that skirts the mountain barrier of the
Vega. The brilliancy of the day, the beauty of the scene, the hope and
excitement of enterprise, animated the spirits of the whole party.
In these expeditions strict discipline was often abandoned, from the
certainty that it could be resumed at need. Conversation, gay and loud,
interspersed at times with snatches of song, was heard amongst the
soldiery; and in the nobler group that rode with Villena, there was even
less of the proverbial gravity of Spaniards.

"Now, marquess," said Don Estevon de Suzon, "what wager shall be between
us as to which lance this day robs Moorish beauty of the greatest number
of its worshippers?"

"My falchion against your jennet," said Don Alonzo de Pacheco, taking up
the challenge.

"Agreed. But, talking of beauty, were you in the queen's pavilion last
night, noble marquess? it was enriched by a new maiden, whose strange
and sudden apparition none can account for. Her eyes would have eclipsed
the fatal glance of Cava; and had I been Rodrigo, I might have lost a
crown for her smile."

"Ay," said Villena, "I heard of her beauty; some hostage from one of the
traitor Moors, with whom the king (the saints bless him!) bargains for
the city. They tell me the prince incurred the queen's grave rebuke for
his attentions to the maiden."

"And this morning I saw that fearful Father Tomas steal into the
prince's tent. I wish Don Juan well through the lecture. The monk's
advice is like the algarroba;--[The algarroba is a sort of leguminous
plant common in Spain]--when it is laid up to dry it may be reasonably
wholesome, but it is harsh and bitter enough when taken fresh."

At this moment one of the subaltern officers rode up to the marquess,
and whispered in his ear.

"Ha!" said Villena, "the Virgin be praised! Sir knights, booty is at
hand. Silence! close the ranks." With that, mounting a little eminence,
and shading his eyes with his hand, the marquess surveyed the plain
below; and, at some distance, he beheld a horde of Moorish peasants
driving some cattle into a thick copse. The word was hastily given, the
troop dashed on, every voice was hushed, and the clatter of mail, and
the sound of hoofs, alone broke the delicious silence of the noon-day
landscape.

Ere they reached the copse, the peasants had disappeared within it. The
marquess marshalled his men in a semicircle round the trees, and sent
on a detachment to the rear, to cut off every egress from