z,
called to him by name. Away he rode upon his mule, keeping company with
them. The dozen in their train followed, raising as they went by such a
dust cloud that presently all became like figures upon worn arras. They
rode toward Santa Fe, and I followed on foot.

CHAPTER IV

SANTA Fe rose before me, a camp in wood, plaster and stone, a camp
with a palace, a camp with churches. Built of a piece where no town had
stood, built that Majesty and its Court and its Army might have roofs
and walls, not tents, for so long a siege, it covered the plain, a city
raised in a night. The siege had been long as the war had been long.
Hidalgo Spain and simple Spain were gathered here in great squares
and ribbons of valor, ambition, emulation, desire of excitement and
of livelihood, and likewise, I say it, in pieces not small, herded and
brought here without any "I say yes" of their own, and to their misery.
There held full flavor of crusade, as all along the war had been
preached as a crusade. Holy Church had here her own grandees, cavaliers
and footmen. They wore cope and they wore cowl, and on occasion many
endued themselves with armor and hacked and hewed with an earthly sword.
At times there seemed as many friars and priests as soldiers. Out and in
went a great Queen and King. Their court was here. The churchmen pressed
around the Queen. Famous leaders put on or took off armor in Santa
Fe,--the Marquis of Cadiz and many others only less than he in
estimation, and one Don Gonsalvo de Cordova, whose greater fame was yet
to come. Military and shining youth came to train and fight under these.
Old captains-at-arms, gaunt and scarred, made their way thither from
afar. All were not Spaniard; many a soldier out at fortune or wishful
of fame came from France and Italy, even from England and Germany. Women
were in Santa Fe. The Queen had her ladies. Wives, sisters and daughters
of hidalgos came to visit, and the common soldiery had their mates. Nor
did there lack courtesans.

Petty merchants thronged the place. All manner of rich goods were bought
by the flushed soldiers, the high and the low. And there dwelled here a
host of those who sold entertainment,--mummers and jugglers and singers,
dwarfs and giants. Dice rattled, now there were castanets and dancing,
and now church bells seemed to rock the place. Wine flowed.

Out of the plain a league and more away sprang the two hills of Granada,
and pricked against the sky, her walls an