ong 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
that two days afterwards the king, in a plaintive, feeble voice, cried
out from within the tomb--

They gnaw me now, they gnaw me now,
There where I most did sin.

And according to that the gentleman has good reason to say he would
rather be a labouring man than a king, if vermin are to eat him."

The duchess could not help laughing at the simplicity of her duenna, or
wondering at the language and proverbs of Sancho, to whom she said,
"Worthy Sancho knows very well that when once a knight has made a promise
he strives to keep it, though it should cost him his life. My lord and
husband the duke, though not one of the errant sort, is none the less a
knight for that reason, and will keep his word about the promised island,
in spite of the envy and malice of the world. Let Sancho he of good
cheer; for when he least expects it he will find himself seated on the
throne of his island and seat of dignity, and will take possession of his
government that he may discard it for another of three-bordered brocade.
The charge I give him is to be careful how he governs his vassals,
bearing in mind that they are all loyal and well-born."

"As to governing them well," said Sancho, "there's no need of charging me
to do that, for I'm kind-hearted by nature, and full of compassion for
the poor; there's no stealing the loaf from him who kneads and bakes;'
and by my faith it won't do to throw false dice with me; I am an old dog,
and I know all about 'tus, tus;' I can be wide-awake if need be, and I
don't let clouds come before my eyes, for I know where the shoe pinches
me; I say so, because with me the good will have support and protection,
and the bad neither footing nor access. And it seems to me that, in
governments, to make a beginning is everything; and maybe, after having
been governor a fortnight, I'll take kindly to the work and know more
about it than the field labour I have been brought up to."

"You are right, Sancho," said the duchess, "for no one is born ready
taught, and the bishops are made out of men and not out of stones. But to
return to the subject we were discussing just now, t