This was news to Theresa. No martyrdom to be obtained among the Moors? Where then was all the truth of her mother’s romances,—where was all the wisdom of her father’s savage faith? She had always supposed that the Moors were monsters and djins, waiting with great fires and racks and sharpest cimeters to put to horrible death all young Christians who came amongst them, and now here was one who begged for bread and pleaded for pity like any common beggar of Avila. Evidently something was wrong in the home stories.
As for little Pedro, he waxed more valiant as the danger lessened. He whetted his toy sword against the granite rocks and looked savagely at the old man.
“You have eaten all my bread, don Infidel,” he said, “and now you would lie about your people and your castles. You are no beggar; you are the King of Cordova come here in this disguise to spy out the Christian’s land. I know all about you from my mother’s stories. So you must die. I shall send your head to our Emperor by my sister here, and when he shall ask her who has done this noble deed she will say, just as did Alvar Fanez to King Alfonso:
‘My Cid Campeador, O king, it was who girded brand:
The Paynim king he hath o’ercome, the mightiest in the land
Plenteous and sovereign is the spoil he from the Moor hath
won;
This portion, honored king and lord, he sendeth to your
throne.’
“So, King of Cordova, bend down and let me cut off your head.”
The “King of Cordova” made no movement of compliance to this gentle invitation, and the head-strong Pedro, springing toward him, would have caught him by the beard, had not his gentle sister restrained him.
“I do believe he is no king, my Pedro,” she said, “but only, as he says, a poor Morisco beggar. Let us rather try to help him. He hath no castles I am sure, and as for his armies——”
“His armies! there they come; look, sister!” cried little Pedro, breaking into his sister’s words; “now will you believe me?” and following his gaze, Theresa herself started as she saw dashing down the mountain highway what looked to her unpractised eye like a whole band of Moorish cavalry with glimmering lances and streaming pennons.
Pedro faced the charge with drawn sword. Theresa knelt on the ground with silver crucifix upraised, expecting instant martyrdom, while the old Moorish tramp, Abd-el-’Aman, believing discretion to be the better part of valor, quietly dropped down by the side of the rocky roadway, for well he understood who were these latest comers.
The Moorish cavalry, which proved to be three Spaniards on horseback, drew up before the young crusaders.