two or three dusky figures. We were now at
our journey's end, and stopped before the door of the place where I
was to lodge for the night. The driver, dismounting, knocked loud
and long, until the door was opened by an exceedingly stout man of
about sixty years of age; he held a dim light in his hand, and was
dressed in a red nightcap and dirty striped shirt. He admitted us,
without a word, into a very large long room with a clay floor. A
species of counter stood on one side near the door; behind it stood
a barrel or two, and against the wall, on shelves, many bottles of
various sizes. The smell of liquors and wine was very powerful. I
settled with the driver and gave him a gratuity, whereupon he asked
me for something to drink to my safe journey. I told him he could
call for whatever he pleased; whereupon he demanded a glass of
aguardiente, which the master of the house, who had stationed
himself behind the counter, handed him without saying a word. The
fellow drank it off at once, but made a great many wry faces after
having swallowed it, and, coughing, said that he made no doubt it
was good liquor, as it burnt his throat terribly. He then embraced
me, went out, mounted his cabriolet, and drove off.
The old man with the red nightcap now moved slowly to the door,
which he bolted and otherwise secured; he then drew forward two
benches, which he placed together, and pointed to them as if to
intimate to me that there was my bed: he then blew out the candle
and retired deeper into the apartment, where I heard him lay
himself down sighing and snorting. There was now no farther light
than what proceeded from a small earthen pan on the floor, filled
with water and oil, on which floated a small piece of card with a
lighted wick in the middle, which simple species of lamp is called
"mariposa." I now laid my carpet bag on the bench as a pillow, and
flung myself down.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 368 of 424
Words from 192921 to 193471
of 222596
