In an instant what seemed to be a heap of pine twigs stirred, and a man emerging from beneath them rose slowly to his feet at a little distance from the child.
"Is it you, Chiquita ?" he asked.

"What news do you bring?
You are late.
I had given over expecting you to-night, and gone to sleep." The speaker was a dark, fierce-looking fellow of about five and twenty, with a spare, wiry frame, brilliant black eyes, and very white teeth--which were long and pointed like the fangs of a young wolf.
He looked as if he might be a brigand, poacher, smuggler, thief, or assassin--all of which he had been indeed by turns.

He was dressed like a Spanish peasant, and in the red woollen girdle wound several times around his waist was stuck a formidable knife, called in Spain a navaja.
The desperadoes who make use of these terrible weapons usually display as many red stripes, cut in the steel, upon their long pointed blades as they have committed murders, and are esteemed by their companions in proportion to the number indicated by this horrible record.

We do not know exactly how many of these scarlet grooves adorned Agostino's navaja, but judging by the savage expression of his countenance, and the fierce glitter of his eye, we may safely suppose them to have been creditably numerous.
"Well, Chiquita," said he, laying his hand caressingly on the child's head, "and what did you see at Maitre Chirriguirri's inn ?" "A great chariot full of people came there this afternoon," she answered.

"I saw them carry five large chests into the barn, and they must have been very heavy, for it took two men to lift them." "Hum!" said Agostino, "sometimes travellers put stones into their boxes to make them seem very weighty and valuable, and deceive the inn-keepers." "But," interrupted the child eagerly, "the three young ladies had trimmings of gold on their clothes; and one of them, the prettiest, had round her neck a row of round, shining, white things, and oh! they were so beautiful!" and she clasped her hands in an ecstasy of admiration, her voice trembling with excitement.
"Those must be pearls," muttered Agostino to himself, "and they will be worth having--provided they are real--but then they do make such perfect imitations now-a-days, and even rich people are mean enough to wear them." "My dear Agostino, my good Agostino," continued Chiquita, in her most coaxing tones, and without paying any attention to his mutterings, "will you give me the beautiful, shining things if you kill that lady ?" "They would go so well with your rags and tatters!" he answered mockingly.
"But I have so often kept watch for you while you slept, and I have run so far to tell you when any one was coming, no matter how cold it was, nor how my poor, bare feet ached--and I have never once kept you waiting for your food, when I used to carry it to you in your hiding places, even when I was bad with the fever, or my teeth chattering with the chill, and I so weak that I could hardly drag myself along.