"Did you, then, not hear any report of a revolt at Lerida?" demanded the viceroy, at length.
"I did," replied I, "at Meila; and before that I heard the sound of cannon and musketry from the side of Lerida."
"Can your attendant speak Spanish?"
"Not a word."
"Does he understand it?"
"No."
The Viceroy, while he spoke, looked steadfastly at Achilles, whose face happily betrayed nothing but the most confirmative stupidity of aspect; he then called him forward in French, and bade him detail what had occurred during the course of the foregoing day. The little player had by this time, in some degree, recovered his intellects, and hearing the mild tone in which the viceroy had hitherto questioned me, as well as the calmness with which he addressed him himself, his penchant for bombast was excited by the solemnity of the occasion, and the presence of a representative of royalty, and he poured forth a stupendous piece of eloquence, such as he thought the ears of a Viceroy required.
"May it please your sublime Highness," said he, "the following is a true account of what occurred to my noble and estimable lord, and to myself, during our woful peregrinations of yesterday; and if it is not the exact and simple verity, may all the stars of the golden firmament fall upon my head and crush me into atoms!"
The viceroy looked back to the African and laughed; but the slave, whose Oriental imagination was perhaps more in harmony with the tumidity of little Achilles's style, than the more refined taste of his lord, opened his large eyes, and seemed to think it very fine indeed. Neither of them interrupted him, however, and the player proceeded.
"Shortly after Aurora had drawn back the curtains of the Sun, and Phœbus himself jumped out of bed and began running up the arch of heaven, the illicit dealers, who had been hitherto our guides, our guards, and our suttlers, all in one, left us, to proceed themselves I know not where. We were now upon the broad and substantial causeway which leads from the far-famed city of Lerida--as I am given to understand, for I never was there--to this renowned metropolis of Catalonia, when, I being much fatigued with the unwonted extension of my legs across the back of my equine quadruped, my noble and considerate lord permitted me to stop and repose my weary limbs at a small pot-house by the road-side. Suddenly, after we had been there about an hour, loud roared the cannon, and quick beat the drum; and my lord not loving tumults amongst the people, as he said, and I not loving tumults amongst the cannon, we got upon horseback, and rode on till our horses could go no farther. Truly, I was thankful that their weariness came to back my own, or verily, I believe, that my lord, whose thighs must be made of cast iron, would not have left a bit of skin upon me, by riding on till night. However, we stopped; and, by the blessing of God, I lay down to take what the people of this land call a siesta, but what I call a nap; when, after having lain in the arms of Somnus for about half an hour, (four hours, he should have said,) I was startled by the tremendous sound of a musket, and incontinent, crept under the bed, from whence I was dragged out shortly after by my master, mounted on the awful pinnacle of my horse's back, and compelled to ride on to another village, where we slept in quiet until day this morning. After that, we proceeded to these hospitable walls, where a generous soldier rushed forth upon us, and invited us in with a pressing courtesy which was not to be resisted. He bestowed upon my lord a long piece of cord, which your sublime majesty may observe upon his wrists. Me he decorated not in the same manner, but they took care of both our horses and----"