"I recommend the youth Fabueno to thy kindness," said Amador, well pleased to perceive his kinsman so collected. "He is the secretary of the admiral Cavallero, who claims to be related to your honour, and sends you the assurance of his love. I have been constrained, without yet knowing the pleasure of his excellency, to receive the youth into my protection; and this I did the more cheerfully, that he was my fellow-sufferer in the camp of Narvaez, and did, for my sake, very courageously expose himself to the painful shot of a cross-bow, which now maims his right arm." "If he have suffered for thee, my friend, I will not forget him," said the knight; "and I am rejoiced for his sake that now, in this season of peace, we may cure his wound before we call upon him to endure another." The countenance of Don Amador fell; he thought the knight's dream of peace denoted that he was sinking again into abstraction. "Call this not the season of peace," he cried. "The commander Cortes is resolute to fall upon his enemy, Narvaez, the enemy of honour; and it needs we should burnish up our arms, to give him help." Calavar looked seriously at the youth, and touching his black mantle with an expressive gesture, said:-- "It is the time of peace, my son,--the time of peace for those that follow the good St. John. I remember me now, that Cortes came down from the mountains, to fight the man Narvaez and his host: but these are not infidels, but Christians." "Cousin," said the cavalier, warmly, "though this man have the name, yet do I very much doubt if he possess any of the religion of a Christian; and I have to assure you, I have endured such causeless indignities at his hands, such as direct insult, violent seizure, and shameful imprisonment, as can only be washed away with his blood." "Wo's me! wo's me!" cried the knight: "the blood that is poured in anger, will not flow like water; it will not dry like water; nor will water, though blessed by the holy priest in the church, wash its crust from the hand! Thou seest," he cried, extending his gauntleted member, and gazing piteously into the face of his heated kinsman--"thou seest, that though, for thrice five years, I have washed it in brook and font, in the river that flows from the land of the Cross, and in the brine of the sea, it oozes still from between the scales, like a well that must trickle for ever, and will not be hidden.--Thou art very wroth with me, heaven!--Miserere mei, Domine!"