The cavalier galloped about for a few moments, while his attendants made their preparations for the journey. Then returning, like a thoughtful leader, to inquire into their welfare, he beheld them with great satisfaction, both horse and man, in good condition to commence their adventurous campaign.
The elder of his followers was a personage of years and gravity; a mass of grizzled locks fell from under his iron skull-cap, and a shaggy beard of the same reverend hue ornamented his cheeks and throat. He had seen long and sharp service, for besides the many scars that marked his swarthy visage, one of which, from its livid hue, seemed to have been won in recent combat, a sabre-cut, extending over his left cheek and brow, had darkened the sinister eye forever. But his frame, though somewhat short and squat, was robust and even gigantic in proportions; and the muscles springing under the narrow cuishes, which, together with a heavy breast-plate, made nearly the whole of his defensive armour, did not seem less of iron than their covering. He was truly a man-at-arms worthy to follow at the heels of a valiant cavalier.
The second attendant, though armed with little more care than the former, had contrived, by the judicious distribution of riband-knots and sashes about his person, to assume a more gallant appearance: and in addition, he had the smoother features and gayer looks of youth. Both were provided with horses strong and not inactive; and both, as Amador returned, were busily engaged in disposing the mails and accoutrements of the cavalier about the bulky loins of their animals.
"Hearken, Lazaro, thou varlet, that flingest my mailed shirt over thy crupper, as if it were a vile horse-cloth," he cried to the younger follower, "have more care what thou art doing. Give my helmet to Baltasar, and let him sling it, with my buckler, over his broad shoulders. I will not entrust thee with such matters; nor, by 'r lady, with my pistols neither."
"If I may make bold to speak," said Baltasar, bending his eye bluffly, and with a sort of rude affection on his young lord, "I can advise a way to dispose of both casque and buckler more agreeably and usefully than on the back of either Lazaro or myself."
"Thou meanest upon mine own, no doubt," said Amador: "I have ever found thee fonder of carrying the arms of a dead foeman than of a living master, though it were the knight Calavar himself."
"That is very true," said the veteran, chuckling grimly at the compliment disguised in the sarcasm.
"I am never loath to do such duty: because, then, my conscience tells me I am bearing arms which can no longer be of use to their owner."
"And thou desirest now to intimate, that, if I were arrayed in my harness, I might put it to some use?"
"Quien sabe? who knows?" said Baltasar, looking around him with an earnest eye. "We are now in a strange land, possessed by barbarians, who are good at spear and bow, and fonder of fighting from an ambuscado than on an open field; and with no true companions that I can see, to look that they be not lurking among yonder woodlands, some of which, I take it for granted, we have to pass. I should grieve sorely to see an arrow, even in a boy's hand, aimed at your honour's present hauberk of cloth and velvet."