"The lady says that's too dear. Seventy-five _centimos_? No. The lady
can't pay that. Sixty _centimos_? No. The lady can't afford sixty
_centimos_. Fifty _centimos_? No. The lady says fifty _centimos_ is
too much. She will take them at forty _centimos_. Here's a half
_peseta_. And you must give me back a fat dog."
The boy held back the penny and tried to substitute a cent.
"Oh, sir, please, sir, forty-five _centimos_! There are two dozen
roses here, and all fresh as the dawn. Give me the puppy-dog over."
But the German, who knew how to put even a sharper edge on the
inveterate Spanish bargaining, secured for the value of eight cents,
instead of twenty, his great bouquet of really beautiful roses, and
presented it with as much of a bow as the carriage limits permitted.
"I meant to pay all the time, you know; but one can always make a
better trade, in Spain, if it is done in the name of a lady." And he
added, with that sudden tact which innate goodness and delicacy give
to the most blundering of us mortals, "If you don't like to take them
from a stranger for yourself, you will take them as my peace-offering
to your country."
I was reminded again of my native land by another fellow-traveller--a
Spaniard of the Spaniards, this time, one of the Conservative and
Catholic leaders, greeted at the various stations by priests and monks
and friars, whose hands he solemnly kissed. This distinguished
personage was absorbed in a voluminous type-written manuscript, from
which he occasionally read aloud to the band of political confidants
who accompanied him. It was an arraignment of the Liberal Party, and,
by way of exposing the errors of the Sagasta government, included a
merciless resume of the Spanish naval and military disasters, with
elaborate comparisons of the American and Spanish equipments. He was
then on his way to join in a consoling pilgrimage to a certain image
of Christ, which had been cudgelled by a grief-maddened priest whose
dying mother the image had failed to heal.
These surroundings more or less jostled my sixteenth-century dream,
but I held to it so stubbornly that, when pyramids of salt began to
glimmer like ghosts along the way, and a sweeping curve of lights
warned me of our approach to Cadiz, I made a point of seeing as little
as possible. It was midnight, but Spanish hours are luckily so late
that Don Jose's friends were still at the height of evening
sociability and regaled me with alternate showers of sweetmeats and
questions. Finally, after many exclamations of horror at the audacity
of the trip, all the feminine hospitality of the household lighted me
to a chamber whose walls were hung with pictures of martyrs and
agonizing saints. Among these I counted five colored representations
of Christ opening his breast to display the bleeding heart.
The next morning I promptly took boat to _Puerto de Santa Maria_,
embarked on the return steamer, and so at last found myself once more
on the Silver Road, entering Cadiz harbor from the sea.
To be sure, the _Montserrat_ was riding proudly in my view, although
the warships to which she had been used to curtsy in the open roads of
Cadiz would never cut those shining waves again. The waters were as
turquoise blue as if they had just come from the brush of an old
master, and the towered city rose before us like a crystal castle in
the air. Its limited space, built as it is within great sea walls on
an outlying rock, which only a rope of sand moors to the mainland, has
necessitated narrow streets and high houses, whose _miradores_,
lookouts that everywhere crown the terraced roofs, give this
battlemented aspect to the town. One of the most ancient and tragic
cities known to time, claiming Hercules for its founder, in turn
Phoenician, Carthaginian, Roman, Gothic, Moorish, Spanish, it yet
looks fresh as a water-lily. I could have spent another three days in
gazing. And this sparkling vision was Spain's _Copa de Plata_, the
Silver Cup which has brimmed with the gold and pearls of America, with
blood and flame and glory. Its riches have taken to themselves wings,
but its high, free spirit and frank gayety abide. Still the
Andalusians sing:--
"_Viva_ Cadiz, Silver Cadiz,
Whose walls defy the sea,
Cadiz of the pretty girls,
Of courtesy and glee!
"Good luck to merry Cadiz,
As white as ocean spray,
And her five and twenty cannon
That point Gibraltar way!"
But I am bound to add that the cannon do not look dangerous.