disturbed your slumbers!"

"Ah, your guide! Your guide! I had my doubts of him at first--but--I'll
settle with him! Farewell, senor. May God reward you for the service
I owe you! I am not quite so wicked as you think me. Yes, I still have
something in me that an honest man may pity. Farewell, senor! I have
only one regret--that I can not pay my debt to you!"

"As a reward for the service I have done you, Don Jose, promise me
you'll suspect nobody--nor seek for vengeance. Here are some cigars for
your journey. Good luck to you." And I held out my hand to him.

He squeezed it, without a word, took up his wallet and blunderbuss, and
after saying a few words to the old woman in a lingo that I could not
understand, he ran out to the shed. A few minutes later, I heard him
galloping out into the country.

As for me, I lay down again on my bench, but I did not go to sleep
again. I queried in my own mind whether I had done right to save a
robber, and possibly a murderer, from the gallows, simply and solely
because I had eaten ham and rice in his company. Had I not betrayed my
guide, who was supporting the cause of law and order? Had I not
exposed him to a ruffian's vengeance? But then, what about the laws of
hospitality?

"A mere savage prejudice," said I to myself. "I shall have to answer for
all the crimes this brigand may commit in future." Yet is that instinct
of the conscience which resists every argument really a prejudice? It
may be I could not have escaped from the delicate position in which I
found myself without remorse of some kind. I was still tossed to and