Page:Lands of the Saracen 1859.djvu/447

Rh without Fear and without Care, throwing himself upon the earth, and ready to die.

"But, nevertheless, the herdsman dressed himself up as a caballero, went down to the city, and, on the fourth day, presented himself at the King's palace. ‘What do you want?' said the officers. ‘I am Don Pedro without Fear and without Care, come to answer the questions which the King sent to me.' ‘Well,' said the King, when he was brought before him, ‘let me hear your answers, or I will have you shot this day.' ‘Your Majesty,' said the herdsman, ‘I think I can do it. If you were to set a million of children to playing among the snow of the Sierra Nevada, they would soon clear it all away; and if you were to dig a ditch as wide and as deep as all Spain, you would make the sea that much smaller. ‘But,' said the King, ‘that makes only two questions; there are two more yet.' ‘I think I can answer those, also,' said the herdsman; ‘the moon contains four quarters, and therefore weighs only one arroba; and as for the last question, it is not even a single league to the Land of Heavenly Glory — for, if your Majesty were to die after breakfast, you would get there before you had an appetite for dinner.' ‘Well done' said the King; and he then made him Count, and Marquez, and I don't know how many other titles. In the meantime, Don Pedro without Fear and without Care had died of his fright; and, as he left no family, the herdsman took possession of all his estates, and, until the day of his death, was called Don Pedro without Fear and without Care."

I write, sitting by the grated window of this lonely inn, looking out on the meadows of the Guadaljorce. The chain of mountains which rises to the west of Malaga is purpled by