DON QUIXOTE

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show any sign of being a Morisco. To accompany these virtues, for such I
hold them, my beauty, if I possess any, grew with my growth; and great as
was the seclusion in which I lived it was not so great but that a young
gentleman, Don Gaspar Gregorio by name, eldest son of a gentleman who is
lord of a village near ours, contrived to find opportunities of seeing
me. How he saw me, how we met, how his heart was lost to me, and mine not
kept from him, would take too long to tell, especially at a moment when I
am in dread of the cruel cord that threatens me interposing between
tongue and throat; I will only say, therefore, that Don Gregorio chose to
accompany me in our banishment. He joined company with the Moriscoes who
were going forth from other villages, for he knew their language very
well, and on the voyage he struck up a friendship with my two uncles who
were carrying me with them; for my father, like a wise and far-sighted
man, as soon as he heard the first edict for our expulsion, quitted the
village and departed in quest of some refuge for us abroad. He left
hidden and buried, at a spot of which I alone have knowledge, a large
quantity of pearls and precious stones of great value, together with a