CHAPTER XIV 

 

INEZ AND HER GARDEN

For two hours or more John Castell and Peter travelled on the Granada 

road, running when it was smooth, walking when it was rough, and 

stopping from time to time to get their breath and listen. But the night 

was quite silent, no one seemed to be pursuing them. Evidently the 

remaining cut-throats had either taken another way or, having their fill 

of this adventure, wanted to see no more of Peter and his sword. 

At length the dawn broke over the great misty plain, for now they were 

crossing the _vega_. Then the sun rose and dispelled the vapours, and a 

dozen miles or more away they saw Granada on its hill. They saw each 

other also, and a sorry sight they were, torn by the sharp thorns, and 

stained with blood from their scratches. Peter was bare-headed too, for 

he had lost his cap, and almost beside himself now that the excitement 

had left him, from lack of sleep, pain, and weariness. Moreover, as the 

sun rose, it grew fearfully hot upon that plain, and its fierce rays, 

striking full upon his head, seemed to stupefy him, so that at last they 

were obliged to halt and weave a kind of hat out of corn and grasses, 

which gave him so strange an appearance that some Moors, whom they met 

going to their toil, thought that he must be a madman, and ran away. 

Still they crawled forward, refreshing themselves with water whenever 

they could find any in the irrigation ditches that these people used for 

their crops, but covering little more than a mile an hour. Towards noon 

the heat grew so dreadful that they were obliged to lie down to rest 

under the shade of some palm-like trees, and here, absolutely outworn, 

they sank into a kind of sleep. 

They were awakened by a sound of voices, and staggered to their feet, 

drawing their swords, for they thought that the thieves from the inn had 

overtaken them. Instead of these ruffianly murderers, however, they saw 

before them a body of eight Moors, beautifully mounted upon white 

horses, and clad in turbans and flowing robes, the like of which Peter 

had never yet beheld, who sat there regarding them gravely with their 

quiet eyes, and, as it seemed, not without pity. 

"Put up your swords, Senors," said the leader of these Moors in 

excellent Spanish--indeed, he seemed to be a Spaniard dressed in Eastern 

garments--"for we are many and fresh; and you are but two and wounded." 

They obeyed, who could do nothing else. 

"Now tell us, though there is little need to ask," went on the captain,