“Probably you have got some extravagant ideas about Spanish girls from the novels you have read,” laughed the doctor; “and it is not likely that your ideal beauty will be realized, even in Cadiz and Seville. Here is the Dos de Mayo.”
“Who’s she?” asked Murray, looking rather vacantly at a granite obelisk in the middle of an enclosed garden.
“It is not a woman,” replied the doctor.
“Excuse me; I think you said a dose of something,” added Murray.
“That monument has the name of ‘El Dos de Mayo,’ which means ‘the second of May.’ It commemorates a battle fought on this spot in 1808 by the peasants, headed by three artillerymen, and the French. The ground enclosed is called ‘The Field of Loyalty.’”
“What is this long building ahead?” inquired Sheridan.
“That’s the Royal Museum, which contains the richest collection of paintings in Europe.”
“Isn’t that putting it pretty strong, after what we have seen in Italy and Germany?” asked Sheridan.
“I don’t say the largest or the best-arranged collection in Europe, but the richest. It has more of the old masters, of the best and most valuable pictures in the world, than any other museum. We will go there to-morrow, and you can judge for yourselves.”
“Of course we are competent to do that,” added Murray with a laugh.