Penny Blood Serial Fiction — page 143: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

126 REYNOLDS’ WORKS the women. These women were the wives, or perhaps the mistresses, of certain members of the band, but neither of them pertained to Don Diego. Their conduct was un- exceptionably correct, and if they were not really wives, they at all events behaved with the discretion and decency of married women. When the men returned of a day, they were invariably laden with provisions of all kinds; and J noticed that of an evening, they all assembled in Don Diego’s own tent, where they remained for about half an hour, either in consultation or else in dividing other things which they had obtained during the day in addition to the pro- visions and wine. That this latter business was really the one that occupied them on those occasions, I gradually began to suspect, for I often heard the sounds of chinking gold emanate from the chief’s tent. Moreover, I began to notice that the women varied the articles of jewelry which they wore, and which were exceedingly costly and handsome. ‘In short, at the expiration of the week I acquired the certainty that I had fallen in with a horde of banditti. I therefore longed for the fulfilment of Don Diego’s promise that he would conduct me into France. But the second week was entered upon, and nothing was said concerning the subject. JI continued to receive the kindest attentions; and if I ever offered to assist the women in preparing the repasts, they would not suffer me to do any menial thing. They conceived the utmost friendship for me, and Isabella, the most beautiful of all, was unremitting in her attentions. Two or three times Christoval asked me to walk with him, but his manner was always that of respectful courtesy, mingled, however, with the evidences of a growing admira- tion. I found him to be a man of intelligent and cultivated mind. He was well read in Spanish and French literature; his manners were not merely gentlemanly, they were elegant, and his conversation was varied, amusing, and instructive. ‘“ At the expiration of the second week I took an oppor- tunity of inquiring when he proposed to advance toward the Pyrenees, from which we were about forty miles distant. A cloud immediately gathered upon his countenance, and bending his dark eyes somewhat reproachfully upon me, he asked, in a mournful voice, if I were anxious to leave those who experienced so much delight and gratification: GEomichbooks (Eo) A