“He speaks Spanish!” cried Maria with emotion; “and he is a Christian! and he knows the litanies!”
In her access of joy, she approached Stein, pressed him in her arms and bravely kissed his forehead.
“Decidedly, who are you?” she said, after having made him take a bowl of soup. “How, ill and dying, have you reached this depopulated village?”
“I am called Stein, and I am a surgeon. I was in the war at Navarre. I came by Estremadura to seek a port whence I could embark for Cadiz, and then regain Germany, my country. I lost myself in my route: I made a thousand detours and finished by arriving here, worn out by fatigue and ready to give up the ghost.”
“You see,” said Maria to brother Gabriel, “that his books are not in the Hebrew language, but in the language of surgeons.”
“That’s true,” repeated brother Gabriel.
“And which party do you belong to?” asked the old woman. “Don Carlos, or the other?”
“I serve in the troops of the Queen,” replied Stein.
Maria turned towards her companion, and with an expressive gesture, said in a low voice:
“He is not with the good.”