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A VISION OF SUDDEN DEATH 285;
streets. It was six in the morning; day was breaking.
There were two other passengers in the coach with us:
a fat woman and a little boy. The coach had two com-
partments and was a single-decker; but its roof was
loaded with freight of all kinds. It was a rickety old
boat with weak springs and a tendency to careen to
either side, as if animated by a desire to break down
the encompassing walls of the road.
There was an ear-splitting noise, caused by the
rattling windows, the loose parts of iron banging
against each other, the coach-springs, which slapped to-
gether at short intervals, and the brake, -which cease-
lessly ground against the wheels although we were go-
ing up a steep hill. The sleepy windows of the houses
descended obliquely past us; likewise their roofs. Ter-
race after terrace, the city dropped away beneath us.
We ascended as in a liquid which becomes clearer and
clearer toward the top. Looking up in the air, we saw
the pavements of many narrow little streets beneath
a murky darkness with only the upper halves of the
houses in the light.
We had only six animals ahead, two wheel-mules
and four others in tandem. We had no delantero
(outrider) ;but we had a zagal who knew how to
wield his goad. His blows fell on the unhappy beasts
and they humped their backs, and managed to drag us
up the steep path. The brake ground ceaselessly
against the wheels.
Before us rose a wall of hills, seemingly inaccessible.
The highest ice summits in the Sierra Nevada, Mul-
hacen and Picacho intercepted the first rays of the sun
from the Mediterranean and scattered them in space,
while the morning twilight advanced like a fiery blush
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