and if Marco Antonio’s ship had not yet arrived there, they would wait for it, and be sure of seeing him.  His sister said he should do as he thought best, for his will was hers.  Don Rafael then told the muleteer who accompanied him to have patience, for he intended to go to Barcelona, but would pay him accordingly.  The muleteer, who was one of the merriest fellows of his trade, and who knew Don Rafael’s liberality, declared that he was willing to go with him to the end of the world.

Don Rafael asked his sister what money she had.  She told him she had not counted it; all she knew was that she had put her hand seven or eight times into her father’s strong box, and had taken it out full of gold crowns.  From this Don Rafael calculated that she might have something about five hundred crowns, which, with two hundred of his own, and a gold chain he wore, seemed to him no bad provision for the journey; the more so, as he felt confident of meeting Marco Antonio in Barcelona.  They pursued their journey I rapidly without accident or impediment until they arrived within two leagues of a town called Igualada, which is nine leagues from Barcelona, and there they learned that a cavalier who was going as ambassador to Rome, was waiting at Barcelona for the galleys, which had not yet arrived.  Greatly cheered by this news, they pushed on until they came to the verge of a small wood, from which they saw a man running, and looking back over his shoulder with every appearance of terror.  “What is the matter with you, good man?” said Don Rafael, going up to him.  “What has happened to you, that you seem so frightened and run so fast?”

“Have I not good cause to be frightened and to run fast,” said the man, “since I have escaped by a miracle from a gang of robbers in that wood?”

“Malediction!  Lord save us!” exclaimed the muleteer.  “Robbers at this hour!  By my halidom, they’ll leave us as bare as we were born.”

“Don’t make yourself uneasy, brother,” replied the man from the wood, “for the robbers have by this time gone away, after leaving more than thirty passengers stripped to their shirts and tied to trees, with the exception of one only, whom they have left to unbind the rest as soon as they should have passed a little hill they pointed out to him.”

“If that be so,” said Calvete, the muleteer, “we may proceed without fear, for where the robbers have made an attack, they do not show themselves again for some days.  I say this with confidence, as a man who has been twice in their hands, and knows all their ways.”

This fact being confirmed by the stranger, Don Rafael resolved to go on.  They entered the wood, and had not advanced far, when they came upon the persons who had been robbed, and who were more than forty in number.  The man who had been left free, had unbound some of them; but his work was not yet complete, and several of them were still tied to the trees.  They presented a strange spectacle, some of them stripped