For could anything have been more unseemly than that we three persons of birth and high breeding--in such a description Sir Richard Pendragon is included by courtesy--should be pursuing the highways of Spain in the company of a water-cart drawn by four mules and wearing the rudest attire to be seen out of Galicia. Yet, as we moved through the unfrequented country places at the rate of one league an hour, there were some advantages at least to be taken from this fashion of progress. We needed not to keep a watch for robbers, since they were not likely to trouble three peasants who themselves had the appearance of bandits. Neither had we need to fear falling in with the army of Castile, because none could have discerned that three prominent servants of the King’s enemy were hidden in such wretched guise. Again, neither was there to be suspected in the homely and rustical figure of a water-carrier the accomplished robber of churches. Although such immunity seemed a high price to pay, for its penalties still remained many and grievous, it presently began to appear that some kind of a design was lurking in it. For in the course of a week’s painful journeying, and as we moved slowly from place to place, I seemed to discern that our leader was not so much unhinged as I had feared. Howbeit, to all my searching after that which lay in his mind, he would only answer me with a droll mockery which he seemed greatly to relish. Still, ever to allow a due to the devil, as we came nearer to Toledo he showed no lack of that soldierly vigilance that always distinguished him when he took the road. He was very precise and yet very cunning as to the inquiries he made in regard to the disposition of the forces of Castile. We proceeded very warily as we approached the scene of King John’s campaign; and thereby contrived to glean some information of what was toward. All who have seen the famous castle of Montesina will not need to be told that it is perhaps in the most invincible situation of any fortress in Spain, for it stands upon a high and impregnable rock. Although it was well known to the Countess Sylvia’s ruthless foe that at this time she had no more than three hundred men-at-arms with which to defend it, and that the duke, her father, was afflicted with years, he yet deemed it wiser to gain his will by what in the language of war is called a siege, rather than to win the fortress by open assault at the point of the sword. The Castilian was a crafty prince and a covetous. It was no small satisfaction to Sir Richard Pendragon to learn that King John, instead of enforcing the garrison, was content to invest the castle of Montesina; and in order to starve it into surrender had sat down before its walls. Yet it is no more than just to the King to mention that before taking this course he had already made one assault upon the rock, and had been repulsed with the loss of an hundred men.