It was a lovely place, this Moorish _patio_, shut in by walls delicately embroidered and diapered in stone, supported by ranges of horseshoe arches, light as a dream, grouped on double pillars as white as snow, the central space traversed by walks paved with coloured tiles, followed by rustic arches cut in yew in fanciful devices of pyramids and crowns, from which hung coloured lanterns in the summer nights when the harem made holiday here long ago, a bubbling fountain in the midst, cutting tiny canals edged with flowers. “Here I could live and die!” exclaims the young king, standing entranced in the centre, the sound of many waters flowing from jets and tunnels mingling with the songs of birds emboldened by the stillness and fluttering in the boughs. “Give me my zither and lute, I should never care to return to Burgos. Come, Garcia,” turning to his companion, “let us explore the interior of this fair mansion.” But Garcia, not at all poetical by nature, and who is growing every moment more indignant at the absence of the _jefe_ and the lack of every preparation, follows him in silence under a colonnade from which the various apartments open out through doors of cedar wood into an Arab hall--a blaze of gorgeous colour. “This passes all belief!” cried Garcia, looking round, unable any longer to suppress his feelings. “It is high time that your Grace emancipates yourself. If this insult leads to the fall of the Regents (and you are already sixteen, and competent to reign), it will satisfy me better than the choicest meal ever served to mortal, though I confess I am as hungry as a wolf.” “But, our Lady defend us!” he cried, as he suddenly caught sight of the dismal face of Martos, “what brings you with such a woful countenance? Speak, man! Have the dogs bitten you?” “No, no!” answered Martos, with a grim smile. “No, but the dinner!” “Have the dogs eaten it, then, instead of you?” asked the king. The major-domo shook his head sorrowfully. “Dinner, my lord and master, there is none.” “No dinner!” broke in Garcia. “Do you mean to say nothing is provided for the king?” “Nothing! nothing!” cried Martos in despair, clasping his hands. “I assure your Grace I told them you were coming,” broke in Garcia. “I gave the Marqués de Villena due notice. I am not to blame.” “I am sure you are not, dear Garcia. Good Martos, do not vex yourself. Call such people together as you can find, and have the game we shot on the way fashioned into a _salmis_. It will make a delicious dish.” * * * * * Then Martos and a page appeared, carrying a single dish, and placed it on the table. “How is this?” cried the king, with more anger than he had yet shown. “Where are the servants I pay to serve this palace? Where is the _jefe_ whose duty it is to receive his sovereign?” “Gone, my lord and master, gone no one knows whither. Nothing left but a crippled scullion and those cursed dogs, who fly upon us every time we move.”