"Follow me, please, and keep close to the wall. When I stop do likewise and crouch down. Should one of the fellows on the walls call out, make no move, utter no sound, but wait until I direct you."
Such were his brief instructions.
She gave him to understand that she comprehended all he wished.
Then they moved away, keeping close to the rough walls, where the shadows lay thickest.
It was a slow and laborious task.
Here and there lay heaps of broken bricks, just where they had fallen Heaven alone knew how many years back, since it is a settled Spanish rule never to spoil the picturesque and bizarre by miserable modern attempts at thrift and cleanliness—vines had grown over the debris and moon flowers whitened the face of the rough wall.
It may have been very pretty, but it made the task Roderic had marked out more tiresome than it would otherwise have been.
He did not grumble however, and Inez would never have complained even though compelled to creep through an acre of prickly pear or cactus—her holy fervor of love sanctified the means, and she blessed the Virgin for allowing her such a privilege to prove her devotion.
She was a woman in ten thousand—happy Leon, to possess such a loyal heart.