The speaker was Gabriel, a distinguished civil engineer of the mountain
corps. He was seated under a pine tree, near a spring, on the crest of the
Guadarrama. It was only about a league and a half distant from the palace
of the Escurial, on the boundary line of the provinces of Madrid and
Segovia. I know the place, spring, pine tree and all, but I have forgotten
its name.

"Let us sit down," went on Gabriel, "as that is the correct thing to do,
and as our programme calls for a rest here--here in this pleasant and
classic spot, famous for the digestive properties of that spring, and for
the many lambs here devoured by our noted teachers, Don Miguel Bosch, Don
Maximo Laguna, Don Augustin Pascual, and other illustrious naturalists.
Sit down, and I will tell you a strange and wonderful story in proof of my
thesis, which is, though you call me an obscurantist for it, that
supernatural events still occur on this terraqueous globe. I mean events
which you cannot get into terms of reason, or science, or philosophy--as
those 'words, words, words,' in Hamlet's phrase, are understood (or are
not understood) to-day."

Gabriel was addressing his animated remarks to five persons of different
ages. None of them was young, though only one was well along in years.
Three of them were, like Gabriel, engineers, the fourth was a painter, and
the fifth was a litterateur in a small way. In company with the speaker,
who was the youngest, we had all ridden up on hired mules from the Real
Sitio de San Lorenzo to spend the day botanizing among the beautiful pine
groves of Pequerinos, chasing butterflies with gauze nets, catching rare
beetles under the bark of the decayed pines, and eating a cold lunch out
of a hamper which we had paid for on shares.