“Ha! ha! is it so?” laughs he, watching his companion as his horse’s hoofs tear up the turf. “Better to be alone with me, Baldo” (to his esquire), “than to have such a coward at my heels. Hey! for Castile and Leon!”
Now softly, one by one, the Moors come creeping out from their ambush in the wood (there is no mistaking them now, the sun shone upon their round steel caps and their smooth shields), one by one, like Agag, “delicately,” until seven Moslem knights place themselves across the path by which Don Garcia rides, the last one carrying a flag bearing the mystic symbol of an open hand, the same as is still to be seen carved over the principal gateway of the Alhambra.
“By Santiago!” cries King Fernando, anxiously watching from the hill. “Observe Don Garcia. The seven Moors are ranging themselves on the grass. Yet, to look at them, one would say it is they who are afraid, not he, he rides on so boldly.”
“And so it is, sire,” answers the chamberlain, his eye fixed on the plain; “I warrant their hearts beat louder than his. The Moors stand back in line, while Garcia advances. See, now he pauses, as though he did not see them—pauses and speaks to his esquire. My lord, you will soon sing a Te Deum in the Seville mosque, if all your army be as brave as Don Garcia.”
“Did ever man behold the like?” replies King Fernando, shading his eyes the better to observe him. “Now Garcia is taking off his casque. He is wiping his head. He is calling his esquire up beside him. God be thanked we have such Christian knights! May the Blessed Virgin guard him, and bring him safe back.”
“Come hither,” Don Garcia is saying to his esquire, taking no more notice of the seven Moors than if they were seven statues; while they, in their turn, mark with dismay the red cross and the green tree emblazoned on his shield. Too well they know that device, and when they see whom they have waylaid they wish themselves elsewhere.
“Come hither, the sun is hot upon my head. Take my casque from me and hold it for awhile; there is no need why I should heat myself with such a weight.”
As he speaks, he lifts his arm to remove his casque, and behold, his striped scarf has vanished. “Alas! how have I lost it?” he cries in much distress. “I must have dropped it but a moment ago. Now, I would rather fight ten battles than lose that scarf. My liege lady worked it for me and bound it on my arm long ago, and there I have worn it ever since. Find it I will, or I will die for it.”
As he speaks Don Garcia turns himself round in his saddle unhelmeted as he is, his hair flying in the breeze, and gazes eagerly upon the path by which he has come, a track upon the greensward.
Then for the first time he raises his eyes upon the Moors, seven knights ranged in a line, wearing green turbans on their helmets and carrying lances in their hands; and there, suspended upon the point of a spear, is his scarf striped white and red—a Moslem has picked it up and looped it there.