ise thee it will go hard enough with thee?"

"If thou dost not betray me, Sancho," said the pilgrim, "I am safe; for
in this dress no one will recognise me; but let us turn aside out of the
road into that grove there where my comrades are going to eat and rest,
and thou shalt eat with them there, for they are very good fellows; I'll
have time enough to tell thee then all that has happened me since I left
our village in obedience to his Majesty's edict that threatened such
severities against the unfortunate people of my nation, as thou hast
heard."

Sancho complied, and Ricote having spoken to the other pilgrims they
withdrew to the grove they saw, turning a considerable distance out of
the road. They threw down their staves, took off their pilgrim's cloaks
and remained in their under-clothing; they were all good-looking young
fellows, except Ricote, who was a man somewhat advanced in years. They
carried alforjas all of them, and all apparently well filled, at least
with things provocative of thirst, such as would summon it from two
leagues off. They stretched themselves on the ground, and making a
tablecloth of the grass they spread upon it bread, salt, knives, walnut,
scraps of cheese, and well-picked ham-bones which if they were past
gnawing were not past sucking. They also put down a black dainty called,
they say, caviar, and made of the eggs of fish, a great thirst-wakener.
Nor was there any lack of olives, dry, it is true, and without any
seasoning, but for all that toothsome and pleasant. But what made the
best show in the field of the banquet was half a dozen botas of wine, for
each of them produced his own from his alforjas; even the good Ricote,
who from a Morisco had transformed himself into a German or Dutchman,
took out his, which in size might have vied with the five others. They
then began to eat with very great relish and very leisurely, making the
most of each morsel--very small ones of everything--they took up on the
point of the knife; and then all at the same moment raised their arms and
botas aloft, the mouths placed in their mouths, and all eyes fixed on
heaven just as if they were taking aim at it; and in this attitude they
remained ever so long, wagging their heads from side to side as if in
acknowledgment of the pleasure they were enjoying while they decanted the
bowels of the bottles into their own stomachs.

Sancho beheld all, "and nothing gave him pain;" so far from that, acting
on the prove