“We wandered at least a league further, and now appeared to be near a wood, for I could occasionally distinguish the trunks of immense trees. Suddenly Antonio stopped his mule. ‘Look, brother,’ said he, ‘to the left, and tell me if you do not see a light; your eyes are sharper than mine.’ I did as he commanded me. At first I could see nothing, but, moving a little further on, I plainly saw a large light at some distance, seemingly amongst the trees. ‘Yonder cannot be a lamp or candle,’ said I; ‘it is more like the blaze of a fire.’ ‘Very likely,’ said Antonio. ‘There are no queres (houses) in this place; it is doubtless a fire made by
durotunes (shepherds); let us go and join them, for, as you say, it is doleful work wandering about at night amidst rain and mire.’
“We dismounted and entered what I now saw was a forest, leading the animals cautiously amongst the trees and brushwood. In about five minutes we reached a small open space, at the farther side of which, at the foot of a large cork-tree, a fire was burning, and by it stood or sat two or three figures. They had heard our approach, and one of them now exclaimed, ‘Quien Vive?’ ‘I know that voice,’ said Antonio, and, leaving the horse with me, rapidly advanced towards the fire. Presently I heard an ‘Ola!’ and a laugh, and soon the voice of Antonio summoned me to advance. On reaching the fire, I found two dark lads, and a still darker woman of about forty, the latter seated on what appeared to be horse or mule furniture. I likewise saw a horse and two donkeys tethered to the neighbouring trees. It was, in fact, a Gipsy bivouac . . . ‘Come forward, brother, and show yourself,’ said Antonio to me; ‘you are amongst friends; these are of the Errate, the very people whom I expected to find at Trujillo, and in whose house we should have slept.’
“‘And what,’ said I, ‘could have induced them to leave their house in Trujillo and come into this dark forest, in the midst of wind and rain, to pass the night?’
“‘They come on business of Egypt, brother, doubtless,’ replied Antonio, ‘and that business is none of ours. Calla boca! It is lucky we have found them here, else we should have had no supper, and our horses no corn.’
“‘My ro is prisoner at the village yonder,’ said the woman, pointing with her hand in a particular direction; ‘he is prisoner yonder for choring a mailla (stealing a donkey); we are come to see what we can do in his behalf; and where can we lodge better than in this forest, where there is nothing to pay? It is not the first time, I trow, that Caloré have slept at the root of a tree.’
“One of the striplings now gave us barley for our animals in a large bag, into which we successively introduced their heads, allowing the famished creatures to regale themselves till we conceived that they had satisfied their hunger. There was a puchero simmering at the fire, half-fall of bacon, garbanzos, and other provisions; this was emptied into a large wooden platter, and out of this Antonio and myself supped; the other Gipsies refused to join us, giving us to understand that they had eaten before our arrival; they all, however, did justice to the leathern bottle of Antonio, which, before his departure from Merida, he had the precaution to fill.
“I was by this time completely overcome with fatigue and sleep. Antonio flung me an immense horse-cloth, of which he bore more than one beneath the huge cushion on which he rode. In this I wrapped myself, and placing my head upon a bundle, and my feet as near as possible to the fire, I lay down.”
How delightful and soul-inspiring it would have been to the weary pilgrim, jaded in the cause of the poor Gipsies, if Antonio’s heart had been full of religious zeal and fervour, and Hubert Petalengro and Esmeralda, their souls filled to overflowing with the love of God, had been by the side of the camp-fire, and the trio had struck up with their sweet voices, as the good man was drawing his weary legs and cold feet together before the embers of the dying Gipsy fire—
“Guide me, O thou great Jehovah,
Pilgrim through this barren land;
I am weak, but Thou art mighty,
Hold me with Thy powerful hand.
Bread of heaven, feed me till I want no more.“Open now the crystal fountain
Whence the healing waters flow;
Let the fiery, cloudy pillars,
Lead me all my journey through.
Strong Deliverer, be Thou still my strength and shield.”