The drawbridge is down and the sculptured portal open. Not a creature is about to salute the king, but a posse of fierce dogs, the Penates of the place, break out from behind a wall and fly at the horses’ heels, who highly resent the attack with many kicks and plunges, to the imminent danger of the riders, while terrified cows rush in from the woods to increase the confusion, then bolt into space, pursued by the dogs. All this time not a soul has appeared. The page who has accompanied the king advances to [Illustration: A VIEW IN GRANADA. Engraved by James B. Allen from a drawing by D. Roberts.] assist him to dismount, as well as his old attendant, Martos, but, before they can reach him, he has sprung lightly from the saddle, and looks around. “What! no one to receive me?” he says, with a light laugh, but a frown is on his face all the same. “Do the Regents hold me for a schoolboy, to be punished when I go abroad?” “Such disrespect is not to be endured,” returns Garcia, of a much more impetuous temperament than the king, which betrays itself by the impatience with which he paces up and down, searching every corner, then sounding a horn he wears across his shoulders; but the long-drawn notes bring no response save innumerable echoes and a dense flight of birds from the old building, frightened from their nests. “It makes my blood boil to see your Grace so treated,” cries Garcia, returning with heightened colour to the king’s side. “How dare the Regents----” “Tush! tush! Garcia, I am sure it is accidental.” “Impossible, my lord! I myself announced your intention of taking your midday meal here. You observe the flag is flying.” All this time the bevy of dogs keep up such a chorus of barking that they can hardly hear themselves speak, closing round them as if determined for an attack. “Let them bark,” says the king, carelessly, fronting one savage old hound with fiery eyes and tail erect, about to leap on him. Martos and the page, seriously alarmed, rush to his rescue with sticks and stones. “Better this noise than silence. The dogs after all are doing their duty, which my servants are _not_. Perhaps their barking will bring out some one to stable our horses. See how wet the flanks of the poor beasts are and how they tremble. Look to them well, Juanito,” to the page, who, doffing his plumed cap, bows to the ground, “I would not have Zulema take any harm for half the kingdom I do NOT rule. We have ridden hard and long; let us hope that a good repast awaits us. I have a keen appetite.” “I do not see where it is to come from,” answers Garcia, following the king over the drawbridge into the _patio_.