�� said I, mentally.  “Is he carrying me to some den
of banditti, where my throat will be cut, or does he follow his master by
instinct?”  Both of these suspicions I, however, soon abandoned.  The
pony’s speed relaxed; he appeared to have lost the road.  He looked about
uneasily: at last, coming to a sandy spot, he put his nostrils to the
ground, and then suddenly flung himself down, and wallowed in true pony
fashion.  I was not hurt, and instantly made use of this opportunity to
slip the bit into his mouth, which previously had been dangling beneath
his neck; I then remounted in quest of the road.

This I soon found, and continued my way for a considerable time.  The
path lay over a moor, patched with heath and furze, and here and there
strewn with large stones, or rather rocks.  The sun had risen high in the
firmament, and burned fiercely.  I passed several people, men and women,
who gazed at me with surprise, wondering, probably, what a person of my
appearance could be about, without a guide, in so strange a place.  I
inquired of two females whom I met whether they had seen my guide; but
they either did not or would not understand me, and, exchanging a few
words with each other in one of the hundred dialects of the Gallegan,
passed on.  Having crossed the moor, I came rather abruptly upon a
convent, overhanging a deep ravine, at the bottom of which brawled a
rapid stream.

It was a beautiful and picturesque spot: the sides of the ravine were
thickly clothed with wood, and on the other side a tall black hill
uplifted itself.  The edifice was large, and apparently deserted.
Passing by it, I presently reached a small village, as deserted, to all
appearance, as the convent, for I saw not a single individual, nor so
much as a dog to welcome me with his bark.  I proceeded, however, until I
reached a fountain, the waters of which gushed from a stone pillar into a
trough.  Seated upon this last, his arms folded, and his eyes fixed upon
the neighbouring mountain, I beheld a figure which still frequently
recurs to