Rodriguez rose more relieved to quit so tumultuous a rest than refreshed by having had it.

He descended, leaving Morano to sleep on, and not till the old dame had made a breakfast ready did he return to interrupt his snores.

Even as he awoke upon his heap of hay Morano remained as true to his master’s fantastic quest as the camel is true to the pilgrimage to Mecca.  He awoke grumbling, as the camel grumbles at dawn when the packs are put on him where he lies, but never did he doubt that they went to victorious wars where his master would win a castle splendid with towers.

Breakfast cheered both the travellers.  And then the old lady told Rodriguez that Caspe was but a three hours’ walk, and that cheered them even more, for Caspe is on the Ebro, which seemed to mark for Rodriguez a stage in his journey, being carried easily in his imagination, like the Pyrenees.  What road he would take when he reached Caspe he had not planned.  And soon Rodriguez expressed his gratitude, full of fervour, with many a flowery phrase which lived long in the old dame’s mind; and the visit of those two travellers became one of the strange events of that house and was chief of the memories that faintly haunted the rafters of the loft for years.

They did not reach Caspe in three hours, but went lazily, being weary; for however long a man defies fatigue the hour comes when it claims him.  The knowledge that Caspe lay near with sure lodging for the night, soothed Rodriguez’ impatience.  And as they loitered they talked, and they decided that la Garda must now be too far behind to pursue any longer.  They came in four hours to the bank of the Ebro and there saw Caspe near them; but they dined once more on the grass, sitting beside the river, rather than enter the town at once, for there had grown in both travellers a liking for the wanderers’ green table of earth.

It was a time to make plans.  The country of romance was far away and they were without horses.

“Will you buy horses, master?” said Morano.

“We might not get them over the Pyrenees,” said Rodriguez, though he had a better reason, which was that three gold pieces did not buy two saddled horses.  There were no more friends to hire from.  Morano grew thoughtful.  He sat with his feet dangling over the bank of the Ebro.

“Master,” he said after a while, “this river goes our way.  Let us come by boat, master, and drift down to France at our ease.”

To get a river over a range of mountains is harder than to get horses.  Some such difficulty Rodriguez implied to him; but Morano, having come slowly by an idea, parted not so easily with it.

“It goes our way, master,” he repeated, and pointed a finger at the Ebro.

At this moment a certain song that boatmen sing on that river, when the current is with them and they have nothing to do but be idle and their lazy thoughts run to lascivious things, came to the ears of Rodriguez and Morano; and a man with a bright blue sash steered down the Ebro.  He had been fishing and was returning home.