Customers
for water were therefore still abroad. Peregil, like a considerate,
painstaking father, thought of his hungry children. "One more
journey to the well," said he to himself, "to earn a Sunday's
puchero for the little ones." So saying, he trudged manfully up the
steep avenue of the Alhambra, singing as he went, and now and then
bestowing a hearty thwack with a cudgel on the flanks of his donkey,
either by way of cadence to the song, or refreshment to the animal;
for dry blows serve in lieu of provender in Spain for all beasts of
burden.
When arrived at the well, he found it deserted by every one except a
solitary stranger in Moorish garb, seated on a stone bench in the
moonlight. Peregil paused at first and regarded him with surprise, not
unmixed with awe, but the Moor feebly beckoned him to approach. "I
am faint and ill," said he, "aid me to return to the city, and I
will pay thee double what thou couldst gain by thy jars of water."
The honest heart of the little water-carrier was touched with
compassion at the appeal of the stranger. "God forbid," said he, "that
I should ask fee or reward for doing a common act of humanity." He
accordingly helped the Moor on his donkey, and set off slowly for
Granada, the poor Moslem being so weak that it was necessary to hold
him on the animal to keep him from falling to the earth.
When they entered the city, the water-carrier demanded whither he
should conduct him.
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