Those were the first words that he had uttered, and I noticed that he did not pronounce the s after the Andalusian fashion,[1] whence I concluded that he was a traveller like myself, minus the archæologist.
“You will find this rather good,” I said, offering him a genuine Havana regalia.
He bent his head slightly, lighted his cigar by mine, thanked me with another nod, then began to smoke with every appearance of very great enjoyment.
“Ah!” he exclaimed, as he discharged the first puff slowly through his mouth and his nostrils, “how long it is since I have had a smoke!”
In Spain, a cigar offered and accepted establishes hospitable relations, just as the sharing of bread and salt does in the East. My man became more talkative than I had hoped. But, although he claimed to live in the partido of Montilla, he seemed to be but ill-acquainted with the country. He did not know the name of the lovely valley where we were; he could not mention any village in the neighbourhood; and, lastly, when I asked him whether he had seen any ruined walls thereabouts, or any tiles with raised edges, or any carved stones, he admitted that he had never paid any attention to such things. By way of compensation he exhibited much expert knowledge of horses. He criticised mine, which was not very difficult; then he gave me the genealogy of his, which came from the famous stud of Cordova; a noble animal in very truth, and so proof against fatigue, according to his master, that he had once travelled thirty leagues in a day, at a gallop or a fast trot. In the middle of his harangue the stranger paused abruptly, as if he were surprised and angry with himself for having said too much.
“You see, I was in a hurry to get to Cordova,” he added, with some embarrassment. “I had to present a petition to the judges in the matter of a lawsuit.”
As he spoke, he glanced at my guide, Antonio, who lowered his eyes.
The cool shade and the spring were so delightful to me that I remembered some slices of excellent ham which my friends at Montilla had put in my guide’s wallet. I bade him produce them, and I invited the stranger to join me in my impromptu collation. If he had not smoked for a long while, it seemed probable to me that he had not eaten for at least forty-eight hours. He devoured the food like a starved wolf. It occurred to me that our meeting was a providential affair for the poor fellow. My guide meanwhile ate little, drank still less, and did not talk at all, although from the very beginning of our journey he had revealed himself to me in the guise of an unparalleled chatterbox. Our guest’s presence seemed to embarrass him, and a certain distrust kept them at arm’s length from each other, but I was unable to divine its cause.
The last crumbs of the bread and ham had vanished; each of us had smoked a second cigar; I ordered the guide to put the bridles on our horses, and I was about to take leave of my new friend, when he asked me where I intended to pass the night.
I replied, before I had noticed a signal from my guide, that I was going on to the Venta del Cuervo.