“Good heavens!” thought I. “What will they think of my riding past in this ludicrous style?”
Riding past! I had scarcely given words to the thought, when my mare wheeled sharply to the left—almost flinging me out of my seat—and dashed right into the main gateway of the mansion! Three more springs, and she was in the patio, where, stopping like a shot, she threw up her head, uttered another neigh, and stood looking wildly round, with heaving, smoking flanks. The neigh had scarcely echoed when it was answered from within; and the next moment a half-grown colt came loping through a doorway, and ran up with all the demonstrations of a filial recognition.
I had not time to recover from my surprise when a lovely apparition flashed out of the portale, and came running across the patio. It was a girl—something between a girl, a woman, and, I might add, a goddess.
Without heeding or seeming to notice my presence, she rushed up and flung her arms around the neck of my Arab, which bent its head to receive the embrace. The girl then pressed her lips against the velvet-like muzzle of the animal, all the while muttering exclamations, as—
“Ah! mia yegua buenita! Mora, Morita, digame de donde viene, Morita?” (Ah, my pretty little mare! pretty Mora, little Mora, tell me whence come you, little Mora!)
And the mare replied to all this by a low neighing, turning from one to the other of the two objects that caressed her, and seemingly at a loss to know to which she should give most of her attention.
I sat speechless, looking down at the strange scene—at the beautiful girl—at her shining black hair (a cloth-yard long), as it hung loosely over her white, nude shoulders—at her rounded snowy arms—at her dark flashing eyes—at her cheeks, mounted with the hue of health and beauty—at her small red lips, as, like crushed rosebuds, they were pressed against the smooth skin of the Arab.
“Oh, I am dreaming!” thought I. “I am still between old José’s comfortable sheets. It’s the Teneriffe has done it all, and the cuenta chiquitita is only a joke after all. Ha, ha, ha! I have paid no bill to the worthy alcalde—hospitable old fellow! It’s all a dream—all.”
But at this point of my reflections, several other ladies made their appearance in the portale, and several gentlemen, too, and the great gateway was fast filling up with the pelados who had hooted me as I passed the rancheria. It was no dream, then; I had settled one account, and I was fast becoming sensible that I should shortly be called upon to settle another.
Fortunately the fog caused by old José’s Maraschino had now cleared away, and I began to comprehend how the “camp was pitched.” It was certain that my mare had got home. That was plain enough. It was equally certain that the old gentleman with the white moustache, and dark stern eyebrows, was Don Miguel Castro. These two points were as clear as daylight. It was very evident that I had got myself, or rather the mare had got me, into a most awkward predicament. How was I to get out of it? This was by no means clear.