yet attracted me. The
doctor's phrase--an innocent--came back to me; and I was wondering if
that were, after all, the true description, when the road began to go
down into the narrow and naked chasm of a torrent. The waters thundered
tumultuously in the bottom; and the ravine was filled full of the sound,
the thin spray, and the claps of wind, that accompanied their descent.
The scene was certainly impressive; but the road was in that part very
securely walled in; the mule went steadily forward; and I was astonished
to perceive the paleness of terror in the face of my companion. The
voice of that wild river was inconstant, now sinking lower as if in
weariness, now doubling its hoarse tones; momentary freshets seemed to
swell its volume, sweeping down the gorge, raving and booming against
the barrier walls; and I observed it was at each of these accessions to
the clamour that my driver more particularly winced and blanched. Some
thoughts of Scottish superstition and the river-kelpie passed across my
mind; I wondered if perchance the like were prevalent in that part of
Spain; and turning to Felipe, sought to draw him out.

"What is the matter?" I asked.

"Oh, I am afraid," he replied.

"Of what are you afraid?" I returned. "This seems one of the safest
places on this very dangerous road."

"It makes a noise," he said, with a simplicity of awe that set my doubts
at rest.

The lad was but a child in intellect; his mind was like his body, active
and swift, but stunted in development; and I began from that time forth
to regard him with a measure of pity, and to listen at first with
indulgence, and at last even with pleasure, to his disjointed babble.

By about four in the afternoon we had crossed the summit of the mountain
line, said farewell to the western sunshine, and began to go down upon
the other side, skirting the edge of many ravines and moving through the
shadow of dusky woods. There rose upon all sides the voice of falling
water, not condensed and formidable as in the gorge of the river, but
scattered and sounding gaily and musically from glen to glen. Here, too,
the spirits of my driver mended, and he began to sing aloud in a
falsetto voice, and with a singular bluntness of musical perception,
never true either to melody or key, but wandering at will, and yet
somehow with an effect that was natural and pleasing, like that of the
song of birds. As the dusk increased, I fell more and more under the
spell of th