“Don Garcia Perez is it?” quoth the king, his eyes following those of Count Lorenzo upon the plain. “I could lose no better man. For die he will, as surely as Christ suffered on the cross. Blow for blow he will give them, but seven to one is too great odds.”
As to Don Garcia, he is too far off to hear any voice, let them shout ever so loudly. On he rides tranquilly, as a lover to his mistress; but as
if some instinct suddenly struck him, at the same moment that the Conde Lorenzo calls out to him from the hill, he lowers the vizor of his helmet, crested by the wing of a black eagle, grasps the hilt of his lance firmly in his hand, and turning back to his companion, by no means so well armed as himself, and secretly recommending himself to every saint in the calendar, “The Moors are sure to be on us,” he says, “it were well to make ready for them. Buckle your girths tightly and take care they do not shake you from the saddle.”
Instead of answering, Don Juan Attiz (for that was his name) set spurs to his horse, riding furiously towards the back camp, leaving Don Garcia alone with his esquire.