“Señor—husband”—she replied, “what I have to tell may induce you to leave me again. It is that troubles me.”
“Humph!” returned the knight, “a crusade against something or somebody?”
“Yes,” answered the countess, “one full of danger.”
Don Pedro smiled as a soldier of his inches, of course, should at the idea of the thing.
“A week ago, my cousin Vida Inique came to me in much distress. You remember her?”
“Certainly! She is the betrothed, Heaven help her, of that vagabond nephew of mine.”
“She stopped here, for she came from Madrid with that purpose; partly because she needs sympathy now, and I am her nearest relative, and partly for the sake of society during the absence of her father with the Marquis of Santa Cruz.”
“Santa Cruz!” repeated the Don, with the animation of his Andalusian snuffing a whiff of cannon smoke.
“Yes. The king has ordered an armament under the marquis against Tercera.”
“Not a word of this reached me in the mountains. A handful of good knights would drive every Portuguese into the sea; I wonder the marquis sails against such enemies, when he complained only the other day of their ill breeding in Portugal; there was scarce a skirmish in which their backs were not turned upon their Spanish guests.”