He was
evidently a thorough Andalusian, boastful as brave. His sabre was
always in his hand or under his arm. He carries it always about with
him as a child does her doll, calls it his Santa Teresa, and says,
"When I draw it, the earth trembles" ("tiembla la tierra").
I sat until a late hour listening to the varied themes of this
motley group, who mingled together with the unreserve of a Spanish
posada. We had contrabandista songs, stories of robbers, guerilla
exploits, and Moorish legends. The last were from our handsome
landlady, who gave a poetical account of the infiernos, or infernal
regions of Loxa, dark caverns, in which subterranean streams and
waterfalls make a mysterious sound. The common people say that there
are money-coiners shut up there from the time of the Moors, and that
the Moorish kings kept their treasures in those caverns.
I retired to bed with my imagination excited by all that I had
seen and heard in this old warrior city. Scarce had I fallen asleep
when I was aroused by a horrid din and uproar, that might have
confounded the hero of La Mancha himself whose experience of Spanish
inns was a continual uproar. It seemed for a moment as if the Moors
were once more breaking into the town, or the infiernos of which
mine hostess talked had broken loose. I sallied forth half dressed
to reconnoiter. It was nothing more nor less than a charivari to
celebrate the nuptials of an old man with a buxom damsel.
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