, wavering, whirling
about each other. Down and down they went, until they were lost to his
eye in the dust of heat. He saw them no more.

Manvers came to himself, and shook his senses back into his head. The
sun was sinking over Portugal, the evening wind was chill. Had he been
dreaming? What sense of fate was upon him? "Come up, Rosinante, take
me out of the cave of Montesinos." He guided his horse in and out of
the boulder-strewn track to the edge of the plateau; and there before
him, many leagues away, like a patch of whitewash splodged down upon a
blue field, lay Valladolid, the city of burning and pride.

[Illustration: Upon a blue field lay Valladolid.]

CHAPTER IX

A VISIT TO THE JEWELLER'S

If God in His majesty made the Spains and the nations which people
them, perhaps it was His mercy that convoked the Spanish cities--as His
servant Philip piled rock upon rock and called it Madrid--and made
cess-pits for the cleansing of the country.

Behold the Castilian, the Valencian, the Murcian on his glebe, you find
an exact relation established; the one exhales the other. The man is
what his country is, tragic, hag-ridden, yet impassive, patient under
the sun. He stands for the natural verities. You cannot change him,
move, nor hurt him. He can earn neither your praises nor reproach. As
well might you blame the staring noon of summer or throw a kind word to
the everlasting hills. The bleak pride of the Castillano, the flint
and steel of Aragon, the languor which veils Andalusian
fire--travelling the lands which gave them birth, you find them scored
in large over mountain and plain and riverbed, and bitten deep into the
hearts of the indwellers. They are as seasonable there as the flowers
of waste places, and will charm you as much. So Spanish travel is one
of the restful relaxations, because nothing jars upon you. You feel
that you are assisting a destiny, not breaking it. Not discovery is
before you so much as realisation.

But in the city Spanish blood festers, and all that seemed plausible in
the open air is now monstrous, full of vice and despair. Whereas,
outside, the man stood like a rock, and let Fate seam or bleach him
bare; here, within walls, he rages, shows his teeth, blasphemes, or
sinks into sloth. You will find him heaped against the walls like
ordure, hear him howl for blood in the bull-ring, appraise women, as if
they were dainties, in the _alamedas_, loaf, scratch, pry