But  many  a  tale  is  woven
Upon  that  slender  warp.     For  they  will  tell
The  story  as  they  list.     How  the  poor  youth,
Destined  to  be  a  priest,  was  led  astray
By  an  old  soceress,  who  clothed  herself
"With  beauty  to  deceive  him.     She  waylaid  him
In  the  Sierra  passes;  but  a  curse
She  uttered  there  was  answered  by  the  bolt
Of  heaven.     She  had  entered  the  Sierra
(For  many  saw  her  enter)  a  young  girl,
Of  matchless  loveliness,  upon  a  barb
Of  beauty  unsurpassed.     But  there  they  found,


122  MAKIQUITA.
Hideous  in  death,  a  form  distorted,  withered/

Sere  with  the  scars  of  all  her  evil  years,

And  by  her  side  lay  dead  a  jaded  mule,

The  victim  of  ill-usage  and  starvation ;

And  for  her  crimes  she  rests  not,  but  her  ghost

Is  doomed  to  wander  for  as  many  years

As  she  had  misspent  as  a  sorceress.
But  others  say  the  sorceress  escaped

From  the  Sierra  to  the  plain,  where  still

She  rides  the  barb,  and  decks  herself  with  youth

Anfl  beauty  to  deceive  the  sons  of  men.
MA1UQUITA.  123


XII.
left  Arroya  by  a  bridle-road
Known  to  Juan  Lopez:  so  he  led  the  way.
Marta  rode  after  him,  I  followed  next,
And  then  Anselmo — all  of  us  on  mules.
Then  came  the  boy,  the  little  Cordovan,
Leading  the  sumpter-mule  behind  his  pony.
