he tall, gaunt woman and leaving
the robbers, if robbers they were, still at table, went out into
the street. Here the friars, the alcalde and the lawyer moved in the
direction of the small, staring white and ruined mosque that was to be
transformed into the church of San Jago the Deliverer. That was the one
thing of which the friars had spoken. A long bench ran by inn wall and
here the shipmaster took his seat and began to discourse with those
already there. Book under arm, the student moved dreamily down the
opposite lane. Juan Lepe walked away alone.

Through the remainder of this day he had now company and adventure
without, now solitude and adventure within. That night he spent in a
ruined tower where young trees grew and an owl was his comrade and he
read the face of a glorious moon. Dawn. He bathed in a stream that ran
by the mound of the tower and ate a piece of bread from his wallet and
took the road.

The sun mounted above the trees. A man upon a mule came up behind me and
was passing. "There is a stone wedged in his shoe," I said. The rider
drew rein and I lifted the creature's foreleg and took out the pebble.
The rider made search for a bit of money. I said that the deed was
short and easy and needed no payment, whereupon he put up the coin and
regarded me out of his fine blue eyes. He was quite fair, a young man
still, and dressed after a manner of his own in garments not at all new
but with a beauty of fashioning and putting on. He and his mule looked a
corner out of a great painting. And I had no sooner thought that than
he said, "I see in you, friend, a face and figure for my 'Draught of
Fishes.' And by Saint Christopher, there is water over yonder and just
the landscape!" He leaned from the saddle and spoke persuasively, "Come
from the road a bit down to the water and let me draw you! You are not
dressed like the kin of Midas! I will give you the price of dinner."
As he talked he drew out of a richly worked bag a book of paper and
pencils. I thought, "This beard and the clothes of Juan Lepe. He can
hardly make it so that any may recognize." It was resting time and the
man attracted. I agreed, if he would take no more than an hour.

"The drawing, no!--Bent far over, gathering the net strongly--Andrew or
Mark perhaps, since, traditionally, John must have youth."

He had continued to study me all this time, and now we left the road and
moved over the plain to the stream that here widened into a pool fri