"Are these bulls bound for the circus?" inquired the Englishman with interest.
The driver nodded his head. "Ay, not one of them will be alive this evening," observed the peasant. "The poor brutes would not go on so proudly towards Seville if they knew what is before them."
"Danger awaits others besides them," muttered Lucius Lepine.
"Ay, señor," observed the herdsman, misunderstanding the drift of the words; "other folk may go as blindfold as these bulls to their death, strong and gay in the morning, dragged in the dust before night. There's my own brother, for instance, he who lives in our village under the sierra yonder. Poor Carlos was dancing the fandango one day at a bridal, the merriest of the company there; on his way home he but slipped his foot on a steep, rocky path, and down falls the strong, active man, to be picked up with a broken back, and carried to our cottage to lie, as he has done for months, groaning with pain, and helpless as a child."
It occurred to Lucius that here might be an opportunity given to him of introducing into an abode of suffering the comfort of God's holy Word. "Can your brother read?" he inquired.
"Read!—ay, almost as well as the priest. Carlos always took to the learning, whilst most of our folk know no more of letters than one of the beasts that they drive." The man rose from his seat as he spoke, for he had finished repairing his sandal with a morsel of string.
"Will you give your brother this from me?" said the Englishman, taking from his breast-pocket the Spanish Testament, and offering it to the hind with an effort to overcome the shyness which had hitherto prevented his attempting to spread gospel-knowledge in Spain.
The man took the little volume with a blank stare of surprise at the stranger who had made so extraordinary a present. The peasant then opened and glanced at the contents of the book, and the expression on his face changed to that of fanatical fierceness.
"Bad book—heretical—muera a los Protestantes!" (death to the Protestants!) exclaimed the peasant, tearing out several pages from the sacred volume, and then flinging it back at the face of the giver. The fanatic would probably have added insults and imprecations, had not the necessity of making up for lost time, by rejoining the herd with all speed, obliged the driver to run on quickly in the direction of Seville.