"Miguel will take my place in the chorus," he said. "I shall have no more use for these castanets, and so I shall give them—"
"No! No!" cried Fernando's sister. She ran over to him and caught him by the arm. "You must never give away those castanets. Surely you have heard about their magic power and the legends attached to them. Ill luck to him who loses or gives away—"
"Nonsense!" scoffed Fernando. "I do not believe such tales. They are old women's twaddle!"
"Perhaps," agreed his sister. "Yet remember what our grandmother once told us. She said that the castanets have always been a power for good. And whenever we do things which we should not do, they bring misfortune to us and to our family."
Then she recited:
"Castanets, with magic spell,
Never lose or give or sell;
If you do, then grief and strife
Will follow you through all your life."
"Yes, I know," said Fernando shortly. "But," and he grinned, "I shall change that verse to:
'Castanets, you have no spell;
If I lose or give or sell,
I shall live in manly strife,
Not be a sissy all my life!'"
One night many years later, this same Fernando, now a man, glided along in a boat on a river near the border of France. With him were several other men, and all of them were smugglers.
Fernando had long lived in the Pyrenees (pĭr´ē̍-nēz) Mountains. He had joined a band of people who secretly smuggled forbidden goods from Spain to France in the dead of night. They led a dangerous life and were always in fear of the customs men.