“What a distemper is this, my son,” said the Englishman, “that you should harbour such a thought? Do you not know, springald youth, that no person of my nation ever returns from a foreign country with nothing in his hands?” “Good Sir Richard Pendragon,” I rejoined, “I am afraid I fail in this instance to appreciate in what particular our hands are occupied.” “Doubtless your own are empty, vain springald youth, because, like all of your nation, your mind is barren.” There was little satisfaction to be gained from such discourse as this. If ever three servants were returning empty-handed to their mistress, surely we were those three. And when I thought of the Castilian, who no doubt was already besieging her castle with his great host, and I remembered her unbending spirit, which had yet no more than three hundred lieges to sustain it, my very dreams were poisoned as I lay asleep, and I could have wept that we had borne such unfruitful service. In my failure to reconcile Sir Richard Pendragon’s speeches and conduct with the indisputable facts of the case, I was fain to consider him unhinged, not in a few particulars, but in all. I was moved to believe that his reverse at the hands of the French sovereign had overthrown entirely a mind that could have never been very secure. When we came near to the borders of Castile and made inquiry of innkeepers and those who dwelt in market towns, our ears were assailed with wars and the rumours thereof. And soon it became clear to us, as we rode with all speed towards Montesina, that that which had been predicted had come to pass. The King of Castile, said the public voice, had moved out with a great host, was already lying before the walls of the recalcitrant Duke of Montesina, and had sworn on the bones of the Cid that he would not withdraw until they were razed to the earth, and he had taken the whole of the duke’s dominion for his own possession. The Count of Nullepart, who, now that he was again upon Spanish territory, had doffed his beard and resumed his charming manners, seemed affected only to cheerfulness by these tidings. He was content, he said, to follow in the wake of his friends, and should be curious to learn the courses into which their strategy would lead him. Sir Richard Pendragon also upon hearing the news was affected to pleasantness. A smile of satisfaction spread over his countenance, and he expressed the hope that misfortune would not wait too soon upon madam and her defenders. I, however, had nothing of this disposition. Upon my life, I could not see anything in these tidings save darkness and disaster. In my view the failure of our embassy was the total failure of our hopes. Three hundred men-at-arms would be powerless to cope with a great army, even if they had this English giant to command them.