' Then coming up to
me, she demanded with a shout, fearing otherwise that I should not
understand, whether I would not wish to see the room where I was to
sleep. I nodded: whereupon she led me out upon a back terrace,
and opening the door of a small room, of which there were three,
asked me if it would suit. 'Perfectly,' said I, and returned with
her to the kitchen.
'O, what a handsome face! what a royal person!' exclaimed the whole
family as I returned, in Spanish, but in the whining, canting tones
peculiar to the Gypsies, when they are bent on victimising. 'A
more ugly Busno it has never been our chance to see,' said the same
voices in the next breath, speaking in the jargon of the tribe.
'Won't your Moorish Royalty please to eat something?' said the tall
hag. 'We have nothing in the house; but I will run out and buy a
fowl, which I hope may prove a royal peacock to nourish and
strengthen you.' 'I hope it may turn to drow in your entrails,'
she muttered to the rest in Gypsy. She then ran down, and in a
minute returned with an old hen, which, on my arrival, I had
observed below in the stable. 'See this beautiful fowl,' said she,
'I have been running over all Tarifa to procure it for your
kingship; trouble enough I have had to obtain it, and dear enough
it has cost me.
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