I commenced at once, with an audacity at which I really feel astonished, to chant this air, which is sung by all the shepherds of the island.

     Ah graciada senora
     Una canzo bouil canta
       Be, be, be, be.

     No sera gaira pulida
     Nose si vos agradara
       Be, be, be, be.

At once my Ivizacan, upon whom this air had the effect of the ranz des vaches on the Swiss, declared, all in tears, that I was a native of Iviza.

I then said to the judge that if he would put me in communication with a person knowing the French language, he would arrive at just as embarrassing a result.  An emigre officer of the Bourbon regiment offered at once to make the experiment, and, after some phrases interchanged between us, affirmed without hesitation that I was French.

The judge, rendered impatient, exclaimed, “Let us put an end to these trials which decide nothing.  I summon you, sir, to tell me who you are.  I promise that your life will be safe if you answer me with sincerity.

“My greatest wish would be to give an answer to your satisfaction.  I will, then, try to do so; but I warn you that I am not going to tell you the truth.  I am son of the innkeeper at Mataro.”  “I know that innkeeper; you are not his son.”  “You are right.  I announced to you that I should vary my answers until one of them should suit you.  I retract then, and tell you that I am a titiretero, (player of marionettes,) and that I practised at Lerida.”

A loud shout of laughter from the multitude encircling us greeted this answer, and put an end to the questions.

“I swear by the d——­l,” exclaimed the judge, “that I will discover sooner or later who you are!”

And he retired.

The Arabs, the Moroccans, the Jews, who witnessed this interrogatory, understood nothing of it; they had only seen that I had not allowed myself to be intimidated.  At the close of the interview they came to kiss my hand, and gave me, from this moment, their entire confidence.

I became their secretary for all the individual or collective remonstrances which they thought they had a right to address to the Spanish Government; and this right was incontestable.  Every day I was occupied in drawing up petitions, especially in the name of the two ostrich-feather merchants, one of whom called himself a tolerably near relation of the Emperor of Morocco.  Astonished at the rapidity with which I filled a page of my writing, they imagined, doubtless, that I should write as fast in Arabic characters, when it should be requisite to transcribe passages from the Koran; and that this would form both for me and for them the source of a brilliant fortune, and they besought me, in the most earnest way, to become a Mahometan.

Very little reassured by the last words of the judge, I sought means of safety from another quarter.