mule close up to the party.

They went on some miles across a desolate country, covered with heath,
rosemary, and gum cistus, more fragrant than the many rank bulbous
plants, which disputed possession of the soil with them. The road was
rough with slaty rock, the air became beaming hot, and L'Isle told the
guide to lead them to some place of shelter from the noon-day
sun. Before them lay a high open plain, on which a large flock of
sheep, dusky, and many of them black in hue, were feeding, and filling
the air with their bleatings. On the right, beyond the plain, there
was a grove of the _Quercus Ilex_, rugged, stunted, thirsty-looking
trees, yet whose evergreen boughs gave promise of at least a partial
shade. The _arriero_ led the party toward it, but just as they
approached the wood, several large and savage dogs flew out, and
charged them with a ferocity that might have cost a solitary traveler
his life. They were busy repelling this assault, when five or six men
showed themselves from behind a thicket. Dark, sunburnt, smoke-dried
fellows they were, with shaggy hair, and rudely clad, each man having
a sheep-skin thrown over his shoulders, and most of them grasping
long, rusty guns in their hands.

Mrs. Shortridge called out "robbers!" and entreated L'Isle to fire
upon them. The commissary, too, but more coolly, pronounced them to be
robbers, "when they find an opportunity to follow that calling; but,
just now, they are watching their flocks."

"Shepherds! those ruffians, shepherds!" exclaimed Lady Mabel; "O!
shades of Theocritus and Virgil, what a satire upon pastoral poetry!"

Shepherds, however, they were, who called off their dogs, after
reconnoitring the party. The _arriero_ inquired of them where water
was to be found, and they pointed to a little hollow in the wood, an
hundred yards off. He was leading the party that way, when L'Isle said
to the ladies, "let us have a talk with these fellows."

"Certainly," said Lady Mabel, and she turned her horse's head toward
them.

"Certainly not," said Mrs. Shortridge, and she reined her mule back,
"I am too near them already. I will not dare to take my siesta with
these fellows in the neighborhood, for fear of waking up in another
place than Portugal." And she followed her melting husband, who was
hastening out of the sun, in the hope of regaining his solidity in the
shade at hand.

L'Isle and Lady Mabel rode close up to the shepherds. They had been
resting under