ey went to
victorious wars where his master would win a castle splendid with
towers.

Breakfast cheered both the travellers. And then the old lady told
Rodriguez that Caspe was but a three hours' walk, and that cheered them
even more, for Caspe is on the Ebro, which seemed to mark for Rodriguez
a stage in his journey, being carried easily in his imagination, like
the Pyrenees. What road he would take when he reached Caspe he had not
planned. And soon Rodriguez expressed his gratitude, full of fervour,
with many a flowery phrase which lived long in the old dame's mind; and
the visit of those two travellers became one of the strange events of
that house and was chief of the memories that faintly haunted the
rafters of the loft for years.

They did not reach Caspe in three hours, but went lazily, being weary;
for however long a man defies fatigue the hour comes when it claims
him. The knowledge that Caspe lay near with sure lodging for the night,
soothed Rodriguez' impatience. And as they loitered they talked, and
they decided that la Garda must now be too far behind to pursue any
longer. They came in four hours to the bank of the Ebro and there saw
Caspe near them; but they dined once more on the grass, sitting beside
the river, rather than enter the town at once, for there had grown in
both travellers a liking for the wanderers' green table of earth.

It was a time to make plans. The country of romance was far away and
they were without horses.

"Will you buy horses, master?" said Morano.

"We might not get them over the Pyrenees," said Rodriguez, though he
had a better reason, which was that three gold pieces did not buy two
saddled horses. There were no more friends to hire from. Morano grew
thoughtful. He sat with his feet dangling over the bank of the Ebro.

"Master," he said after a while, "this river goes our way. Let us come
by boat, master, and drift down to France at our ease."

To get a river over a range of mountains is harder than to get horses.
Some such difficulty Rodriguez implied to him; but Morano, having come
slowly by an idea, parted not so easily with it.

"It goes our way, master," he repeated, and pointed a finger at the
Ebro.

At this moment a certain song that boatmen sing on that river, when the
current is with them and they have nothing to do but be idle and their
lazy thoughts run to lascivious things, came to the ears of Rodriguez
and Morano; and a man with a bright blue sash steere