“Are you tired, Zana?”
“No.”
“Walk fast then, for we must be a long way from this before morning.”
“Where are you going, mother?”
“To keep my oath!”
We entered the cottage for the last time. My mother must have anticipated what was to happen, for she took me into her room, tore off my pretty scarlet frock, and replaced it with the garments of a little boy. Her own dress she changed also, and we left the house together, both clad in male garments, and each carrying a little bundle in our hands.
Where we went first, I do not know. The events of that day and night were burned upon my memory, but after that I had only a vague idea of travelling day after day—of broad, stormy seas, a river that ran with waves of dull gold, orange groves, wild hills, and at last a city in the midst of beautiful plains, filled with antique houses, and beyond with snow-capped mountains looming against the sky. The grim towers of a ruin fixed itself on my memory, frowning between the city and those mountain-tops, and when I asked my mother of the name of this city and ruin, she answered briefly, “Granada, the Alhambra,” nothing more.
I was not surprised at this, for since we left Greenhurst, she had scarcely uttered a longer sentence.
It was sunset when we came in sight of Granada. She paused in a recess of the hills, and opening our bundles, changed her dress and mine, casting away the male attire. I remember gazing at her with wonder as she stood before me in her strange dress. The blue bodice, the short crimson skirt, flowered and heavy with tarnished gold, the gorgeous kerchief knotted under her chin, this dress had been the contents of her bundle. Mine was more simple, a frock of maize-colored stuff broidered with purple. My feet and ankles were bare to the knees.
My mother bent down and kissed me.