The youthful Infidel, for he had not
seen more than twenty summers, strode
on with his broken spear advanced, as if
he anticipated an attack from the mountaineer;
for in those hostile times every
man was likely to meet a foe in every
stranger whose path he crossed. He
came along the path until he stood before
them. The platform of rock was so narrow,
that the hermit and the gazelle-tender
fully occupied it; yet the descent of
the path lay over it, to which it formed a
sort of step. The hermit stood firm; but
the mountaineer by his side gave way as
far as he might with safety, to let the

[figure description] Page 009.[end figure description]

young Moorish huntsman pass between
them.

He hesitated, nevertheless, to go by.
The stern glance of thu hermit rested upon
him as he remained as immovable as a
statue.

`Wilt thou let me pass, Christian
dog?' repeated the Moor with flashing
eyes, as he pressed his spear point towards
the silvery beard of the venerable
apostle of the Cross.

`The Christian hath turned aside full
often for the Infidel, young man.'

`I cannot pass unless thou move also,'
answered the Moor. `I am wounded by
the tusk of a boar which I slew but a few
paces up the defile, and I hasten to my
friends. Let me pass.'

`There is fresh blood discoloring his
kaftan, father,' said the mountaineer.—
`He speaks the truth.'

`I am deeply hurt in the side. Give
way and let me hasten, or thou shalt rue
it. My life or thine.'

`Nay, if thou art in suffering I will not
stay thee, but rather aid thee, Infidel,'
answered the hermit, his brow relaxing
its sternness of aspect, and his countenance
beaming with benevolence and
sympathy. Sit here and let me see thy
wound and I will bind it up for thee.'

The young man gazed keenly upon
his features with looks of mingled doubt
and confidence. The latter feeling prevailed,
perhaps aided by his consciousness
of his inability to advance forward
without some aid; for he was growing
fainter each moment from the loss of
blood which was now seen trickling upon
his sandalled feet.

`I will trust thee, Christian,' he answered
faintly, as he sat, or rather sank
down upon the rock at their feet; his
spear fell from his relaxed grasp; a
deadly paleness took the place of the
flushed brow; and, inclining his head
upon his shoulder, he became insensible
in the arms of the young gazelle-keeper.

`He has now beceme a subject for
Christian love and pity, rather than
Christian anger,' said the recluse. Poor
youth, though an Infidel, he is a child of
Adam, even as we are, and we cannot
refuse him our aid in extremity. Loosen
the shawl, Alfonzo. Carefully, for the
wound may be deep, and the blood should
not come too freely.'

The young mountaineer had stood
aside, as we have seen, at the imperious
and insulting demand of the Moor, to
give him room to pass; for, though he
loved not the Infidel, he regarded him
as it were a guest upon his mountains,
and he did not care to be so uncharitable
as to deny him the pathway, open to all.
He had stood aside, too, at imminent
peril, for the rock below him fell sheer
a hundred feet, and he had only his
firmness of foot and steadiness of nerve
to sustain him while the Moor should pass
him. In stepping aside, therefore, he
trusted to the Moor's honor not to jostle
him; for the slightest touch would have
sent him headlong. In a word, he had
jeopardised his own life out of a spirit of
mountain courtesy to the Infidel. It was
not a feeling of fear that caused him to
obey. The heart of the young gazelle-tender
knew nothing of the sensation before
man.

The stern Christian indignation of the
bearded hermit, however, would not
suffer him to yield to a demand made so
haughtily and with such epithets. He
stood his ground, and would have grappled
with the Moor ere he would have
recognized the degrading appellation applied
to him by obeying. But when he
saw the young Moslem bleeding before
him, and beheld him sink insensible at
his feet, all his humanity dissolved into
gentle charity for the sufferer; and, forgetting
the Mahommedan in the man, he
extended to him prompt assistance.

