ng, of whom there were
eight, surrounded the unknown cavalier, with whom they exchanged a few
words, but in so low a tone that Don Juan could not hear the purport.
The gentleman then turned to Don Juan and said--"If these friends had
not arrived I should certainly not have left your company, Signor Don
Juan, until you had seen me in some place of safety; but as things are,
I beg you now, with all kindness, to retire and leave me in this place,
where it is of great importance that I should remain." Speaking thus,
the stranger carried his hand to his head, but finding that he was
without a hat, he turned towards the persons who had joined him,
desiring them to give him one, and saying that his own had fallen. He
had no sooner spoken than Don Juan presented him with that which he had
himself just picked up, and which he had discovered to be not his own.
The stranger having felt the hat, returned it to Don Juan, saying that
it was not his, and adding, "On your life, Signor Don Juan, keep this
hat as a trophy of this affray, for I believe it to be one that is not
unknown."

The persons around then gave the stranger another hat, and Don Juan,
after exchanging a few brief compliments with his companion, left him,
in compliance with his desire, without knowing who he was: he then
returned home, not daring at that moment to approach the door whence he
had received the newly-born infant, because the whole neighbourhood had
been aroused, and was in movement.

Now it chanced that as Don Juan was returning to his abode, he met his
comrade Don Antonio de Isunza; and the latter no sooner recognised him
in the darkness, than he exclaimed, "Turn about, Don Juan, and walk with
me to the end of the street; I have something to tell you, and as we go
along will relate a story such as you have never heard before in your
life."

"I also have one of the same kind to tell you," returned Don Juan, "but
let us go up the street as you say, and do you first relate your story."
Don Antonio thereupon walked forward, and began as follows:--"You must
know that in little less than an hour after you had left the house, I
left it also, to go in search of you, but I had not gone thirty paces
from this place when I saw before me a black mass, which I soon
perceived to be a person advancing in great haste. As the figure
approached nearer, I perceived it to be that of a woman, wrapped in a
very wide mantle, and who, in a voice interrupted by sobs and sighs