X.
The Moorish couple must have slept soundly and sweetly among the thickets on the roadside that night, for it was fully nine o'clock on the following morning when they reached the foot of Cape Negro.
At that place there is a village of Arab shepherds and husbandmen, called Medick, consisting of a few huts, a morabito or Mohammedan hermitage, and a well of fresh water, with its curbstone and its copper bucket, like the wells we see represented in certain biblical scenes.
At this hour the village was completely deserted, its inhabitants having betaken themselves, with their cattle and their implements of labor, to the neighboring hills and glens.
"Wait for me here," said Manos-gordas to his wife. "I am going in quest of Ben-Munuza, who at this hour is probably ploughing his fields on the other side of yonder hill."
"Ben-Munuza!" exclaimed Zama, with a look of terror; "the renegade of whom you spoke to me?"
"Make your mind easy," returned Manos-gordas. "I have the upper hand now. In a few hours I shall be back and you will see him following me like a dog. This is his cabin. Wait for us inside, and make us a good mess of alcazus, with the maize and the butter you will find at
