Passing through one of the gates of the city, Fernando walked into the country. It very much resembled the rural portions of his own principality, except that it was cultivated with greater care. Here and there tiny, snow-white farm-steadings nestled in hollows, and from these streams of reapers and gleaners spread across the fields in every direction, for it was harvest-time. Fernando joined one of these groups, and was surprised to find that there was little difference between it and a similar party in Christian Spain. At intervals the work of garnering the grain was relaxed, and the reapers sat in a circle and listened to the music made by one of their number on the pipe, which possessed a strange melancholy of its own. Fernando found in them the same simple and easily satisfied disposition that he had discovered among his own peasantry. They shared their bread and cheese with him, and tendered him a draught of goat's milk from a large skin bottle, which he made shift to swallow with rather a wry face, for princes as a rule do not accustom themselves to the pungent odours of such a beverage. Thus refreshed, he passed on, walking slowly through the heat of the day, which was now well advanced, and resting every now and then beneath the shadows of the roadside trees. He had advanced perhaps a mile and a half farther on when he came to a wide, open plain upon which he beheld a large body of Moorish cavalry performing military evolutions. His soldier's eye took in the scene with interest, and he was quick to see that the rapid movements of these lightly armed horsemen were greatly superior to those of his own heavily accoutred warriors. At the word of command the squadrons wheeled and charged with surprising unanimity and rapidity, and when the word was given to halt they did so on the instant, without scattering or losing the alignment of their ranks. The evolutions of one of the squadrons brought it quite close to where the prince was standing, and the officer in command, evidently regarding him as a pilgrim of sanctity, gave him a courteous salutation. "I take it, reverend sir," he said, "from the evident pleasure with which you regard this scene, that you have once been a soldier yourself?" "That is quite true," replied Fernando; "I was a soldier for many years, and saw a good deal of service in another part of the country; but war is no longer my business, and I do not, as I once did, cherish it for itself alone." "But surely," said the soldier, "war is the only career to which a noble mind can turn? You are young, and have evidently left its ranks too early." "Nay," rejoined the prince, "I am ready, if necessity enjoins, to take up the sword once more, but only in case of unrighteous invasion or to settle a grievous wrong. As I have said, I no longer desire war for its own sake."