t a blessing would have come home to us without our
knowing or deserving it! It would not be a sleeping powder for him so
much as it would be a powder of life for all of us, and for my poor dear
lady, Leonora his wife, to whom he sticks as close as her shadow, never
losing sight of her for a moment. Ah, senor of my soul! bring that
powder, and may God reward you with all the good you can desire. Go!
don't lose a moment--bring it, senor mio; I will take it upon me to put
it in his wine and to be his cupbearer. Oh, that it might please God
that the old man should sleep three days and nights! Three glorious days
and nights they would be for us."

"Well, I'll bring it then," said Loaysa. "It is of such a nature that it
does no harm to the person who takes it; the only effect of it being to
cause a most profound sleep."

They all entreated him to bring it without delay, and then they took
their leave of him, after agreeing that on the following night they
would make a hole in the turning-box with a gimlet, and that they would
try and persuade their mistress to come down. By this time it was nearly
daylight, yet the negro wished to take a lesson. Loaysa complied with
his desire, and assured him that among all the pupils he had ever
taught, he had not known one with a finer ear; and yet the poor negro
could never, to the end of his days, have learned the gamut.

Loaysa's friends took care to come at night to Carrizales' door to see
if their friend had any instructions to give them, or wanted anything.
On the second night, when they had made him aware of their presence by a
preconcerted signal, he gave them, through the key-hole, a brief account
of the prosperous beginning he had made, and begged they would try and
get him something to be given to Carrizales to make him sleep. He had
heard, he said, that there were powders which produced that effect. They
told him they had a friend, a physician, who would give them the best
drug for that purpose if he happened to have it; and after encouraging
him to persist in the enterprise, and promising to return on the
following night, they left him.

Presently the whole flock of doves came to the lure of the guitar, and
among them was the simple Leonora, trembling for fear her husband should
awake. So great was her dread of his discovering her absence, that her
women had great difficulty in persuading her to make the hazardous
venture. But they all, especially the duena, told her such