"I hope so, mother."
And the old woman walked off from the castle, commending to God and all the saints the lady, from whom people thought she had received bounteous alms.
Let us now return to Don Suero. The reader can calculate how enamoured he was of Sancha, having seen him occupied with her for some minutes, just at a time that was the least suitable for love affairs. It is not easy to guess how long he would have remained by the side of the peasant girl, if his nephews, Diego and Fernando, had not arrived on the scene.
The two boys were looking for him in the vicinity of Sancha's chamber, calling out his name in loud voices. Don Suero heard them, and went out at once to meet them.
"O uncle," cried out Diego, on seeing him, "what a lot of dead men there are down below and in the passages! If you only knew how afraid we were when we heard the awful uproar throughout the castle! Fernando and I were in bed, and when some men came into our room we pretended to be asleep. Tell us, is it true that they have taken off our aunt?"
"Yes, my children," answered Don Suero, as he liked the boys very much, chiefly because he had noticed their evil dispositions.
"I am glad of it," said Fernando, "for she was always scolding us because we did not say our prayers, and because we stuck pins in the dogs and cats, and cut off the hens' feet, to see how they would walk lame."
Don Suero almost repented of his work, that is to say, of the bad education which he had given to his nephews, when he heard them speak in such a way of his sister, for he loved Teresa, although his affection was of that barbarous and tyrannical nature which tortures while it caresses.
"Be silent, and do not speak badly of your aunt," said the count; "go back to your beds."
"We want to see first the dead and the wounded men," replied Diego. "If you were only to see all the blood that is coming from their wounds, and the gestures they are making."