第210章

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.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." Inow laid my carpet bag on the bench as a pillow, and flung myself down.I should have been asleep instantly, but he of the red nightcap now commenced snoring awfully, which brought to my mind that I had not yet commended myself to my friend and Redeemer: I therefore prayed, and then sank to repose.