“They pressed around the ivory throne to shield their lord from harm, Till the good Cid woke and rose, our Cid, who never knew alarm; He went to meet the lion, with his mantle on his arm.” As for the cunning Bastiano, he had only to crack his whip high above Blanco’s untroubled head, and a plump white donkey would charge down upon him, bearing Pilarica to the rescue. So one blue summer day followed another until--something happened. It was at the edge of evening, when the still heated air was musical with slow chimes from far-off convent-belfries, whose gilded crosses stood out against the sky. Uncle Manuel was rebuking Rafael for having failed to provide water enough for the needs of the day. Early in the journey--too early, in Rafael’s opinion--Don Manuel had equipped Shags with a wicker frame into which could be fitted four large water-jars, two on a side. As the caravan traversed that central plateau where water is scarce, Rafael was expected to fill the jars at every spring, well or fountain, and give the travellers, especially the tramping muleteers, drink as it was called for. At first the new responsibility pleased him, but he soon grew tired of trudging along beside Shags, who had enough to do with carrying the jars, or of begging a ride on mule-back, and of late he had grown so negligent that more than once the supply of water had been exhausted long before the lodging for the night was reached. Under his uncle’s reprimand, Rafael flushed, but answered haughtily: “I’m no donkey-boy.” “Ah! You were born in a silver cradle, perhaps?” Uncle Manuel asked with quiet but stinging irony. “Are you one of those whom God created too good for honest work?” “A kid-gloved cat Catches no rat,” sneered Bastiano, who had come up for a draught of water only to find one tantalizing jar after another as dry as his own throat. Rafael, knowing himself in the wrong, could not retort, but turned abruptly, drew from the mouths of the jars the four fresh lemons he was ingeniously using as corks, handed one to Uncle Manuel, another to Bastiano and, with Shags trotting at his heels like a dog, ploughed back through the deep dust along the train. He, too, was thirsty,--how thirsty nobody should ever know; he was ashamed and wanted comfort. He would join Pilarica who, only a girl though she was, had her values in hours like this. She could always find excuses for him when he could find none for himself. Sisters were made for that. But his clouded look was lifted to mule after mule in vain. She was not with the “cavalry,” for neither Tenorio nor Hilario, who accepted the remaining two lemons as a matter of course, had seen her, as they complained, since the nooning.