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Then turning to the company, he said in a sonorous tone, laying a strong emphasis on the last syllable of every word, according to the custom of the gente rufianesca throughout Spain: "Cavaliers, and strong men, this cavalier is the friend of a friend of mine. Es mucho hombre. There is none like him in Spain. He speaks the crabbed Gitano though he is an Inglesito."
"I answered the robber, for such he was, and one, too, whose name will live for many years in the ruffian histories of Madrid I answered him in a speech of some length, in the dialect of the Estremenian Gypsies. "'I believe it is the crabbed Gitano, muttered Balseiro. 'It is either that or English, for I understand not a word of it.
He is so what you call peculiar that he writes no letters, leaves no address, and roves here and there like a born gitano." "Have you ill news for him?" "I have the best a man could desire; but fear that while I look for him he has gone to make a disappointment for himself. You are a friend, I think?" "I am." "Then you know much of him, his life, his ways?" "Yes, both from himself and Mr. Moor."
In a brief space of time a sensible diminution of the strain warned him that the gitano had found some additional means of support. For the space of about three minutes Paco sat still, holding the rope firmly, but giving out no more of it; then pulling towards him, he found it come to his hand without opposition.
Such was the end of Balseiro, of whom I should certainly not have said so much, but for the affair of the crabbed Gitano. Poor wretch! he acquired that species of immortality which is the object of the aspirations of many a Spanish thief, whilst vapouring about in the patio, dressed in the snowy linen; the rape of the children of Gabiria made him at once the pet of the fraternity.
Consoling himself with the fact that he was not ordered to close his Despacho, and refusing the advice that was tendered to him to erase from its windows the yellow-lettered sign, he determined to continue his campaign with the Bibles that were on their way to him, and the Gitano and Basque versions of St Luke as soon as they were ready.
'Vamos Inglesito, shouted Sevilla, in a voice of thunder; 'answer the monro in the crabbed Gitano. I answered the robber, for such he was, and one too whose name will live for many a year in the ruffian histories of Madrid; I answered him in a speech of some length, in the dialect of the Estremenian gypsies. 'I believe it is the crabbed Gitano, muttered Balseiro.
"What should you imagine, Preciosa, but that the same power which has made me a gitano, has made him put on the dress of a miller, and come in search of you? Ah, Preciosa! Preciosa! how plain it begins to be that you pride yourself on having more than one adorer. If this be so, finish me first, and then kill off this other, but do not sacrifice both at the same time to your perfidy."
Here the eloquent old gitano closed his discourse, and the novice replied, that he congratulated himself much on having been made acquainted with such laudable statutes; that he desired to make profession of an order so based on reason and politic principles; that his only regret was that he had not sooner come to the knowledge of so pleasant a life; and that from that moment he renounced his knighthood, and the vain glory of his illustrious lineage, and placed them beneath the yoke, or beneath the laws under which they lived, forasmuch as they so magnificently recompensed the desire he had to serve them, in bestowing upon him the divine Preciosa, for whom he would surrender many crowns and wide empires, or desire them only for her sake.
Some of the country people, who worked in the vineyards among the hills, believed the old man to be one that dealt in the black art, and were not over-fond of passing near the tower at night; "but for our parts," said the Gitano, "we are not a people that trouble ourselves much with fears of that kind." The student endeavoured to gain more precise information, but they had none to furnish him.
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