From his girdle he untied a thick leather
pouch, which he hastily opened, and
out of it took two little crystal vials
and a box of some fragrant unction,
which he proceeded to mingle together
and pour upon linen torn from the bosom
of the Moor. By the time he had
prepared this, Alfonzo had removed the
shawl and firmly woven garments and
laid bare the wound, which was an unsightly
rent in the side between the ribs.
In a few moments, by the application of
the linen saturated with the medical preperation
the flow of the blood ceased.—
The wound was then carefully dressed
and bound up by the hermit with a

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degree of skill found at this time only in
the art of the surgoon.

`Now, my son, canst thou bear him
on thy shoulders to thy hut in the hamlet!
' asked the hermit as he completed
his Samaritan-like task. `We have done
our duty to this Infidel, as unto God, and
we must not let him lie here and die.—
We must watch over him till he can
take his feet again!'

`I can carry him, father!' answered
Alfonzo as he raised the lifeless form of
the stranger upon his shoulder and proceeded
carefully to descend the steep
way, the hermit following supporting his
steps by the aid of the boar-spear which
he had brought from the shelf of rock
to return to the Moor when he should
recover.

In a few minutes, this latter portion of
the mountain path being easier of descent
than the former, they reached the foot
of the mountain and entered all at once
upon a kind of village thoroughfare
that led beneath shady trees, along the
rocky borders of the brook and lined on
one side with the rude huts of the mountains.

Although this hamlet seemed to be,
when viewed from Paul's Rock, in the
level of the valley, it was at least seventy
feet above it, and the brook of the defile
along which it was built, gained the
vale only by a succession of wild cataracts,
whose roar echoing from the cliff
and mountain sides, was heard unceasingly.

It was a rude, romantic spot where the
hamlet stood, and being so high on the
road of the valley and so profoundly
concealed by trees that it was visible only
to those who from the cliff above
could look directly down on its thatched
roofs and hugely constructed chimneys.

Alfonzo bore the burden on his shoulder
along the street of the hamlet, until
he came to a hut constructed of stone a
little apart from the rest of the habitations.
It was sheltered by half a dozen
date and banana trees, and a majestic
cork tree grew before its door. Under
the cork-tree sat a man about forty years
of age making a frugal meal of coarse
barley bread and dried fish. He wore
the dark brown shepherd's rernagan and
broad palm hat, and at his feet crouched
a shaggy wolf dog, who upon seeing the
approach of Alfonzo and the recluse,
glared hls white teeth and emitted a savage
growl.

`Who is it, Lopo?' questioned the man
as he looked through the dim twilight in
the direction of the approaching party.—
`Ah, it is the good father, Godefred, and
Por Dios! here comes Alfonzo with a
dead man on his shoulder!'

With these words the goatherd laid his
bread and fish down on the root of the
tree upon which he had been seated, and
hastened to meet them.

`What is this? Who have you here?
An Infidel? We have one less enemy
in the land.'

`He is not dead father Gaspar,' answered
Alfonzo, as he laid his burden at
the foot of the tree.

`Not dead! Then by the mass let us
kill him ere he get to his feet again!'—
cried the goat herd drawing from his
girdle the broad sharp knife that he had
used in many a combat with the wolves
of the Sierras in defence of his goats.

`Nay, Gaspar,' cried father Godfrey,
arresting his hand as he aimed a blow at
the breast of the lifeless Moor with as
little compunction as if the infidel had
been a wild beast. `The Moslem is thy
guest? You must not harm him. God
hath given him to our charity, and we
must not show ourselves worse than barbarians
by slaying a helpless foe. We
found him on the hill at the cross path,
he was grievously wounded in combat
with a boar and sank at our feet lifeless;
albeit if he had had strength he would not
have hesitated to have made his way
over our bodies. But when he could no
longer do us harm and lay at our feet
dying, christian feeling commanded us to
bind up his wounds and restore him to
life.'

`To kill thee afterwards,' growled
the dark-faced goatherd slowly and reluctantly
returning his knife to its sheath
of untanned leather.

`Nay, he will never injure a benefactor,
Infidel though he be. The sons of
Islam regard hospitality as a sacred duty.
So must we Christians. How know you
but that we may convert him to the
faith of the cross when he shall recover?
Hast thou a spare couch?

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