t is my hobby. Well, so
it is. And I like good company. So that is why I sit beside Senor and
Senorita Dolores at table--the one on the right, the other on the left,
myself between, like this, like that. It is dinner-time now here, and
my friends--my dear friends of Cadiz--they wait me. Have you heard
the Senorita sing the song of Spain, m'sieu'? What it must be with the
guitar, I know not; but with voice alone it is ravishing. I have learned
it also. The Senorita has taught me. It is a song of Aragon. It is sung
in high places. It belongs to the nobility. Ah, then, you have not heard
it--but it is not too late! The Senorita, the unhappy ma'm'selle, driven
from her ancestral home by persecution, she will sing it to you as she
has sung it to me. It is your due. You are the master of the ship. But,
yes, she shall of her kindness and of her grace sing it to you. You do
not know how it runs? Well, it is like this--listen and tell me if it
does not speak of things that belong to the old regime, the ancient
noblesse--listen, m'sieu' le captainne, how it runs:

"Have you not heard of mad Murcie?
Granada gay and And'lousie?
There's where you'll see the joyous rout,
When patios pour their beauties out;
Come, children, come, the night gains fast,
And Time's a jade too fair to last.
My flower of Spain, my Juanetta,
Away, away to gay Jota!
Come forth, my sweet, away, my queen,
Though daybreak scorns, the night's between.
The Fete's afoot--ah! ah! ah! ah!
De la Jota Ar'gonesa.
Ah! ah! ah! ah! ah! ah! ah! ah!
De la Jota Ar'gonesa."

Before he had finished, the captain was more than ready to go, for he
had no patience with such credulity, simplicity and sentimentalism. He
was Basque, and to be Basque is to lack sentiment and feel none, to play
ever for the safe thing, to get without giving, and to mind your own
business. It had only been an excessive sense of duty which had made the
captain move in this, for he liked Jean Jacques as everyone aboard his
Antoine did; and he was convinced that the Spaniards would play the
"Seigneur" to the brink of disaster at least, though it would have been
hard to detect any element of intrigue or coquetry in Carmen Dolores.

That was due partly to the fact that she was still in grief for her
Gonzales, whose heart had been perforated by almost as many bullets
as the arrows of Cupid ha