“Even now, no one knows anything concerning the monks of this monastery. They give to the mountain poor with a free hand and a liberal blessing—yet, beshrew me, strange rumors are abroad, and muttered whispers speak of midnight orgies that it would shame an honest maiden to name, held within yon darksome house!”
“I jest not!” exclaimed the postillion; “I jest not. I am in earnest—by the True Cross, am I. Did you ever hear of the legend of yon whitened precipice? How a desperate youth threw himself from the rock, down into the ravine—and—and—mark me—if on some very bright and agreeable morning I should be found laying at the foot of the awful steep, scattered into a thousand fragments—then think of the victim of your perfidy, Dolabella. And you, Theresa, and you, Loretta, think of the miserable fate of Francisco—your victim—with remorse—with bitter remorse!”
Having thus given the damsels to understand that among them all, his heart was certainly broken, the little postillion strutted away with folded arms and a measured step. Indeed, by the immense strides he took with his inverted legs, it did really seem that he had been hired to measure the greatest possible quantity of ground, in the shortest possible number of steps.
The damsels replied to this pathetic appeal by a burst of laughter.
“I’ll tell you what we shall do,” said Dolabella. “This little whipper-snapper has been making love to all three of us, for nearly two years. Let us pretend to be desperately enamoured of this strange cavalier at the cottage.”
“O yes—yes!” cried Theresa.
“Certainly! O certainly!” exclaimed Loretta.
“That will bring Signor Postillion to terms,” continued the tall damsel, “and besides girls, we’ll learn all about this strange old woman.”
“This strange priest!” said Loretta.
“And this handsome cavalier!” cried Theresa.