Towards midnight Luis knew, by the signals cautiously given at the turning-box, that the women were all there; whereupon he and Loaysa went down from the loft with the guitar, complete in all its strings and well tuned.  The maestro asked how many were there to hear him, and was told that all the women in the house were there, except their lady, who was in bed with her husband.  This was not what Loaysa wished for, nevertheless, by way of making a beginning and obliging his pupil, he touched the guitar softly, and drew from it such tones as ravished the ears of his audience.  But who could describe the delight of the women when he sang Pesame de ello, and followed it up with the magic strains of the saraband, then new in Spain?  There was not one of them that did not keep time to the music as if she were dancing like mad, but all noiselessly and with extreme caution, keeping scouts on the watch to warn them if the old man awoke.  Loaysa finally played them several seguidillas, and so put the climax to his success, that they all eagerly begged the negro to tell them who was this marvellous musician.  Luis replied that he was a poor beggar, but the most gallant and genteel man in all the back slums of Seville.  They conjured the negro to contrive some means that they might see him, and not to let him quit the house for a fortnight, for they would take care to supply him with the best of good cheer, and plenty of it.  They were curious to know how Luis had managed to get him into the house; but to this the negro made no reply.  For the rest he told them that if they wanted to see the maestro, they might bore a small hole in the turning-box and afterwards stop it up with wax; and that as for keeping him in the house, he would do his best.

Loaysa then addressed them, and offered them his services in such obliging and polite terms, that they were sure such fine language never came out of the head of a poor beggar.  They entreated he would come the next night, and they would prevail on their lady to come down and hear him, in spite of the light sleep of her lord and master—­the result not so much of his age as of his extreme jealousy.  Loaysa replied that if they wished to hear him without fear of being surprised by the old man, he would give them a powder to put in his wine, which would make him sleep more soundly.  “Good heaven!” cried one of the damsels, “if that were true, what a blessing would have come home to us without our knowing or deserving it!  It would not be a sleeping powder for him so much as it would be a powder of life for all of us, and for my poor dear lady, Leonora his wife, to whom he sticks as close as her shadow, never losing sight of her for a moment.  Ah, senor of my soul! bring that powder, and may God reward you with all the good you can desire.  Go! don’t lose a moment—­bring it, senor mio; I will take it upon me to put it in his wine and to be his cupbearer.  Oh, that it might please God that the old man should sleep three days and nights!  Three glorious days and nights they would be for us.”