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Updated: June 23, 2025
Descending again, we emerged into a clearer atmosphere, and saw below us a wide extent of mountain country, but of a more fertile and cheerful character. Olive orchards and wheat-fields now appeared; and, at four o'clock, we rode into the streets of Ronda. No town can surpass this in the grandeur and picturesqueness of its position.
'All who know me? 'Yes, she continued; 'Father Concha, Senora Barenna, my father, and others at Ronda. 'Ah! And what leads them to mistrust me? 'Your own actions, replied Estella. And Conyngham was too simple-minded, too inexperienced in such matters, to understand the ring of anxiety in her voice.
A fierce and warlike populace was at his command; his signal-fires could summon all the warriors of the Serrania; his Gomeres almost subsisted on the spoils of Andalusia; and in the rock on which his fortress was built were hopeless dungeons filled with Christian captives carried off by these war-hawks of the mountains. Ronda was considered as impregnable.
'We have quite a number of soldiers in Ronda at present, he said, with an affectionate little pressure of Conyngham's arm, as if to indicate his appreciation of such protection amid these rough men. 'There is a great talk of some rising in the South in Andalusia to support Senor Cabrera, who continually threatens Madrid.
'Mother of God! these Guardias Civiles! The two guards came clambering down the face of the rock. Concepcion glanced at his late companion writhing in the sharpness of death. 'Here or at Ronda, to-day, or to-morrow, what matters it? muttered the quiet-eyed man at Conyngham's side. The Englishman turned and looked at him. 'They will shoot me too, but not now.
It was not merely that he distrusted Esteban, but he knew Shere, the cadet of an impoverished family, who had come out from England to a small estate in the Ronda valley, which had belonged to his house since the days of the Duke of Wellington in Spain.
The cross-eyed bully did not deign to make any reply. The three chums went to the square that faces Toledo bridge; near by, at a stand owned by Garatusa, a penitentiary graduate who ran a "fence" for thieves and didn't lose any money at it, they had a drink and then, walking along Ocho Hilos Avenue they came to the Ronda de Toledo. The vicinity of El Rastro was thronged with Sunday crowds.
But as a matter of history they were likewise the haunts of brigands in flesh and blood malefactors in the past had that sense of the picturesque which now is vested in the amateur photographer and this particular district was as dangerous to the travelling merchant as any in Spain. The environs of Ronda are barren and unfertile, the olive groves bear little fruit.
The students seem each prepared to guide strangers through Ronda, but sometimes they fail of strangers. That was the case with the pathetic young hunchback whom we met in Alameda, and who owned that he had guided none that day.
But the present circumstances wouldn't fit into anything he could imagine. He could only remember the bravely smiling girl who had seen him off five years before. He heard a babble of voices outside, but he didn't look out. The walk had exhausted him. Hard as the bed was, it was better than standing up. Anyhow, if Ronda came back, he was pretty sure she would be warned of his presence.
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