“To avoid punishment, my men made known that Carmen had spoken to me in Basque; and to tell the truth, it did not seem very natural that a blow from such a little creature should have so easily overthrown a strong fellow like me.  The whole thing looked suspicious, or, at all events, not over-clear.  When I came off guard I lost my corporal’s stripes, and was condemned to a month’s imprisonment.  It was the first time I had been punished since I had been in the service.  Farewell, now, to the sergeant’s stripes, on which I had reckoned so surely!

“The first days in prison were very dreary.  When I enlisted I had fancied I was sure to become an officer, at all events.  Two of my compatriots, Longa and Mina, are captains-general, after all.  Chapalangarra was a colonel, and I have played tennis a score of times with his brother, who was just a needy fellow like myself.  ‘Now,’ I kept crying to myself, ’all the time you served without being punished has been lost.  Now you have a bad mark against your name, and to get yourself back into the officers’ good graces you’ll have to work ten times as hard as when you joined as a recruit.’  And why have I got myself punished?  For the sake of a gipsy hussy, who made game of me, and who at this moment is busy thieving in some corner of the town.  Yet I couldn’t help thinking about her.  Will you believe it, sir, those silk stockings of hers with the holes in them, of which she had given me such a full view as she took to her heels, were always before my eyes?  I used to look through the barred windows of the jail into the street, and among all the women who passed I never could see one to compare with that minx of a girl—­and then, in spite of myself, I used to smell the acacia blossom she had thrown at me, and which, dry as it was, still kept its sweet scent.  If there are such things as witches, that girl certainly was one.

“One day the jailer came in, and gave me an Alcala roll.*

* Alcala de los Panaderos, a village two leagues from Seville, where the most delicious rolls are made.  They are said to owe their quality to the water of the place, and great quantities of them are brought to Seville every day.

“‘Look here,’ said he, ‘this is what your cousin has sent you.’

“I took the loaf, very much astonished, for I had no cousin in Seville.  It may be a mistake, thought I, as I looked at the roll, but it was so appetizing and smelt so good, that I made up my mind to eat it, without troubling my head as to whence it came, or for whom it was really intended.

“When I tried to cut it, my knife struck on something hard.  I looked, and found a little English file, which had been slipped into the dough before the roll had been baked.  The roll also contained a gold piece of two piastres.  Then I had no further doubt—­it was a present from Carmen.  To people of her blood, liberty is everything, and they would set a town on fire to