This is an old Moorish term (literally gee-up), whence the muleteers are familiarly termed arrieros. They then shared with Quentin their dried fish and hard biscuits, with a few olives and luscious oranges, that had become golden among the groves that cast their shadows on the Ebro; and they frequently patted him on the shoulder, and expressed regret for their suspicions, and the mischief these might have led to.
The group around this lonely well, which bubbled through a grotesque stone face, under an old Roman arch, and the scene around, were wonderfully striking and picturesque.
In the immediate foreground were the swarthy Castilian muleteers in their gaudy dress, and their gaily trapped mules, all resting on the bright green sward; close by was the ruined puebla; northward rose Castello de Vide in the distance on its verdant hill, the round towers of its ancient fortress and ruined walls, that had more than once withstood the tide of Moorish and Castilian chivalry; to the east and south rose the great sierras that form the boundary between Spain and Portugal, all crimsoned with the light of the gorgeous sun that was setting in gold and saffron behind the cork tree groves that clothe the hills of St. Mames.
The frugal repast was barely over when the tinkle of a clear and silvery bell that rung in some solitary hermitage, concealed afar off among the chestnut woods in some hollow of the mountains, came at intervals on the evening wind.
"Vespers," said Ramon Campillo, taking off his sombrero; "amigos mios, to prayers."
Then, with a simple devotion that impressed him deeply, Quentin Kennedy saw those sturdy and jovial, but rather reckless fellows, who, but a few minutes before, were (we are compelled to admit it) quite disposed to knock him on the head, kneel down and pray very earnestly for a minute or so.
A few minutes more saw them on their way to Castello de Vide, and him progressing towards the mountains. They waved their hats to him repeatedly, and then as the twilight deepened, the breeze of the valley as it swept over the odorous orange groves brought pleasantly to his ear the jingle of the mule-bells, and the tinkle of Ramon's guitar dying away in the distance, with a verse of the song the three arrieros sung—an old Valencian evening hymn.
"Thou who all our sins didst bear,
All our sorrows suffering there,
O Agnus Dei!
Lead us where thy promise led
That poor dying thief who said,
Memento mei!"