“And so do I,” cut in Tia Marta. “The boy is the only man among you. As to that Pedrillo, Don Manuel, I tell you once for all that we will not journey in his care. I would not trust him with a sack of scorpions.” “Tut, tut!” protested Don Manuel. “One can accomplish more with a spoonful of honey than with a quart of vinegar. But if not Pedrillo, then who? The railroad is dangerous at the best, and there are several changes to be made from train to train and from train to diligence. I cannot send you on by yourselves and I can not go with you. Besides, it would be wasteful. The mules and donkeys are already provided, but the railroad will cost much money,--the railroad that has so hurt the business of us Galician carriers.” “We are well enough off as we are,” said Tia Marta curtly, “if only we need not have speech with these sons of perdition.” So Uncle Manuel arranged the order of march with care. He was to lead the way on Coronela, and the string of pack mules, fastened, as usual, muzzle to tail, would follow, with Tenorio, Bastiano and Hilario on the tramp beside them. The necessity of detaching, every now and then, one or another of the mules that might be carrying packages for some hamlet off the main route, made so large a number of men necessary. At a considerable distance, in order to avoid the dust kicked up by those forty hoofs, Grandfather, Tia Marta and the children were to follow, and Pedrillo was to act as rear-guard for the entire cavalcade. The second detachment gave the first so good a start that the mule-train was quite out of sight, when our little troop rode in single file, under a pelting shower, through those narrow Moorish streets. Pedrillo paused at a mat-shop, where the prentices and their master, all squatted on the floor, were weaving the red, brown and yellow fibres of the reeds, to bargain for flexible strips of matting to wrap about Tia Marta and Pilarica, but Tia Marta haughtily declined the attention, although the rain had already run the green and scarlet hues of her umbrella into an unwholesome looking blend. Neither would she accept, for herself, his suggestion that they take refuge, till the shower be past, in the famous Moorish mosque, but she let him hurry Grandfather and Pilarica through the Court of Oranges, whose feathery palms and ancient orange trees were almost as dripping wet as the five sacred fountains, and into the strangest building of all Spain. On this gloomy morning the interior was dimmer than ever and in that weird half-light the marvellous forest of pillars,--hundreds of columns, granite, serpentine, porphyry, jasper, marbles of every kind and color,--seemed to be dreaming of those pagan temples, in Rome, in Athens, in Carthage, from which, in the days of Arab splendor, they had been pilfered by the victorious Caliphs of Cordova.