mention of Fulano even in Sismondi's learned
book—The Literature of the South of
Europe.

"Do you know," he said, "that sumptuous
ballad of Don Fulano, in which he describes
our Cid's entry into Valencia, after his
victory at Abuelfeda, and his slaying the
five Moorish kings?"

I said, rather testily, filling my glass, and
looking through it at the light, as if it was a
barometer, "I have told you, several times,
Don Balthazar, that I never even heard of
this Fulano."

"So much the worse for you," said the
painter-enthusiast. "I will sing you part of
it, and then will afterwards dictate it for
you to write down, if you are indeed in
earnest in wishing to preserve such inestimable
treasures."

"I am in earnest," I said seriously, draining
the barometer.

"Here, I will call for my guitar: I can do
nothing without my guitar. Pepe—Pedro—
Juan—somebody" (and he shouted like a
man-of-war's-man hailing the waiter at a
Portsmouth eating-house).

The guitar came—Pedro carrying it with
awe, as if it were a baby.

In a rich chest voice, Balthazar began the
celebrated ballad:

"With dripping sword, and horse all sweat, he rode
       into the town,
The black gore from his plume and flag was raining
       hotly down."

"His mace was bent, his banner rent, his helmet
       beaten in,
The blood-spots on his mail were thick as spots on
       leopard's skin."

"And after came the hostages, the ransom'd and the
       dead,
The cloven Moors in waggons piled, the body or the
       head."

"And heaps of armour golden-chain'd, gay plumes
       and broken flags,
Piled up as in the tanner's yard, or heaps of
       beggars' rags."

"Then stately camels, golden-trapp'd, each
       silver-white as milk,
High laden with the aloes wood, soft ambergris
       and silk."

"Rich Indian camphor, martin skins from Khorasan
       the fair,
Ten piles of silver ingots, each a Sultan's triple
       share."

"Great bales of orange saffron weed, and crystal
       diamond clear,
Large Beja rubies, fiery red, such stones the Emirs
        wear."

"Last came the shekels and the bars in leather
        bags seal'd red,
And then black slaves, with jars of gold upon each
        woolly head."

"What a treasure is this for historians!"
said Balthazar, dropping his guitar, quite
winded by his enthusiasm. "What curious
traits of manners: what local allusions!
But," he said, "you have not heard half
enough to judge. Let me describe you the
Cid as he rode out, like a statue of Mars—a
golden statue, seeming to be hewn out of
solid metal. Would I had a two-handed
sword to lay about me now in the garden here,
and show you how he felled the Moors in
long swathes."

"I am very glad you have not," I said.
"You remind me of that old military painter
who never took to his easel till he had first
beaten a drum for half an hour, and then
hammered a sword for twenty minutes on a
suffering lay figure in armour that he kept
for that purpose."

"You English," said Balthazar, "are a
cold, calculating race. I am of the old
blue blood of Castille. My ancestors
fought under Don John and the Great
Captain. They split many a shorn Moorish
head. I confess these old ballads of my
country, particularly those of the great Don
Fulano (here the enthusiast for chivalry, the
modern Don Quixote, bowed in silent respect
of the memory of that great writer), stir me
like a trumpet. I read and sing them till I
fancy myself again The Pounder, mashing the
Moorish skulls with the torn up olive tree
outside Xeres; again, Don Gayferos bearing
off his wife from the Moorish tower; again,
the old admiral putting on his rusty armour
to fight before the Philistine Moors. In
imagination I dine every day with Charlemagne
and the twelve peers. I see frequently
Saint James, descending in full armour on
a winged white horse from the clouds to
succour the Cid. At the restaurant I
sometimes find myself handing the paper to
Roland, or Iriarte the White; and, when the
old canon who presides at the soup, asks me
if I will take a second helping, I sometimes
catch myself saying, A thousand thanks,
brave Campeador, no. At which every one
laughs to see my brain wool-gathering; and
I break out of the room in a fret, throwing
my chair down. Don't I," said Balthazar,
twirling his mustachios with both hands till
the sharp tips of their curls nearly reached
his cheek bones; "don't I," and he clenched
his stick as if he were hewing down a
Saracen, "wander about this old palace of
Pedro the Cruel till it nearly turns my brain,
thinking of the generous old times when
sword law was more thought of than statute
law?"

"When might was right, in fact."

"When might was right—always right—
and right was mighty, too, and strong
handed. In the days before every house was.
full of the vermin of slander; when you
could strike honestly, in the teeth, the man
to whom you now have to bow and smirk,
and to shake hands with. The times when
the people, rich or poor, were happy—"