d thousand towers and noble
gates. Between them and Santa Fe stretched open and ruined ground, and
here for many a day had shocked together the Spaniard and the Moor.
But now there was no longer battle. Granada had asked and been granted
seventy days in which to envisage and accept her fate. These were
nearing the end. Lost and beaten, haggard with woe and hunger and
pestilence, the city stood over against us, above the naked plain, all
her outer gardens stripped away, bare light striking the red Alhambra
and the Citadel. When the wind swept over her and on to Santa Fe it
seemed to bring a sound of wailing and the faint and terrible odor of a
long besieged place.

I came at eve into Santa Fe, found at last an inn of the poorer sort,
ate scant supper and went to bed. Dawn came with a great ringing of
church bells.

Out of the inn, in the throbbing street, I began my search for Don
Enrique de Cerda. One told me one thing and one another, but at last I
got true direction. At noon I found him in a goodly room where he made
recovery from wounds. Now he walked and now he sat, his arm in a sling
and a bandage like a turban around his head. A page took him the word I
gave. "Juan Lepe. From the hermitage in the oak wood." It sufficed. When
I entered he gazed, then coming to me, put his unbound hand over mine.
"Why," he asked, "'Juan Lepe'?"

I glanced toward the page and he dismissed him, whereupon I explained
the circumstances.

We sat by the window, and again rose for us the hermitage in the oak
wood at foot of a mountain, and the small tower that slew in ugly
fashion. Again we were young men, together in strange dangers, learning
there each other's mettle. He had not at all forgotten.

He offered to go to Seville, as soon as Granada should fall, and find
and fight Don Pedro. I shook my head. I could have done that had I seen
it as the way.

He agreed that Don Pedro was now the minor peril. It is evil to chain
thought! In our day we think boldly of a number of things. But touch
King or touch Church--the cord is around your neck!

I said that I supposed I had been rash.

He nodded. "Yes. You were rash that day in the oak wood. Less rash, and
my bones would be lying there, under tree." He rose and walked the room,
then came to me and put his unhurt arm about my shoulders. "Don Jayme,
we swore that day comrade love and service--and that day is now;
twilight has never come to it, the leaves of the oak wood have never
fa