All the acquisitive Briton in us yearned to possess one of the quaint retorts. It was only the thought of their bulky brittleness that conquered the covetous feeling.
From the room more pigmy steps wound upwards to a roofed mirador, but, as the inner walls of the staircase were broken away in great gaps, only the Boy was daring enough to ascend.
Returning, he reported a low roof that sloped down to battlemented walls pierced with loop-holes through which arrows and boiling water were wont to shower down on the besiegers. On one occasion the captain of the Moors was killed with scalding water thrown from the tower. To the present day the incident affords matter for intense satisfaction at Andraitx.
XI
UP AMONG THE WINDMILLS
When at noon we returned to the shop our host had a delightful little luncheon awaiting us. And it was in high good-humour with him, with ourselves, and with all the world, that we set off to walk the three miles of level road that lie between the town of Andraitx and its port.
Every foot of the way was full of interest. At first it led past rustic dwellings set in their orange and lemon gardens. In one orchard a life-size, and life-like, male scarecrow was perched high up in the branches of a pomegranate-tree. Then the road ran for a long way close by the dry bed of a torrente, that in the rainy season would be a river, and through groves of almond and olive-trees before it reached the wide stretch of fruitful plain devoted to the culture of vegetables.
Our path was cheerful with wayfarers. As we strolled along, a succession of old vehicles and picturesque folk passed us. Old men in suits of faded blue cotton, bright-hued handkerchiefs bound about their heads under their wide hats, trotted by beside their panniered donkeys. And dotted over the rich, red earth people were busy. In one field a man was ploughing, while close on his heels a handsome dark-eyed woman in a scarlet petticoat followed, dropping yellow peas into the newly turned furrows.