436 Autobiography of Polinario, Ike Spanish Bandit. [APRIL, 



however, before taken the value of a quarto from any one, even to give 

 to another, and I accordingly resolved to go to confession before quit- 

 ting Cordova. This I did the following morning, and my confessor 

 having enjoined only an ave and a paternoster, I was the more confirmed 

 in the estimate I had formed. 



This event, insignificant as it was in itself, was not insignificant in its 

 results ; for beside that it in some degree helped to decide my after line 

 of life, it materially affected the manner of it ; for it will be seen here- 

 after, that no adventure in which I was ever engaged, terminated at the 

 expense of the poor ; that I always took from those who could afford to 

 lose something ; and that the gold of the rich, in most cases helped the 

 poor to a puchero. 



I have now to relate the second circumstance that contributed to 

 strengthen, or rather to form my inclination for the life which I after- 

 wards adopted. I was now eighteen years old; and my sister Mara- 

 quita, was one year younger. We were all a handsome family ; my 

 father was tall and straight, with broad shoulders, and fine calves to his 

 legs ; my mother, besides her fine eyes, had the true Andalusian figure 

 and gait, and knew the use of her fan and her mantilla, as well as any 

 Senora in the land : I took from both ; at seventeen I was as tall as my 

 father; and almost as strong; my limbs were as straight as a palm ; 

 and my dark crisped locks, open brow, and well turned features, to say 

 nothing of my ready speech and skill in the Bolero, had already created 

 enough of jealousies among the village girls. But I was speaking of 

 Maraquita. She was the queen of Tobaruela, some said, of all the pro- 

 vince. Guitar strings were freely broken on her account ; but this was 

 not the worst of it : some quarrels among rivals, ended badly ; and my 

 father was resolved to marry her. The son of a neighbouring small 

 olive graver, was the favourite of my sister ; but the father of her lover 

 would by no means consent to the marriage, unless his daughter-in-law 

 could bring as many duros as would purchase an olive press, and a 

 mule, to tread. 



Since I had transferred the half capon from the duke's table under- 

 neath the cloak of the pobre, I had never committed any breach of 

 honesty ; but I now began to think how happy it would make Mara- 

 quita, and all of us, if she were married, and how little matter a mule 

 and a small purse of duros would be to some. During the greater part 

 of a year I meditated upon t{iis, and just then an event took place that 

 helped me to the accomplishment of the resolution I had formed. An 

 uncle, my father s brother, died at Torre Nueva in La Mancha, leaving 

 to him, a house and a small piece of saffron and wine land, and the 

 mule trade between our village and Andujar having become worse, 

 owing to the channel of the river having been deepened so that boats 

 could pass down, my father resolved to cross the Sierra into La Maricha, 

 to spend the rest of his days on his newly acquired inheritance. The 

 evening before our departure, while my sister Maraquita sat weeping 

 at the thoughts of parting from her lover, whom she thought never to 

 see more, I resolved that she should no longer have cause for sorrow- 

 ing ; and without saying anything, I slipped out, and wrapping my 

 cloak round me, walked to the outskirts of the village, to a small venta 

 kept by a man called Tobias, who had the reputation of being a shrewd 

 man and an arrant rogue, and whose neck had been saved upon more 

 occasions than one, by the dexterous use he had made of an ill-gotten purse. 



