, and with the same saddle-pad and
valise which you say you found and did not touch. He asked us what part
of this sierra was the most rugged and retired; we told him that it was
where we now are; and so in truth it is, for if you push on half a league
farther, perhaps you will not be able to find your way out; and I am
wondering how you have managed to come here, for there is no road or path
that leads to this spot. I say, then, that on hearing our answer the
youth turned about and made for the place we pointed out to him, leaving
us all charmed with his good looks, and wondering at his question and the
haste with which we saw him depart in the direction of the sierra; and
after that we saw him no more, until some days afterwards he crossed the
path of one of our shepherds, and without saying a word to him, came up
to him and gave him several cuffs and kicks, and then turned to the ass
with our provisions and took all the bread and cheese it carried, and
having done this made off back again into the sierra with extraordinary
swiftness. When some of us goatherds learned this we went in search of
him for about two days through the most remote portion of this sierra, at
the end of which we found him lodged in the hollow of a large thick cork
tree. He came out to meet us with great gentleness, with his dress now
torn and his face so disfigured and burned by the sun, that we hardly
recognised him but that his clothes, though torn, convinced us, from the
recollection we had of them, that he was the person we were looking for.
He saluted us courteously, and in a few well-spoken words he told us not
to wonder at seeing him going about in this guise, as it was binding upon
him in order that he might work out a penance which for his many sins had
been imposed upon him. We asked him to tell us who he was, but we were
never able to find out from him: we begged of him too, when he was in
want of food, which he could not do without, to tell us where we should
find him, as we would bring it to him with all good-will and readiness;
or if this were not to his taste, at least to come and ask it of us and
not take it by force from the shepherds. He thanked us for the offer,
begged pardon for the late assault, and promised for the future to ask it
in God's name without offering violence to anybody. As for fixed abode,
he said he had no other than that which chance offered wherever night
might overtake him; and his words ended in an outburst