第157章

"To the chim of the Corahai, my son; to the land of the Moors, to be a soldier of the Moorish king.""And what will become of yourself?" I inquired; "think you that he will take you with him?""He will leave me on the shore, my son, and as soon as he has crossed the black pawnee, he will forget me and never think of me more.""And knowing his ingratitude, why should you give yourself so much trouble about him?""Am I not his romi, my son, and am I not bound by the law of the Cales to assist him to the last? Should he return from the land of the Corahai at the end of a hundred years, and should find me alive, and should say, I am hungry, little wife, go forth and steal or tell bahi, I must do it, for he is the rom and I the romi."On my return to Madrid, I found the despacho still open:

various Testaments had been sold, though the number was by no means considerable: the work had to labour under great disadvantage, from the ignorance of the people at large with respect to its tenor and contents.It was no wonder, then, that little interest was felt respecting it.To call, however, public attention to the despacho, I printed three thousand advertisements on paper, yellow, blue, and crimson, with which I almost covered the sides of the streets, and besides this, inserted an account of it in all the journals and periodicals;the consequence was, that in a short time almost every person in Madrid was aware of its existence.Such exertions in London or Paris would probably have ensured the sale of the entire edition of the New Testament within a few days.In Madrid, however, the result was not quite so flattering; for after the establishment had been open an entire month, the copies disposed of barely amounted to one hundred.

These proceedings of mine did not fail to cause a great sensation: the priests and their partisans were teeming with malice and fury, which, for some time, however, they thought proper to exhibit only in words; it being their opinion that Iwas favoured by the ambassador and by the British government;but there was no attempt, however atrocious, that might not be expected from their malignity; and were it right and seemly for me, the most insignificant of worms, to make such a comparison, I might say, like Paul at Ephesus, I was fighting with wild beasts.

On the last day of the year 1837, my servant Antonio thus addressed me: "Mon maitre, it is necessary that I leave you for a time.Ever since we have returned from our journeys, I have become unsettled and dissatisfied with the house, the furniture, and with Donna Marequita.I have therefore engaged myself as cook in the house of the Count of -, where I am to receive four dollars per month less than what your worship gives me.I am fond of change, though it be for the worse.

Adieu, mon maitre, may you be as well served as you deserve;should you chance, however, to have any pressing need DE MESSOINS, send for me without hesitation, and I will at once give my new master warning, if I am still with him, and come to you."Thus was I deprived for a time of the services of Antonio.I continued for a few days without a domestic, at the end of which time I hired a certain Cantabrian or Basque, a native of the village of Hernani, in Guipuscoa, who was strongly recommended to me.