this
journey in six weeks or thereabouts, which is no such great matter,
seeing we are not to be back in England afore next year. We can buy a
guitar and a tabor out of Moll's pieces; with them we can give a show
wherever we stay for the night, and if honest men do but pay us half as
much as the thieves of this country, we may fare pretty well."

"I confess," says Don Sanchez, "your scheme is the best, and I would
myself have proposed it but that I can do so little for my share."

"Why, what odds does that make, Senor?" cries Jack. "You gave us of the
best while you had aught to give, and 'tis but fair we should do the
same now. Besides which, how could we get along without you for a
spokesman, and I marked that you drummed to our dance very tunefully.
Come, is it a bargain, friend?"

And on Don Sanchez's consenting, Jack would have us all shake hands on
it for a sign of faith and good fellowship. Then, perceiving that we
were arrived at the outskirts of the town, we ended our discussion.

CHAPTER X.

_Of our merry journeying to Alicante._

We turned into the first posada we came to--a poor, mean sort of an inn
and general shop, to be sure, but we were in no condition to cavil about
trifles, being fagged out with our journey and the adventures of the
day, and only too happy to find a house of entertainment still open. So
after a dish of sausages with very good wine, we to our beds and an end
to the torment of fleas I had endured from the moment I changed my
French habit for Spanish rags.

The next morning, when we had eaten a meal of goats' milk and bread and
paid our reckoning, which amounted to a few rials and no more, Don
Sanchez and I, taking what rested of Moll's two pieces, went forth into
the town and there bought two plain suits of clothes for ourselves in
the mode of the country, and (according to his desire) another of the
same cut for Dawson, together with a little jacket and petticoat for
Moll. And these expenditures left us but just enough to buy a good
guitar and a tambourine--indeed, we should not have got them at all but
that Don Sanchez higgled and bargained like any Jew, which he could do
with a very good face now that he was dressed so beggarly. Then back to
our posada, where in our room Jack and I were mighty merry in putting on
our new clothes; but going below we find Moll still dressed in her
finery, and sulking before the petticoat and jacket we had bought for
her, which she wou