Cum mihi non tantum furesque fer?que su?t?,

Hunc vexare locum, cur? sunt atque labori;

Quantum carminibus qu? versant atque venenis,

Humanos animos.

HORACE

‘It is inconceivable to me,’ said Don Aliaga to himself, as he pursued his journey the next day — ‘it is inconceivable to me how this person forces himself on my company, harasses me with tales that have no more application to me than the legend of the Cid, and may be as apocryphal as the ballad of Roncesvalles — and now he has ridden by my side all day, and, as if to make amends for his former uninvited and unwelcome communicativeness, he has never once opened his lips.’

‘Senhor,’ said the stranger, then speaking for the first time, as if he read Aliaga’s thoughts — ‘I acknowledge myself in error for relating to you a narrative in which you must have felt there was little to interest you. Permit me to atone for it, by recounting to you a very brief one, in which I flatter myself you will be disposed to feel a very peculiar interest.’ — ‘You assure me it will be brief,’ said Aliaga. ‘Not only so, but the last I shall obtrude on your patience,’ replied the stranger. ‘On that condition,’ said Aliaga, ‘in God’s name, brother, proceed. And look you handle the matter discreetly, as you have said.’

‘There was,’ said the stranger, ‘a certain Spanish merchant, who set out prosperously in business; but, after a few years, finding his affairs assume an unfavourable aspect, and being tempted by an offer of partnership with a relative who was settled in the East Indies, had embarked for those countries with his wife and son, leaving behind him an infant daughter in Spain.’ — ‘That was exactly my case,’ said Aliaga, wholly unsuspicious of the tendency of this tale.

‘Two years of successful occupation restored him to opulence, and to the hope of vast and future accumulation. Thus encouraged, our Spanish merchant entertained ideas of settling in the East Indies, and sent over for his young daughter with her nurse, who embarked for the East Indies with the first opportunity, which was then very rare.’ — ‘This reminds me exactly of what occurred to myself,’ said Aliaga, whose faculties were somewhat obtuse.

‘The nurse and infant were supposed to have perished in a storm which wrecked the vessel on an isle near the mouth of a river, and in which the crew and passengers perished. It was said that the nurse and child alone escaped; that by some extraordinary chance they arrived at this isle, where the nurse died from fatigue and want of nourishment, and the child survived, and grew up a wild and beautiful daughter of nature, feeding on fruits, — and sleeping amid roses, — and drinking the pure element, — and inhaling the harmonies of heaven, — and repeating to herself the few Christian words her nurse had taught her, in answer to the melody of the birds that sung to her, and of the stream whose waves murmured in accordance to the pure and holy music of her unearthly heart.’ — ‘I never heard a word of this before,’ muttered Aliaga to himself. The stranger went on.

‘It was said that some vessel in distress arrived at the isle, — that the captain had rescued this lovely lonely being from the brutality of the sailors, — and, discovering from some remains of the Spanish tongue which she still spoke, and which he supposed must have been cultivated during the visits of some other wanderer to the isle, he undertook, like a man of honour, to conduct her to her parents, whose names she could tell, though not their residence, so acute and tenacious is the memory of infancy. He fulfilled his promise, and the pure and innocent being was restored to her family, who were then residing in the city of Benares.’ Aliaga, at these words, stared with a look of intelligence somewhat ghastly. He could not interrupt the stranger — he drew in his breath, and closed his teeth.

‘I have since heard,’ said the stranger, ‘that the family has returned to Spain, — that the b............