On the cold, dark morning they rode away Doña Luisita showed a brave spirit and kept back her tears with smiles. Doña Christina and two of her waiting women were to travel on the sure-footed mules, as ladies did in those times. Besides Fray Piña and Diego and Don Felipe, there went for protection, six men armed with harquebuses and mounted, and the chief steward and his assistant. These last rode ahead to secure accommodations for the party, as they would be four nights upon the road.
When the moment of farewell came in the gray of the early morning, Diego felt strangely sad. Doña Luisita was clasped first in her mother’s arms and then in Don Felipe’s. Diego made bold to kiss her hand.
As the party clattered across the drawbridge, which was hauled up after them, and watched the lowering of the flag on the keep, signifying that the head of the house was absent, Diego turned and gave a last look at the spot in which he had been so happy.
“You look as if you did not want to see the fall of Granada,” said Don Felipe. “After all, we shall have many more pleasant days together at Langara.”
“I hope so,” replied Diego, from the bottom of his heart.
Diego carried in the breast of his leathern jacket a treasure which had been given him by Doña Christina as a souvenir of his happy hours in the library of the castle. This was the little manuscript volume of Petrarca, which Diego had read for the first time with so much delight at Langara.
The party traveled on slowly but steadily. After a while the dark morning brightened and the sun shone gloriously.
It is a privilege of youth to rally quickly from sadness. So it was that after a while Diego’s heart was light again, and he began to enjoy already, in anticipation, a return some day to the castle. Don Felipe’s good spirits were contagious. The two youths were full of health, and of eager and ardent soul, each with a good horse under him, and traveling toward a scene of splendid adventures. Diego surprised himself by bursting into a song, with a refrain:
Merrily, merrily we go, my steed and I,
Soon will we return,
We will return, we will return!