“May Baba,” says the old Moor; and repeating this phrase thrice (which is a sure sign of hearty welcome), he claps the Don’s hand, without shaking it, and lays his own upon his breast, the Don doing likewise. Then Don Sanchez, introducing us as we understood by his gestures, the old Moor bends his head gravely, putting his right hand first to his heart, next to his forehead, and then kissing the two foremost fingers laid across his lips, we replying as best we could with a bowing and scraping. These formalities concluded, the Don and the old Moor walk apart, and we squat down again to our mutton bones.
After a lengthy discussion the old Moor goes, and Don Sanchez, having paid the reckoning, leads us out of the town by many crooked alleys and cross-passages; he speaking never a word, and we asking no questions, but marvelling exceedingly what is to happen next. And, following a wall overhung by great palms, we turn a corner, and find there our old Moor standing beside an open door with a key in his hand. The old Moor gives the key into Don Sanchez’s hand, and with a very formal salutation, leaves us.
Then following the Don through the doorway, we find ourselves in a spacious garden, but quite wild for neglect; flower and weed and fruit all mingling madly together, but very beautiful to my eye, nevertheless, for the abundance of colour, the richness of the vegetables, and the graceful forms of the adjacent palms.
A house stood in the midst of this wilderness, and thither Don Sanchez picked his way, we at his heels still too amazed to speak. Beside the house was a well with a little wall about it, and seating himself on this, Don Sanchez opens his lips for the first time.
“My friend, Sidi ben Ahmed, has offered me the use of this place as long as we choose to stay here,” says he. “Go look in the house and tell me if you care to live in it for a year.”
CHAPTER XII.
How Don Sanchez very honestly offers to free us of our bargain if we will; but we will not.
The house, like nearly all Moorish houses of this class, was simply one large and lofty room, with a domed ceiling built of very thick masonry, to resist the heat of the sun. There was neither window nor chimney, the door serving to admit light and air, and let out the smoke if a fire were lighted within. One half of this chamber was dug out to a depth of a couple of feet, for the accommodation of cattle (the litter being thrown into the hollow as it is needed, and nought removed till it reaches the level of the other floor), and above this, about eight feet from the ground and four from the roof, was a kind of shelf (the breadth and length of that half), for the storage of fodder and a sleeping-place for the inhabitants, with no kind of partition, or any issue for the foul air from the cattle below.
“Are we to live a year in this hutch?” asks Moll, in affright.
“Have done with your chatter, Moll!” answers Jack, testily. “Don’t you see I’m a-thinking? Heaven knows there’s enough to swallow without any bugbears of your raising.”
With that, having finished his inspection of the interior, he goes out and looks at it outside.
“Well,” says Don Sanchez, “what think you of the house?”
“Why, Señor, ’tis no worse as I can see than any other in these parts, and hath this advantage, which they have not, of being in a sweet air. With a bit of contrivance we could make a shift to live here well enough. We should not do amiss neither for furniture, seeing that ’tis the custom of the country to eat off the floor and sit upon nothing. A pot to cook victuals in is about all we need in that way. But how we are to get anything to cook in it is one mystery, and” (clacking his tongue) “what we are going to drink is another, neither of which I can fathom. For, look you, Señor, if one may judge of men’s characters by their faces or of their means by their habitations, we may dance our legs off ere ever these Moors will bestow a penny piece upon us, and as for their sour milk, I’d as lief drink hemlock, and liefer. Now, if this town had been as we counted on, like Barcelona, all had gone as merry as a marriage bell, for then might we have gained enough to keep us in jollity as long as you please; but here, if we die not of the colicks in a week, ’twill be to perish of starvation in a fortnight. What say you, Kit?”
I was forced to admit that I had never seen a town less likely to afford a subsistence than this.
Then Don Sanchez, having heard us with great patience, and waited a minute to see if we could raise any further objections, answers us in measured tones.
“I doubt not,” says he, “that with a little ingenuity you may make the house habitable and this wilderness agreeable. My friend, Sidi ben Ahmed, has offered to provide us with what commodities are necessary to that end. I agree with you that it would be impossible to earn the meanest livelihood here by dancing; it would not be advisable if we could. For that reason, my knowledge of various tongues making me very serviceable to Sidi ben Ahmed (who is the most considerable merchant of this town), I have accepted an office in his house. This will enable me to keep my engagement with you. You will live at my charge, as I promised, and you shall want for nothing in reason. If the Moors drink no wine themselves, they make excellent for those who will, and you shall not be stinted in that particular.”
“Come, this sounds fair enough,” cries Dawson. “But pray, Señor, are we to do nothing for our keep?”
“Nothing beyond what we came here to do,” replies he, with a meaning glance at Moll.
“What!” cries poor Moll, in pain. “We are to dance no more!”
The Don shook his head gravely; and, remembering the jolly, vagabond, careless, adventurous life we had led these past two months and more, with a thousand pleasant incidents of our happy junketings, we were all downcast at the prospect of living in this place—though a paradise—for a year without change.
“Though I promised you no more than I offer,” says the Don, “yet if this prospect displease you, we will cry quits and part here. Nay,” adds he, taking a purse from his pocket, “I will give you the means to return to Alicante, where you may live as better pleases you.”
It seemed to me that there was an unfeigned carelessness in his manner, as if he would as lief as not throw up this hazardous enterprise for some other more sure undertaking. And, indeed, I believe he was then balancing another alternative in his mind.
At this generous offer Moll dashed away the tears that had sprung to her eyes, brightening up wonderfully, but then, casting her eyes upon the Don, her face fell again as at the thought of leaving him. For we all admired him, and she prodigiously, for his great reserve and many good qualities which commanded respect, and this feeling was tinged in her case, I believe, with a kind of growing affection.
Seeing this sentiment in her eyes, the Don was clearly touched by it, and so, laying his hand gently on her shoulder, he says:
“My poor child, remember you the ugly old women we saw dancing at Barcelona? They were not more than forty; what will they be like in a few years? Who will tolerate them? who love them? Is that the end you choose for your own life—that the estate to which our little princess shall fall?”
“No, no, no!” cries she, in a passion, clenching her little hands and throwing up her head in disdain.
“And no, no, no, say I,” cries Dawson. “Were our case ten times as bad, I’d not go back from my word. As it is, we are not to be pitied, and I warrant ere long we make ourselves to be envied. Come, Kit, rouse you out of your lethargies, and let us consult how we may improve our condition here; and do you, Señor, pray order us a little of that same excellent wine you spoke of, if it be but a pint, when you feel disposed that way.”
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