But if I were disposed to do what you ask, how could
I get the key?"
"That is an easy matter," said Marcos. "Ask the good senora to let you
have it. Did I not notice her eyes dwelling lovingly on your face--for,
doubtless, you reminded her of some absent relative, a favourite nephew,
perhaps. She would not deny you anything in reason; and a kindness,
friend, even to the poorest man, is never thrown away."
"I will think about it," I said, and shortly after that I left him.
It was a sultry evening, and, the close, smoky atmosphere of the kitchen
becoming unendurable, I went out and sat down on a log of wood out of
doors. Here the old Juez, in his character of amiable host, came and
discoursed for half an hour on lofty matters relating to the republic.
Presently his wife came out, and, declaring that the evening air would
have an injurious effect on his inflamed eye, persuaded him to go
indoors. Then she subsided into a place at my side, and began to talk
about Fernando's dreadful temper and the many cares of her life.
"What a very serious young man you are!" she remarked, changing her
tone somewhat abruptly. "Do you keep all your gay and pleasant speeches
for the young and pretty senoritas?"
"Ah, senora, you are yourself young and beautiful in my eyes," I
replied; "but I have no heart to be gay when my poor fellow-traveller
is fastened in the stocks, where your cruel husband would also have
confined me but for your timely intervention.
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