‘Alas!’ he said. ‘Why didn’t I listen to Fray6 Gerónimo de la Trinidad, monk, preacher and confessor, the oracle of our family? He is the brother-in-law of the sister-in-law of the father-in-law of my mother-in-law, and therefore is the closest relative we have; so nothing is done in our family without his advice. I refused to follow his counsel, and now am being justly punished for it. He warned me that the officers of the Walloon Guards were all heretics, as can clearly be seen from their fair hair, blue eyes and pink cheeks; proper Christians have the complexion of Our Lady of Atocha as depicted by St Luke.’7

I put a stop to this torrent of impertinent remarks by ordering Lopez to give me my double-barrelled gun and to stay with the horses while I found some nearby outcrop from which to look for Mosquito, or at least signs of where he had gone. At this suggestion Lopez burst into tears and, throwing himself at my knees, begged me by all the saints not to leave him alone in a place so full of danger. I offered to look after the horses while he went to look for Mosquito, but he seemed even more terrified by this proposal. I gave him, however, so many good reasons for searching for Mosquito that he let me go. Then he took a rosary from his pocket and began to pray beside the trough.

The heights which I intended to climb were more distant than I had thought. It took me nearly an hour to reach them, and, when I got there, I saw nothing but a wild and desolate plain; there were no signs of men, animals or dwellings, no road apart from that by which I had come, and no other travellers in sight; nothing but a deep all-pervading silence which I broke with my shouts. Only the echoes of my own voice in the distance replied. At last I turned back and retraced my steps to the trough; there I found my horse tied to a tree, but Lopez had vanished.

Two courses of action were open to me: to return to Andújar or to continue on my journey. I did not even consider the former. I jumped on my horse and, spurring it to a gallop, reached in two hours the banks of the Guadalquivir, which is not at this point in its course the calm river which flows majestically round the walls of the city of Seville, but rather, as it emerges from the mountains, a deep, powerful, roaring torrent, difficult of access, constantly thundering against the rocks which confine it.

The valley of Los Hermanos8 begins where the Guadalquivir joins the plain. This valley is so called because three brothers, even more united by their taste for banditry than by their ties of blood, had for a long time made it the scene of their exploits. Two of the three brothers had been caught and their bodies could be seen hanging from the gallows at the entrance to the valley; Zoto, the eldest, had escaped from prison in Córdoba and was thought to have taken refuge in the Alpujarras mountains.

Very strange tales were told about the two brothers who had been hanged; they were not said to be ghosts, but it was claimed that at night nameless demons would possess their bodies, which would break free from the gallows and set out to torment the living. This was taken to be so well attested that a theologian from Salamanca had written a thesis proving that the two hanged brothers were species of vampire, and that the supposition that one of them should be a vampire was no less implausible than that the other should be so: an argument that even the most sceptical were forced to agree was sound. There was also a widespread rumour that the two brothers were innocent and that, having been unjustly executed, they took vengeance on travellers and other wayfarers with the consent of heaven. As I had heard these stories in Córdoba, curiosity prompted me to approach the gallows. The spectacle that met my eyes was made all the more revolting by the fact that the ghastly corpses were swung in eerie gyrations in the wind, while hideous vultures tore at their flesh. Horrified, I averted my gaze and hurried along the track leading to the mountains.

The valley of Los Hermanos, it must be acknowledged, seemed very well suited to fostering the activities of bandits and affording them refuge. The way forward was barred here and there by large boulders which had fallen down the mountainside, and by trees uprooted by storms. The track frequently crossed river-beds or passed by the mouths of ominous-looking deep caves which put travellers on their guard.

I emerged from that valley and entered another in which I saw the venta which was to serve as my resting-place; but from the moment I caught sight of it in the distance, I was filled with foreboding. For, as I could see, it had no windows or shutters, no smoke was rising from the chimneys, there were no signs of life nearby and no dogs barking to mark my approach. I concluded from this that the inn was one of those which had been abandoned, as the innkeeper at Andújar had told me. It seemed to me that the closer I came to the venta, the deeper the silence grew. When finally I reached it, I saw an alms box oh which the following words were inscribed: ‘Good travellers, of your charity pray for the soul of Gonzalez of Murcia, sometime innkeeper of the Venta Quemada. I entreat you above all else to continue on your way and not to spend the night here, for any reason.’

I decided at once to face the dangers with which the inscription threatened me. It was not that I did not believe in ghosts, but, as will subsequently become clear, honour had been the focal point of my whole upbringing, and I took honour to mean that one should never show any signs of fear.

As the sun had only just set, I wanted to take advantage of the fading light to explore all the hidden recesses of the building, less to reassure myself about any infernal powers which might have seized possession of it than to look for food, for the little I had eaten at Los Alcornoques had dulled but not satisfied the great hunger which I then felt. I passed through many rooms and apartments. Most were decorated with mosaic up to the height of a man; the ceilings were fashioned in that beautiful panelling which is the splendour of Moorish buildings.