The daily morning journal and courier., 1905-08-22
FINDING A vALAsQUEz.
The Strange Adventure of q Tourist in
 Spain.

The Strange Adventure of Tourist in Spain.
 So recently as five and half years ago tourist tramping through Grana- da (Spain) came to a small village at the foot of the northern slope of the Sierra de Baza. The only inn was a wretched, tumble-down place, with q sinister appearance. The September night was, however, fast closing in, and there was no choice. The m0ln- tain road, at dust, to<the village OH the southern side of the hills was n1E in- Viting, for brigandage had been sfiae- what rife. So, making the best nG it, the artist, remembering that he pos | sessed a revolver in case of emergency, applied at the inn for a nights rest. He was fairly well received, supper. of a sort was hastily provided and after the meal he sat near the wood hre and ! smoked, for the night was a bit chlil. He must have fallen asleep, for he confessed that he woke with a start to | find the room in almost complete dark l ness. But when the fire flicker d ur te saw two men crouching in a corner with his knapsack in th~i, hands, rvi- dently caught in the act If 0pent.y 1t. Whether it was fancy 0' not, the 1 awakened sleeper thought third per l son was approaching him from behind, 1 and that in the hand of one of the kneeling robbers he caught glenn of 1 naked steel. Anyway, he somewhat 1 hastily drew his revolver from his pocf- ct and jumped up, Within 8 rod CT two of him stood a rough-lo oNing peasant with long knife drawn. It. was not a moment for barley. The Englishman 1 covered him with bis revolver and called out to him to drop the knife. The man hesitated and seeing his 1 companions were coming to hls sup 1 port, moral or otherwise the artist de- flected his revolver so as not to hie the man and pulled the trigger 1irere was a sharp report, a crash of somethlngi 1 falling and a stampede of the Would-be ] robbers.
 The sound of the shot brought in the landlord and his wife, who in Andalu- sian patois, but with guilty faces, asked with assumed innocence what had oc- l ShliCd tp ulotul U LpClI SlGSt, IlE Ch~ | plained somewhat fOrcibly. The land l lord shrugged his shoulders, said he was very sorry, mathematical the rob bers (who probably had been instigated to murder his stray guest by himself), and suggested that senor would par- haps like to retire to the upper cham Der, which had been prepared for him. 1 The artist declined, and intimated his intention of sitting up all night where he was, and shooting any other persons than the landlord, his wife or their daughter, a girl of about fourteen, on sight, should they enter the room The night passed quite undisturbed, save for the cackling of some fowls, which seemed to be lodged in the next room, and in the early part of the night Whis- perings beneath the window,
 | When morning came the artist threw open the shutters and at once noticed that the things thatrhad crashed to the floor when he fired the night before was an old picture which he had mo- ticed hanging frameless on the wall His bullet had severed the string. He took it to the window and examined it carefully. He thought he recognized the artists work, although it was grimed with dirt and smoke. The wood on which it was stretched was injured, and as he stood examining it the woman came in and saw this.
 "Senor," she exclaimed, with well simulated anger, "see what mischief your shot has done!"
 The artist saw his chance. Nile ex- pressed himself as being sorry.
 "Sorry!" exclaimed the woman, thinking she saw means of eXtortion, but sorrow, senor, does not mend mat ters. We are poor people,"
 The woman's husband came in and added his tale of woe to hers. In the end the man fixed sum amounting to four shillings for the damage done to his wall and the picture. The artist declined, and the man finally insisted on his visitor paying sum amounting to fifteen shillings and taking the pic- ture.
 As the artist made his way up the steep path toward the hill road, he heard the inn keeper and his wife re-" ioicing over their good fortune in sell ing fool of a traveller a dirty picture for fifteen shillings. The artist care- fully cut the canvas from its wooden stretcher and also rejoiced, as well he might, for on reaching London he found he had brought away from the sunny south Velasquez worth twelve hundred pounds to a dealer to sell abain.-Chambers Journal.
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