to purchase a better one.  Every good road is owned by a band of brigands, you know.  I wish that I could get some honest work to do, but that is hopeless; who would employ such a looking fellow as I am? all in rags and tatters, worse than the poorest beggar.  I must surely have been born under an unlucky star.  And now this attempt has failed, from which I hoped to get enough to keep us for two months, and buy a decent cloak for poor Chiquita besides; she needs it badly enough, poor thing!  Yesterday I had nothing to eat, and I had to tighten my belt to sustain my empty stomach.  Your unexpected resistance has taken the very bread out of my mouth; and since you would not let me rob you, at least be generous and give me something.”

“To be sure,” said the tyrant, who was greatly amused; “as we have prevented your successfully plying your trade we certainly do owe you an indemnity.  Here, take these two pistoles to drink our healths with.”

Isabelle meantime sought in the chariot for a piece of new woollen stuff she happened to have with her, which was soft and warm, and gave it to Chiquita, who exclaimed, “Oh! but it is the necklace of shining white things that I want.”

Kind Isabelle immediately unclasped it, and then fastened it round the slender neck of the child, who was so overwhelmed with delight that she could not speak.  She silently rolled the smooth, white beads between her little brown fingers in a sort of mute ecstasy for a few moments, then suddenly raising her head and tossing back her thick black hair, she fixed her sparkling eyes on Isabelle, and said in a low, earnest voice, “Oh! you are very, very good, and I will never, never kill you.”  Then she ran swiftly back to the pine grove, clambered up the steep bank, and sat down to admire and enjoy her treasure.  As to Agostino, after making his best bow, and thanking the tyrant for his really princely munificence, he picked up his prostrate comrades, and carried them back to be buried again until their services should be needed on some, he hoped, more auspicious occasion.

The driver, who had deserted his oxen and run to hide himself among the furze bushes at the beginning of the affray, returned to his post when he saw that all danger was over, and the chariot once more started upon its way—­the worthy duenna having taken her doubloons out of her shoes and restored them to her purse, which was then deposited in the depths of a mysterious pocket.

“You behaved like a real hero of romance,” Isabelle said in an undertone to de Sigognac, “and I feel that under your protection we can travel securely; how bravely you attacked that bandit single-handedly when you had every reason to believe that he was supported by an armed band.”