I wondered at what period of their lives they had acquired
their dexterity at natation.
I hoped it was not at a time when,
according to their vows, they should have lived for prayer,
fasting, and mortification alone. Swimming is a noble exercise,
but it certainly does not tend to mortify either the flesh or the
spirit. As it was becoming dusk, we returned to the town, when my
friend bade me a kind farewell. I then retired to my apartment,
and passed some hours in meditation.
It was night, ten o'clock; - eleven o'clock, and the cabriolet was
at the door. I got in, and we proceeded down the avenue and along
the shore, which was quite deserted. 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.
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