DON JUAN 39 



Juan did not understand a word 



Of English, save their shibboleth, " God damn ! " 

 And even that he had so rarely heard, 



He sometimes thought 'twas only their " Salaam," 

 Or " God be with you ! " and 'f.s not absurd 



To think so ; for, half English as I am 

 (To my misfortune), never can I say 



r heard them wish " God with you," save that way. 



But if he failed to understand their speech, he 

 interpreted their actions accurately enough, and, 

 drawing a pocket-pistol, shot the foremost in the 

 stomach, who, writhing in agony on the ground, and 

 unable to discriminate between Continental nation- 

 alities, called out that " the bloody Frenchman " had 

 killed him. His three companions did not wait to 

 discover that it was not a Frenchman, but a Spaniard. 

 No, they promptly ran away, and left their fellow to 

 die, which he presently did, and Don Juan, after an 

 interview with the coroner, proceeded on his road in 

 wonderment. " Perhaps," he thought, " it is the 

 country's wont to welcome foreigners in this way." 



Shooter's Hill is pictured excellently well in A Tale of 

 Tzvo Cities ; the time, " a Friday night, late in 

 November, in the year of our Lord one thousand 

 seven hundred and seventy-five," the occasion the 

 passing of the Dover Mail. The coachman was 

 " laying on " to the horses like another Macduff, and 

 the near leader of the tired team was shaking its head 

 and everything upon it, as though denying that the 

 coach could be got up the hill at all ; while the 

 passengers, having been turned out to walk up the 

 road and case the horses, splashed miserably in the 

 slush. The time was " ten minutes, good, past 

 eleven," and the coachman had but just finished 

 addressing the horses in such strange exclamations as 

 " Tst ! Yah ! Get on with you ! ^ My blood ! " and 

 other picturesque, not to say lurid, phrases, when 

 sounds were heard along the highway. Sounds of 

 any sort on the road could not at this hour be aught 

 than ominous, and so the passengers, who w^re just 

 upon the point of re-entering the coach, shivered and 



