old Castile, _Ola, Ola_," Manuel sang
confidentially with a subdued and gallant lilt... Obviously
impracticable. But I had another idea.

"_Tinkle tinkle pinnnng... Brrroum. Brrrroum_.
My soul yearns for the alms of a smile.
For a forgiving glance yearns my lofty soul..."

he sang. Ah, if one could have added another four feet to one's stature.
Four or five feet only. There seemed to be nothing but a thin veil
between me and the moon. No more than a thin haze. But at the level
of my eyes everything was hidden. From behind the white veil came
the crying of the strings, a screeching, lugubrious and fierce in its
artificial transport, as if it were mocking my sad and ardent conviction
of un-worthiness, the crowning torment, and the inward pride of pure
love. In the breathless pauses I could hear the hollow bumping of
gunwales knocking against each other; faint splashings of oars; the
distant hail of some laggards groping their way on the shrouded sea.

The note of cruel passion that runs in the blood held these cut-throats
profoundly silent in their boats, as at home I could imagine a party of
smugglers (they would not stick at a murder or two, either) listening,
with pensive faces, to a sentimental ditty of some "sweet Nancy," howled
dismally within the walls of a wayside taproom in the smoke of pipes. I
seemed to understand profoundly the difference of races that brings with
it the feeling of romance or awakens hate. My gorge rose at Manuel's
song. I hated his lamentations. "Alas, alas; in vain, in vain." He
strummed with vertiginous speed, with fury, and the distracted clamour
of his voice, wrestling madly with the ringing madness of the strings,
ended in a piercing and supreme shriek.

"Finished. It is finished." A low and applauding murmur flowed to
my ears, the austere acclamations of connoisseurs. "Viva, viva,
Manuele!"--a squeak of fervid admiration. "Ah, our _Manuelito_."... But
a gruff voice discoursed jovially, "Care not, Manuel. What of Paquita
with the broken tooth? Is she not left to thee? And _por Dios, hombres_,
in the dark all women are alike."

"I will cram thy unclean mouth with live coals," Manuel drawled
spitefully.

They roared with laughter at this sally. I depicted to myself their
shapes, their fierce gesticulations, their earrings, bound heads, rags,
and weapons, the vile scowls on their swarthy, grimacing faces. My
anxiety beheld them as plainly as anything seen with the eye