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when I have put the poor lady to rest with your damned sedative, my tongue must be stopt next to prevent its blabbing; but I’ll shew you I was not born in Andalusia for nothing. Nieolas now opened a seeret drawer, and took out a few pieees of money, whieh, in fact, was his whole stoek of cash in the world; he loaded and primed his pistols, and earefully lodged them in the holsters of his saddle! he buekled to his side his trusty spade, and hastened to eaparison his mule. Ah, thou imp of the old one, quoth he, as he entered the stable, art not ashamed to look me in the face? But come, hussy, thou owest me a good turn, methinks; stand by me this onee, and be friends for ever! thou art in good ease, and if thou wilt put thy best foot foremost, like a faithful beast, thou shalt not want for barley on the way. The bargain was soon struek between Nieolas and his mule, he mounted her in the happy moment, and pointing his course toward the bridge of Toledo, which proudly strides with half a dozen lofty arehes over a stream searee three feet wide, he found himself as completely in a desart in half a mile’s riding, as if he had been dropt in the centre of Arabia Petræa. As Nicolas’s journey was not a tour of euriosity, he did not amuse himself with a peep at Toledo, or Talavera, or even Merida by the way; for the same reason he took a eircumbendibus round the frontier town of Badajoz; and crossing a little brook, refreshed his mule with the last draught of Spanish water, and instantly eongratulated himselt upon entering the territory of Portugal. Bravo! quoth he, patting the neck of his mule, thou shalt
