I Therefore Departed For Ocana,
Distant Three Leagues From Aranjuez.
I started with Antonio at six in the evening, having early in the
morning sent forward Lopez with between two and three hundred
Testaments.
We left the high road, and proceeded by a shorter way
through wild hills and over very broken and precipitous ground:
being well mounted we found ourselves just after sunset opposite
Ocana, which stands on a steep hill. A deep valley lay between us
and the town: we descended, and came to a small bridge, which
traverses a rivulet at the bottom of the valley, at a very small
distance from a kind of suburb. We crossed the bridge, and were
passing by a deserted house on our left hand, when a man appeared
from under the porch.
What I am about to state will seem incomprehensible, but a singular
history and a singular people are connected with it: the man
placed himself before my horse so as to bar the way, and said
"Schophon," which, in the Hebrew tongue, signifies a rabbit. I
knew this word to be one of the Jewish countersigns, and asked the
man if he had any thing to communicate? He said, "You must not
enter the town, for a net is prepared for you. The corregidor of
Toledo, on whom may all evil light, in order to give pleasure to
the priests of Maria, in whose face I spit, has ordered all the
alcaldes of these parts, and the escribanos and the corchetes to
lay hands on you wherever they may find you, and to send you, and
your books, and all that pertains to you to Toledo.
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