The Argosy, Vol. XXV, No. 3 — page 64: what you’re looking at

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

448 | THE ARGOSY. would be a flirtation with the prettiest creature I had yet seen in Spain; at the best, it would be knowledge of. the man she called the prince. And to this end, I thought it well not to hire a horse until I had learned at the prison gate of Zaragoza what her promise, that I should ride with her, really meant; if indeed she had the intention to present herself at the rendezvous at all. That the adventure might be colored with danger to me personally was a premonition which never entered my head. I had good pistols for my holsters ; my muscles were as hard as iron; I remembered that a society paper once called me a triumph of matter over mind. It would be a bad day, then, when I must shuffle off because a Spanish cutthroat lurked beyond the city walls. Besides, there was my disguise . which, I flattered myself, would make me as good a Spaniard as the best of them. Never did man set off to a masquerade with a lighter heart than I to my reudezvous with the gipsy of Zaragoza. | Benjamin returned to the hotel at a quarter to eleven. He carried with him a zamarra of fine lambskin—this being a short jacket reaching scarce to my hips—and a sombrero of gray felt, edged all about with black velvet, and ornamented, beyond, with gaudy tufts and tassels of silk. For cloak he had purchased a rich capa or mantle such as horsemen, or indeed any persons of quality in Spain, are never without. When I had dressed myself and stuck the hat on the side of my head, in the best style of transpontine melo- drama, I asked my man, after having thus equipped myself, to express what he thought cf me. He answered, ‘‘Oh, Lord!’’ and left the room hurriedly. There is an originality in Benjamin’s speech which borders often upon insult. | It was a quarter to twelve when JI left the inn, and two minutes before the hour of midnight when I found the gipsy, accompanied by a man who led two horses, at the gate called Ia Ceneja. ‘‘ Senorita, you are punctual,’’ was my greeting to her. ‘Senor, I do my duty,’’ she answered simply. ‘‘If you are ready we will go now and be in the mountains at dawn.”’ ‘Oh, it is to the mountains that we are to ride, then ?’’ ‘ T guide you to Torla,’’ she exclaimed quickly ; ‘‘ after that, the way is your own and you will have no need of me. Be pleased to mount, seuor, lest others see us.’’ I noticed that she was dressed much as when I had seen her by the gate of the cathedral; but her skirt was shorter for riding and she carried an exquisite whip in the handle of which jewels sparkled. The veil she wore was thicker, sothat you could distinguish nothing of her face except the sparkling black eyes which she could use with the ripe art of the coquette. When she sprang upon her horse, it was with the agility of one schooled in all the pursuits of an active life. And this waseven more astonishing— that the man who held the horses gave her the civility due to a grand dame. ‘‘ God and the Virgin go with senorita,’’ he cried, bowing low ; ‘‘ and you, senor, may you reniain with the saints.’’ A pious wish! But it was my thought when I mounted the little bay (EO) Eomicbooks