"In fine, what is your reply to him who has sent us?"
Don Suero stood up with haughty demeanour, and answered, with supreme disdain—
"Tell De Vivar,—tell him that he may do what suits him best; tell him that the Count of Carrion does not choose to fight with so base a cavalier."
"We have delivered the message of Don Rodrigo, and we shall carry back your reply to him," answered Antolin Antolinez; and he and his companions immediately set out on their return journey to Burgos.
They had scarcely left the castle when Don Suero began to meditate on the reply which he had just given; he thought on the stain of cowardice which would be cast on him, broke out into furious imprecations, and maltreated in a barbarous way the first servants who presented themselves to his sight. Very soon, however, his rage changed into discouragement and terror, and he wept like a weak woman. But the hope of destroying the bandits on that very night roused up his spirits, and, full of that subject, he ceased to think on the challenge of Rodrigo.
Two days after, Rodrigo Diaz caused proclamations to be posted up throughout Castile and Leon, publishing the cowardice of Don Suero, and returning, with interest and the greatest justice, the insults which he had received; two days after, the Count of Carrion, who before was well hated by some, was now abhorred by all; two days after, the country people were singing the ballads which the troubadours had composed, setting forth, in the blackest form, against Don Suero, the question between him and De Vivar.
[CHAPTER XXI]
HOW ONE MOOR REMAINED, AND FIVE WENT AWAY
Two days had passed from the time that Rodrigo entered Burgos with the spoils which he had taken in the mountains of Oca, and Teresa Nuña, Ximena, Lambra, and Mayor were amusing themselves, talking to and caressing the Moorish boy, saved by the kind-hearted Castilian general on the field of battle. The boy was very handsome, and spoke the Romance language with tolerable facility, as he had learned it from the Christian captives who had always been servants in the house of his father.