26 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF FRANCIS ARAGO. 



" We must follow the high road, and we shall meet with 

 them." Others maintained that they must get into the 

 wood on the left. The barking of the dogs, by which 

 these individuals were accompanied, added to the tumult. 

 During this time we pursued our way silently, more 

 dead than alive. It was two o'clock in the morning. 

 All at once we saw a faint light in a solitary house ; it 

 was like a light-house for the mariner in the midst of the 

 tempest, and the only means of safety which remained 

 to us. Arrived at the door of the farm, we knocked and 

 asked for hospitality. The inmates, very little reassured, 

 feared that we were thieves, and did not hurry themselves 

 to open to us. 



Impatient at the delay, I cried out, as I had received 

 authority to do so, " In the name of the King, open to 

 us ! " They obeyed an order thus given ; we entered 

 pell-mell, and in the greatest haste, men and mules, into 

 the kitchen, which was on the ground-floor ; and we hur- 

 ried to extinguish the lights, in order not to awaken the 

 suspicions of the bandits who were seeking for us. In- 

 deed, we heard them, passing and repassing near the 

 house, vociferating with the whole force of their lungs 

 against their unlucky fate. We did not quit this solitary 

 house until broad day, and we continued our route for 

 Tortosa, not without having given a suitable recompense 

 to our hosts. I wished to know by what providential 

 circumstance they happened to have a lamp burning at 

 that unseasonable hour. " We had killed a pig," they 

 told me, " in the course of the day, and we were busy 

 preparing the black puddings." Had the pig lived one 

 day more, or had there been no black puddings, I should 

 certainly have been no longer in this world, and I should 

 not have the opportunity to relate the story of the robbers 

 of Oropeza. 



