Is it well, I ask, that he helps one Moor against another,
always for what there is in it, and when he takes Valencia from the
infidels, keeps none of his promises to them, but having tortured the
governor to make him give up his treasure, buries him to his waist and
then burns him alive? After that, to be sure, he enjoys his declining
years by making forays in the neighboring country, and dies "satisfied
with having done his duty toward his God."
Our interpreter, who would not let us rest till he had shown us the box
holding the Cid's bones, had himself had a varied career. If you
believed him he was born in Madrid and had passed, when three years old,
to New York, where he grew up to become a citizen and be the driver of a
delivery wagon for a large department-store. He duly married an American
woman who could speak not only French, German, and Italian, but also
Chinese, and was now living with him in Burgos. His own English had
somewhat fallen by the way, but what was left he used with great
courage; and he was one of those government interpreters whom you find
at every large station throughout Spain in the number of the principal
hotels of the place.
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