One day when I was in the patio, to which I had free admission whenever I pleased, by permission of the alcayde, Iwent up to the Frenchman, who stood in his usual posture, leaning against the wall, and offered him a cigar.I do not smoke myself, but it will never do to mix among the lower classes of Spain unless you have a cigar to present occasionally.The man glared at me ferociously for a moment, and appeared to be on the point of refusing my offer with perhaps a hideous execration.I repeated it, however, pressing my hand against my heart, whereupon suddenly the grim features relaxed, and with a genuine French grimace, and a low bow, he accepted the cigar, exclaiming, "AH, MONSIEUR, PARDON, MAISC'EST FAIRE TROP D'HONNEUR A UN PAUVRE DIABLE COMME MOI.""Not at all," said I, "we are both fellow prisoners in a foreign land, and being so we ought to countenance each other.
I hope that whenever I have need of your co-operation in this prison you will afford it me.""Ah, Monsieur," exclaimed the Frenchman in rapture, "VOUSAVEZ BIEN RAISON; IL FAUT QUE LES EIRANGERS SE DONNENT LA MAINDANS CE...PAYS DE BARBARES.TENEZ," he added, in a whisper, "if you have any plan for escaping, and require my assistance, I have an arm and a knife at your service: you may trust me, and that is more than you could any of these SACRESGENS ICI," glancing fiercely round at his fellow prisoners.
"You appear to be no friend to Spain and the Spaniards,"said I."I conclude that you have experienced injustice at their hands.For what have they immured you in this place?""POUR RIEN DU TOUT, C'EST A DIRE POUR UNE BAGATELLE; but what can you expect from such animals? For what are you imprisoned? Did I not hear say for Gypsyism and sorcery?""Perhaps you are here for your opinions?""AH, MON DIEU, NON; JE NE SUIS PAS HOMME A SEMBLABLEBETISE.I have no opinions.JE FAISOIS...MAIS CEN'IMPORTE; JE ME TROUVE ICI, OU JE CREVE DE FAIM.""I am sorry to see a brave man in such a distressed condition," said I; "have you nothing to subsist upon beyond the prison allowance? Have you no friends?""Friends in this country, you mock me; here one has no friends, unless one buy them.I am bursting with hunger; since I have been here I have sold the clothes off my back, that Imight eat, for the prison allowance will not support nature, and of half of that we are robbed by the Batu, as they call the barbarian of a governor.LES HAILLONS which now cover me were given by two or three devotees who sometimes visit here.Iwould sell them if they would fetch aught.I have not a sou, and for want of a few crowns I shall be garroted within a month unless I can escape, though, as I told you before, I have done nothing, a mere bagatelle; but the worst crimes in Spain are poverty and misery.""I have heard you speak Basque, are you from French Biscay?""I am from Bordeaux, Monsieur; but I have lived much on the Landes and in Biscay, TRAVAILLANT A MON METIER.I see by your look that you wish to know my history.I shall not tell it you.It contains nothing that is remarkable.See, I have smoked out your cigar; you may give me another, and add a dollar if you please, NOUS SOMMES CREVES ICI DE FAIM.I would not say as much to a Spaniard, but I have a respect for your countrymen; I know much of them; I have met them at Maida and the other place." ** Perhaps Waterloo.
"Nothing remarkable in his history!" Why, or I greatly err, one chapter of his life, had it been written, would have unfolded more of the wild and wonderful than fifty volumes of what are in general called adventures and hairbreadth escapes by land and sea.A soldier! what a tale could that man have told of marches and retreats, of battles lost and won, towns sacked, convents plundered; perhaps he had seen the flames of Moscow ascending to the clouds, and had "tried his strength with nature in the wintry desert," pelted by the snow-storm, and bitten by the tremendous cold of Russia: and what could he mean by plying his trade in Biscay and the Landes, but that he had been a robber in those wild regions, of which the latter is more infamous for brigandage and crime than any other part of the French territory.Nothing remarkable in his history! then what history in the world contains aught that is remarkable?
I gave him the cigar and dollar: he received them, and then once more folding his arms, leaned back against the wall and appeared to sink gradually into one of his reveries.Ilooked him in the face and spoke to him, but he did not seem either to hear or see me.His mind was perhaps wandering in that dreadful valley of the shadow, into which the children of earth, whilst living, occasionally find their way; that dreadful region where there is no water, where hope dwelleth not, where nothing lives but the undying worm.This valley is the facsimile of hell, and he who has entered it, has experienced here on earth for a time what the spirits of the condemned are doomed to suffer through ages without end.