“You have eaten all my bread, don Infidel,” he said, “and now you would lie about your people and your castles. You are no beggar; you are the King of Cordova come here in this disguise to spy out the Christian’s land. I know all about you from my mother’s stories. So you must die. I shall send your head to our Emperor by my sister here, and when he shall ask her who has done this noble deed she will say, just as did Alvar Fanez to King Alfonso: ‘My Cid Campeador, O king, it was who girded brand: The Paynim king he hath o’ercome, the mightiest in the land Plenteous and sovereign is the spoil he from the Moor hath won; This portion, honored king and lord, he sendeth to your throne.’ “So, King of Cordova, bend down and let me cut off your head.” The “King of Cordova” made no movement of compliance to this gentle invitation, and the head-strong Pedro, springing toward him, would have caught him by the beard, had not his gentle sister restrained him. “I do believe he is no king, my Pedro,” she said, “but only, as he says, a poor Morisco beggar. Let us rather try to help him. He hath no castles I am sure, and as for his armies----” “His armies! there they come; look, sister!” cried little Pedro, breaking into his sister’s words; “now will you believe me?” and following his gaze, Theresa herself started as she saw dashing down the mountain highway what looked to her unpractised eye like a whole band of Moorish cavalry with glimmering lances and streaming pennons. Pedro faced the charge with drawn sword. Theresa knelt on the ground with silver crucifix upraised, expecting instant martyrdom, while the old Moorish tramp, Abd-el-’Aman, believing discretion to be the better part of valor, quietly dropped down by the side of the rocky roadway, for well he understood who were these latest comers. The Moorish cavalry, which proved to be three Spaniards on horseback, drew up before the young crusaders. “So, runaways, we have found you,” cried one of them, as he recognized the children. “Come, Theresa, what means this folly? Whither are you and Pedro bound?” “We were even starting for a crusade against the Moor, Brother Jago,” said Theresa, timidly, “but our Infidel friend here--why, where hath he gone?--says that there are neither Infidel castles nor Moorish armies now, and that therefore we may not be crusaders.” “But I know that he doth lie, Brother Jago,” cried little Pedro, more valiant still when he saw to what his Moorish cavalry was reduced. “He is the King of Cordova, come here to spy out the land, and I was about to cut off his head when you did disturb us.” Big brother Jago de Cepeda and the two servants of his father’s house laughed long and loudly. “Crusaders and kings,” he cried; “why, we shall have the Cid himself here, if we do but wait long enough.”