158 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF FRANCIS ARAGO. 



"Your situation is perfectly known to me; I know tbat you are not 

 a custom-house guard ; I have learned from certain information that you 

 are the chief of the robbers of the country. Tell me whether 1 have any- 

 thing; to fear from your confederates." 



"The idea of robbing you did occur to us, but we concluded that all 

 your funds would be in the neighboring towns; that you would carry 

 no money to the summit of mountains, where you would not know what 

 to do with it, and that our expedition against you could have no fruitful 

 result. Moreover, we cannot pretend to be as strong as the King of 

 Spain. The King's troops leave us quietly" enough to exercise our in- 

 dustry, but on the daj^ that we molested an envoy from the Emperor of 

 the French, they would direct against us several regiments, and we 

 should soon have to succumb. Allow me to add, that the gratitude 

 which I owe to you is your surest guarantee." 



"Very well, I will trust in your words; I shall regulate ray conduct 

 by your answer. Tell me if I can travel at night; it is fatiguing to me 

 to move from one station to another in the day under the burning 

 influence of the sun." 



"You can do so, sir; I have already given my orders to this purpose; 

 they will not be infringed." 



Some days afterward I left for Denia ; it was midnight, when some 

 horsemen rode up to me, and addressed these words to me: 



"Stop there, sefior; times are hard; those who have something must 

 aid those who have nothing. Give us the keys of your trunks; we will 

 only take your superfluities." 



I had already obeyed their orders, when it came into my head to call 

 out, " But I have been told that I could travel without risk." 

 "What is your name, sir?" 

 " Don Francisco Arago." 



" Hombre ! varja listed con Dios,''^ (God be with you.) 

 And our cavaliers, spurring away from us, rapidly lost themselves in a 

 field of " algarrobas." 



When my friend the robber of Cullera assured me that I had nothing to 

 fear from his subordinates, he informed me at the same time that his 

 authority did not extend north of Valencia. The banditti of the north- 

 ern part of the kingdom obeyed other chiefs, one of whom, after having 

 been taken, was condemned and hung, and his body divided into four 

 quarters, which were fastened to posts on four royal roads, but not with- 

 out their having previously been boiled in oil, to make sure of their 

 longer preservation. 



This barbarous custom produced no effect, for scarcely* was one chief 

 destroyed before another presented himself to rejilace him. 



Of all these brigands those had the worst reputation who carried on 

 their depredations in the environs of Oropeza. The proprietors of the 

 three mules on which M. Rodriguez, I, and my servant were riding one 

 evening in this neighborhood were recounting to us the "grand deeds" 



