"Is it a dream?" I exclaimed, stopping again, "or am I awake? Who is shouting? Where is he? Why does he do it?"
I started on again, and the voice came the third time, "Away with the foreigner!"
I stopped the third time, and when, all disturbed, I cast my eyes around, I saw a boy sitting on the ground, who looked at me with a laugh and said, "He is a crazy man, who thinks he is living in the time of the War of Independence. Look, sir! that is the insane asylum." And he pointed out the place on a hill among the outermost houses of Toledo. I drew a long breath which would have blown out a torch.
In the evening I left Toledo, regretting that I had not time to see once and again all that was ancient and wonderful in it: this regret was tempered, however, by my ardent desire for Andalusia, which had not allowed me a moment's peace. But how long I saw Toledo before my eyes! How long I remembered and dreamed of those headlong rocks, those enormous walls, those dark streets, that fantastic appearance of a mediæval city! Even to-day I review the picture with a sort of sombre pleasure and grave melancholy, and with this picture before me my mind wanders back in a thousand strange thoughts among distant times and marvellous events.
CORDOVA.
On arriving at Castillejo I was obliged to wait until midnight for the Andalusia train. I dined on hard-boiled eggs and oranges, with a little sprinkling of Val de Peñas, murmured a poem of Espronceda, chatted a little with a custom-house officer who between parentheses made me a confession of his political faith—Amadeus, liberty, an increase of wages to the custom-house officers, etc; finally I heard the long-desired whistle, entered a railway-carriage crowded full of women, children, civil guards, boxes, cushions, and wraps, and away with a speed unusual for the Spanish railways. It was a beautiful night; my travelling-companions talked of bulls and Carlists; a beautiful girl, whom more than one devoured with his eyes, pretended to sleep that she might still further heighten their curiosity; some were rolling cigarettes, some peeling oranges, others humming songs from the Zarzuela. Nevertheless, I fell asleep in a few minutes. I believe I had already dreamed of the mosque of Cordova and the Alcazar of Seville, when I was aroused by a hoarse cry, "Daggers!"
"Daggers? Heavens! for whom?" Before I discovered who had shouted there flashed before my eyes a long sharp blade, and the unknown voice asked again,
"Do you like it?"