t. I am quite fresh, and I
will watch meanwhile." "Ah, Heimbert," sighed the noble Castilian,
"my sister is thine, thou messenger from Heaven; that is an understood
thing. But now for our affair of honor!" "Certainly," said Heimbert,
very gravely, "as soon as we are again in Spain, you must give me
satisfaction for that over-hasty expression. Till then, however, I beg
you not to mention it. An unfinished quarrel is no good subject for
conversation."

Fadrique laid himself sadly down to rest, overcome by long-resisted
sleep, and Heimbert knelt down with a glad heart, thanking the good God
for having given him success, and for blessing, him with a future full
of joyful assurance.

CHAPTER XVI.

The next day the three travellers reached the edge of the desert, and
refreshed themselves for a week in an adjacent village, which, with
its shady trees and green pastures, seemed like a little paradise in
contrast to the joyless Sahara. Fadrique's condition especially made
this rest necessary. He had never left the desert during the whole time,
gaining his subsistence by fighting with wandering Arabs, and often
almost exhausted by the utter want of all food and drink. At length he
had become so thoroughly confused that the stars could no longer guide
him, and he had been driven about, sadly and objectless, like the dust
clouds of the desert.

Even now, at times, when he would fall asleep after the midday meal, and
Antonia and Heimbert would watch his slumbers like two smiling angels,
he would suddenly start up and gaze round him with a terrified air,
and then it was not till he had refreshed himself by looking at the two
friendly faces that he would sink back again into quiet repose. When
questioned on the matter, after he was fully awake, he told them that in
his wanderings nothing had been more terrible to him than the deluding
dreams which had transported him, sometimes to his own home, sometimes
to the merry camp of his comrades, and sometimes into Zelinda's
presence, and then leaving him doubly helpless and miserable in the
horrible solitude as the delusion vanished. It was on this account
that even now waking was fearful to him, and even in sleep a vague
consciousness of his past sufferings would often disturb him. "You
cannot imagine it," he added. "To be suddenly transported from
well-known scenes into the boundless desert! And instead of the
longed-for enchanting face of my beloved, to see an ugly camel's