He consented, and named the next day but one for the expedition.

Very well, thought I, tomorrow their suspicion will be less, and my opportunity will come; then taking up my rude instrument, I gave them an old Spanish song: Desde aquel doloroso momento; but this kind of music had lost its charm for them, and I was asked to give them the ballad they understood so well, in which their interest seemed to increase with every repetition.

In spite of anxiety it amused me to see old Cla-cla regarding me fixedly with owlish eyes and lips moving.

My tale had no wonderful things in it, like hers of the olden time, which she told only to send her hearers to sleep.

Perhaps she had discovered by now that it was the strange honey of melody which made the coarse, common cassava bread of everyday life in my story so pleasant to the palate.