"Do be so kind, my dear fellow, as to make a little less noise!" Euchar said. "Oh, of course," he answered, "you unimpressionable people are never in the least affected by music!" However he did what Euchar had asked him to do.
When she had finished, she went and leant on a tree, as if wearied. And as she let the chords go on sounding more and more softly till they died away in a pianissimo, great tears were falling upon the instrument.
"You are in some need, my poor, pretty child," said Euchar, in the tone which comes only from a deeply moved heart. "Although I did not see the beginning of your dance, you have more than made up for that by your song, and you must not refuse to accept something from me."
He had taken out a little purse in which bright ducats were shining, and was handing it to her as she came closer to him. She fixed her gaze upon his hand, seized it in both her own, and falling on her knees with a loud cry of "Oh, Dios!" covered it with the warmest kisses. "Ah!" cried Ludwig, "nothing but gold is worthy to touch that beautiful little hand." And he asked Euchar if he could give him change for a thaler, as he had no smaller money about him.
Meanwhile the hunchback had come limping up, and he lifted the guitar, which Emanuela had dropped on the ground, making many smiling reverences to Euchar, supposing that he had been exceedingly generous to the girl, from the motion with which she had thanked him.
"Scoundrel--miscreant!" growled Ludwig.
The man started in alarm, and said, in a lamentable tone, "Ah, sir, why are you so angry? Don't condemn poor Biagio Cubas--a good, respectable, honest man. Don't judge me by the colour of my skin, or by the ugliness of my face. I know I have an ugly face. I was born in Lorca, and am every bit as good a Christian as you are yourself."
The girl jumped up hastily, crying out to the old man in Spanish, "Come away, little father, as quickly as you can." And they both hurried off, Cubas continuing to make various odd reverences, and Emanuela fixing upon Euchar the most soul-full gaze of which her beautiful eyes were capable.
When the strange couple were lost among the trees, Euchar said, "You must see, do you not, that you were in much too great a hurry to condemn that little cobold in your own mind? He has a touch or so of the gypsy about him. As he says himself, he comes from Lorca. And Lorca is an old Moorish town, and the Lorcanese (good enough folks, all the same) bear undeniable traces of their ancestry. So there is nothing which they take in worse part than to have this imputed to them, which is why they keep perpetually declaring that they are Christians of ever so old standing. This was the case with this little fellow, in whose face his Moorish origin is certainly reflected to the extent of positive caricature."
"No matter!" cried Ludwig. "I stick to my opinion; the man is a tremendous scoundrel, and I will leave no stone unturned till I deliver my charming, beautiful Mignon from his clutches."