“If I am not back, Condesa, in six years, reckon me dead, and forget me, and take another husband.”
Six years pass, and eight, and ten, and one more yet, and the Conde Sol is not come back, nor has any news been heard of him. Men say he has fallen in the wars; but the Countess believes them not; her heart tells her that her husband lives, and she will take no rest and no diversion. Her father comes to see her, and he finds her always in tears.
“What ails thee, daughter dear? Why are thy eyes ever filled with tears?”
“Father, let me go to seek the Count; for my heart tells me he lives, and that I shall find him.”
“Do all thou wilt, daughter, and my blessing go with thee!”
The next morning the Countess sets out and goes to seek the Count, bowed down with sadness, by land and by sea, through all Spain and Italy and France. One day she comes to a vast plain shaded by pine-trees, and in the shade a herd of kine grazing.
“Tell me, I pray you, vaquerita[1], and tell me now in truth, whose are the kine grazing in these pastures?”
“They belong to the Conde Sol, lady, who commands all this country.”
“And all these wheat crops that they are just garnering in, vaquerita; tell me in truth, whose are they?”
“The Conde Sol’s, lady; for it is he sows these fields.”