Absently strolling along, Quentin approached the Mosque; its walls rose as solemn and black as those of a fortress; above their serrated battlements, the moon floated giddily in the deep, veiled blue of the sky.
“All this contains something of the stuff that dreams are made of,” he thought.
No one was passing there, and his footsteps echoed loudly on the pavement.
Quentin started toward El Potro in order to reach the Calle del Sol, which was nearly at the other end of the town, and he was thinking of the thousand and one possibilities, both for and against his plans, when a little hunchback boy came running up to him, and said:
“A little alms, Señorito, my mother and I have nothing to eat.”
“You come out at this time of night to ask alms!” murmured Quentin. “You’ll have a fine time finding any people here.”
“But my mother has fainted.”
“Where is she?”
“Here, in this street.”
Quentin entered a dark alley, and had no sooner done so, than he felt himself seized by his arms and legs, and tied by his elbows, and then blind-folded with a handkerchief.