Presently they beheld a sturdy, sunburnt fellow, clad in the ragged garb of a foot-soldier, leading a powerful Arabian horse caparisoned in the ancient Morisco fashion.
Astonished at the sight of a strange soldier descending, steed in hand, from that solitary mountain, the corporal stepped forth and challenged him.
“A friend.”
“Who and what are you?”
“A poor soldier just from the wars, with a cracked crown and empty purse for a reward.”
By this time they were enabled to view him more narrowly. He had a black patch across his forehead, which, with a grizzled beard, added to a certain dare-devil cast of countenance, while a slight squint threw into the whole an occasional gleam of roguish good-humor.
Having answered the questions of the patrol, the soldier seemed to consider himself entitled to make others in return. “May I ask,” said he, “what city is that which I see at the foot of the hill?”
“What city!” cried the trumpeter; “come, that’s too bad. Here’s a fellow lurking about the Mountain of the Sun, and demands the name of the great city of Granada!”
“Granada! Madre di Dios! can it be possible?”