第31章

I had not been seated long before the blazing pile, when a fellow, mounted on a fine spirited horse, dashed from the stables through the passage into the kitchen, where he commenced displaying his horsemanship, by causing the animal to wheel about with the velocity of a millstone, to the great danger of everybody in the apartment.He then galloped out upon the plain, and after half an hour's absence returned, and having placed his horse once more in the stable, came and seated himself next to me, to whom he commenced talking in a gibberish of which I understood very little, but which he intended for French.He was half intoxicated, and soon became three parts so, by swallowing glass after glass of aguardiente.

Finding that I made him no answer, he directed his discourse to one of the contrabandistas, to whom he talked in bad Spanish.

The latter either did not or would not understand him; but at last, losing patience, called him a drunkard, and told him to hold his tongue.The fellow, enraged at this contempt, flung the glass out of which he was drinking at the Spaniard's head, who sprang up like a tiger, and unsheathing instantly a snick and snee knife, made an upward cut at the fellow's cheek, and would have infallibly laid it open, had I not pulled his arm down just in time to prevent worse effects than a scratch above the lower jawbone, which, however, drew blood.

The smuggler's companions interfered, and with much difficulty led him off to a small apartment in the rear of the house, where they slept, and kept the furniture of their mules.

The drunkard then commenced singing, or rather yelling, the Marseillois hymn; and after having annoyed every one for nearly an hour, was persuaded to mount his horse and depart, accompanied by one of his neighbours.He was a pig merchant of the vicinity, but had formerly been a trooper in the army of Napoleon, where, I suppose, like the drunken coachman of Evora, he had picked up his French and his habits of intoxication.

From Estremoz to Elvas the distance is six leagues.Istarted at nine next morning; the first part of the way lay through an enclosed country, but we soon emerged upon wild bleak downs, over which the wind, which still pursued us, howled most mournfully.We met no one on the route; and the scene was desolate in the extreme; the heaven was of a dark grey, through which no glimpse of the sun was to be perceived.

Before us, at a great distance, on an elevated ground, rose a tower - the only object which broke the monotony of the waste.

In about two hours from the time when we first discovered it, we reached a fountain, at the foot of the hill on which it stood; the water, which gushed into a long stone trough, was beautifully clear and transparent, and we stopped here to water the animals.