underground the prince travels by as narrow a path as the journeyman,'
and 'the Pope's body does not take up more feet of earth than the
sacristan's,' for all that the one is higher than the other; for when we
go to our graves we all pack ourselves up and make ourselves small, or
rather they pack us up and make us small in spite of us, and then--good
night to us. And I say once more, if your ladyship does not like to give
me the island because I'm a fool, like a wise man I will take care to
give myself no trouble about it; I have heard say that 'behind the cross
there's the devil,' and that 'all that glitters is not gold,' and that
from among the oxen, and the ploughs, and the yokes, Wamba the husbandman
was taken to be made King of Spain, and from among brocades, and
pleasures, and riches, Roderick was taken to be devoured by adders, if
the verses of the old ballads don't lie."
"To be sure they don't lie!" exclaimed Dona Rodriguez, the duenna, who
was one of the listeners. "Why, there's a ballad that says they put King
Rodrigo alive into a tomb full of toads, and adders, and lizards, and
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