case.  The lads, mounted on two excellent mules, and attended by only one servant, rode out to see the fountain of Argales, famous for its antiquity and the abundance of its water.  On their arrival there, Avendano gave the servant a sealed paper, bidding him return forthwith to the city, and deliver it to his tutor, after which the servant was to wait for them at the Puerta del Campo.  The servant did as he was bid, and went back to the city with the letter; and they, turning their mules’ heads another way, slept that night in Mojados, and arrived two days afterwards in Madrid, where they sold their mules.

They dressed themselves like peasants in short jerkins, loose breeches, and gray stockings.  An old clothes dealer, to whom they sold their handsome apparel in the morning, transformed them by night in such a manner that their own mothers would not have known them.  Lightly equipped, as suited their purpose, and without swords, for they had sold them to the old clothes dealer, they took to the road to Toledo.  There let us leave them for the present, stepping out briskly with merry hearts, while we return to the tutor, and see him open the letter delivered to him by the servant, which he read as follows:—­

“Your worship, senor Pedro Alonso, will be pleased to have patience and go back to Burgos, where you will say to our parents that we, their sons, having with mature deliberation considered how much more arms befit cavaliers than do letters, have determined to exchange Salamanca for Brussels, and Spain for Flanders.  We have got the four hundred crowns; the mules we intend to sell.  The course we have chosen, which is so worthy of persons of our quality, and the length of the journey before us, are sufficient to excuse our fault, though a fault it will not be deemed by any one but a coward.  Our departure takes place now; our return will be when it shall please God, to whose keeping, we, your humble pupils, heartily commend you.  Given from the fountain of Argales, with one foot in the stirrup for Flanders.

“CARRIAZO,
“AVENDANO.”

Aghast at the contents of this letter, Pedro Alonso hurried to his valise, and found that the paper spoke but too truly, for the money was gone.  Instantly mounting the remaining mule, he returned to Burgos to carry these tidings to his patrons, in order that they might take measures to recover possession of their sons’ persons.  But as to how he was received, the author of this tale says not a word, for the moment he has put Pedro Alonso into the saddle, he leaves him to give the following account of what occurred to Avendano and Carriazo at the entrance of Illescas.

Just by the town gate they met two muleteers, Andalusians apparently, one of whom was coming from Seville, and the other going thither.  Said the latter to the former, “If my masters were not so far ahead, I should like to stop a little longer to ask you a thousand things I want to know, for I am quite astonished at what you have told me about the conde’s having hanged Alonzo Gines and Ribera without giving them leave to appeal.”