tting Moorish casques and winning guerdons.

Nor in spirit alone was Mauro bred back. He was deep of chest, broad of
shoulder, lithe and graceful. His massive neck upbore a head of Augustan
beauty, lighted by eyes that alternately blazed with the pride and
resolution of a Cid and softened with the musings of a Manrique. Mauro
was a Lucha-sangre of the twelfth century, reincarnate.

Little is it to be wondered at that, as the lad was often his father's
message-bearer to the Duke, he found favor in the eyes of the Duke's only
daughter, Sofia; and still less is it to be wondered at that he early
became her thrall. Of nights at the university he was ever dreaming of
her; up out of his text-books her lovely face was ever rising before him
in class.

Of a rare type was Sofia in Andalusia, where nearly all are dark, for she
was a true _rubia_, blue of eye, fair of skin, and with hair of the
wondrously changing tints of a cooling iron ingot.

And now here was Mauro, just back from Sevilla, almost within arms'-reach
of his divinity, and yet not free to seek her. And as the rippling
current of the Quadaira crimsoned and then reddened and darkened till it
seemed to him like a great ruddy tress of Sofia's waving hair, Mauro
sprang to his feet and fiercely whispered: "_Mil demonios!_ but she shall
at least know, and then I'll kiss the old _padre_, and his musty office
good-bye and go try my hand at some man's task!"

Opportunity came earlier than he had dared hope. The very next morning
the elder Lucha-sangre sent Mauro to the castle with some papers for the
Duke's approval and signature. Still at breakfast, the Duke received him
in the great banquet-hall of the castle, the walls covered with portraits
of Torreviejas gone before, several of the earlier generations so dim and
gray with age they looked mere spectres of the limner's art.

While the Duke was reading the papers, Mauro stood with eyes riveted to
the newest portrait of them all, that of Sofia's mother--Sofia's very
self matured--herself a native of a northern province wherein to this day
red hair and blue eyes are a frequent, almost a prevailing type, that
tell the story of early Gothic invasions. So absorbed in the picture, so
completely possessed by it was Mauro, that when the Duke turned and spoke
to him, he did not hear.

And so he stood for some moments while the Duke sat contemplating the
fine lines of his face and the splendid pose of his figure; his e