Old Tello. Are you afraid of them?
Garcia. No more than you, Father. (Going toward the prisoners.) Dogs, I would tear you in pieces with my hands; you shall know what it is to be a Christian. (He darts upon them and pursues them.)
Old Tello. Ah, the good little fellow! Gracious Heaven! He is fine as coral.
Tello. Mendo, see that he does them no harm.
Old Tello. Let him kill one or two; so do they teach a falcon to kill when he is young.
In fact, they are falcons or vultures. In the song of Roland, when the doughty knights ask from Turpin the absolution of their sins, the archbishop for penance recommends them to strike well.
But at the same time they have the mind and the soul of children. “Deep are the wells, and the valleys dark, the rocks black, the defiles marvellous.” That is their whole description of the Pyrenees; they feel and speak in a lump. A child, questioned about Paris, which he had just seen for the first time, replied: “There are a great many streets, and carriages everywhere, and great houses, and in two squares two tall columns.” The poet of old times is like the child; he does not know how to analyze his impressions. Like him, he loves the marvellous, and takes delight in tales where all the proportions are gigantic.
