506 The Maid of Covadonga. [ Nov. 
procure it at the peril of my life, and, what is worse, by endangering 
my salvation. A goodly company are we likely to find in these places 
at night—and a night like this withal !” 
The old man seemed more accommodating : he did not, indeed, offer 
himself as a guide, but frankly invited me to pass the night in his hut. 
In my situation, I thought the most prudent course to pursue was to 
accept his hospitality, which I accordingly did, and, dismounting, went 
to inspect what accommodation I was to hope for. A very frugal supper 
served as a prologue to a bed, composed of a mattrass of dry straw, and 
tattered rags for a coverlid. I slept, however, very soundly, and, strange 
to say, I was not visited by any dreams of the female maniac. But, if 
absent in my sleep, she was the first subject to occupy my imagination 
when I awoke. 
I left the hut early in the morning, and pursued my journey to , 
where I arrived full of the adventure which had marked my visit to the 
famous vale and chapel of Covadonga. I was here, however, equally 
unable to gather any satisfactory account concerning the mysterious 
female who had so strangely crossed my path. Time, that general 
destroyer of every thing human, gradually obliterated from my mind the 
recollection of my adventure ; and in less than a month I had scarcely a 
thought to bestow upon an incident which had absorbed all the powers 
of my imagination but a short time before. 
* . * * * : * * 
Ten years had now elapsed—ten years full of variety of incident and 
peril. I had left my native city, Oviedo, with the intention of seeing the 
world; I witnessed the stirring scenes rehearsed in France during the 
despotic period of Napoleon’s gigantic power ; and I had taken arms in 
defence of my country, when that mighty conqueror ventured upon his 
imprudent invasion. After the downfal of that great man—for great I 
must call him, although my hated enemy—at the ever-memorable field 
of Waterloo, I returned to Oviedo to enjoy a life of tranquillity, after the 
many disasters, troubles, and perplexities which had until now distin- 
guished it. 
The restoration of Ferdinancto the throne of Spain gave birth to many 
brilliant hopes, which were unhappily rendered abortive. This was a 
new inducement to make me prefer the solitude and obscurity of my 
paternal home to the glittering scene of the court of Madrid. On the 
day after my arrival at Oviedo, I was awakened early in the morning by 
a visit from Don Lorenzo Navas, my intimate friend. After the first 
greetings, I inquired of him the cause of a confused rumour that I had 
heard in the street. 
«* What!” said Don Lorenzo, “ you don’t know any thing then of the 
strange event which is about to take place?” 
« Not I, indeed ; how, in the name of fortune, should I, arriving but 
yesterday, after an absence of ten years? But what is this strange 
event ?” 
« They are going to hang a poor helpless female.” 
«« And that you call a strange event! Upon my word, your affairs at 
Oviedo must go on upon a very monotonous, uninteresting footing, since 
a public execution is calculated to produce such an effect.” ; 
«It is not, my good friend, the execution in itself that occasions this 
