"'Bueno! are they long or short?'
"'Short, señor.'
"There is, I know not why, a difference in the length of the Spanish leagues, as many a time and oft we found on the long line of march. After riding four or five miles further, and, being still uncertain, on meeting another peasant driving a borrico (an ass), laden with kid-skins of the mountain-wine, I inquired of him the distance from Santarem on the Tagus.
"'Five long leagues, señor,' he replied, displaying four fingers and a thumb.
"'Diable!' I muttered, and spurred on, for the sun had now sunk behind the blue waving line of the western Sierra.
"Near a roadside fountain I passed the bodies of three or four French soldiers, who had been wounded in a recent encounter with the outlaws of Julian Aviero, and had crawled there to quench their thirst and die. They had been completely stripped by the Spaniards, and their gory but honourable scars were blackening in the heat of the sultry day.
"On the velvet turf that bordered the road I softly drew up my horse, on observing behind the pedestal of the fountain a villanous son of Israel practising dental surgery, by robbing the jaws of the dead; for the soldiers being generally young men, their teeth brought a good price in the dentist shops of Paris and Madrid. I had frequently heard of this revolting practice, but never till that moment had ocular proof that such existed.
"The operator was a man about forty, lean and hollow-visaged, with the brow of a villain, the eyes of a snake, the nose of an eagle, and beard like a cossacque; he was enveloped in a loose blue gown, and his head was surmounted by a steeple-crowned sombrero, that had long lost every trace of its original colour. Near him lay a square mahogany box, like a pedlar's wallet, in which he carried his instruments and stock of dental wares.
"He was so busy with the relaxed jaws of a young soldier that he did not perceive my approach.
"You know how jealous we soldiers are of the treatment given to the remains of our dead comrades. Maladetto! my blood boiled. Dashing spurs into my horse, I plunged him right upon the dog of an Israelite; a kick from a hoof laid bare his skull, and stretched him prostrate on the earth. As he fell backwards I obtained a glimpse of his wallet, which bristled with poniards and pistols, from which I concluded him to be a robber of the living as well as of the dead; and I soon discovered my conclusions to be just.