Nor was the province of Biscay ever ceded to him. In fact the only item that was fulfilled of the agreement was the marriage of the ardent young Lancaster with Costanza de Castila. At length, after the delay of many months, disgusted and disillusioned, the Black Prince led back his army to Bordeaux, bearing the germs of the fatal malady of which he died soon after. Again the scales of fortune turn in this strife between brother and brother. Deprived of the support of the English, the monstrous cruelties of Don Pedro again alienate all his subjects, and Don Enrique, supported by France and Aragon, in company with Du Guesclin, again leads an army into the field. “I swear, by the cross of Christ,” cries the romantic Caballero, so apt a prototype of that fantastic time, “that alive I will never again leave Castile!” And by a succession of events too complicated to detail, he does again possess the kingdom, and Don Pedro, defeated and driven at bay, finds himself blockaded in the castle of Montiel, Don Enrique and Du Guesclin holding the country round. * * * * * The castle of Montiel lies on the side of an escarped and precipitous rock, amid the rugged flanks of the Sierra Morena, that lofty barrier which divides Spain from Portugal. It is a fortress of no great size, but at that time it was surrounded by strong walls, and from its position deemed impregnable. Beneath open dark caves, the refuge of hunters and shepherds, emerald breasted valleys musical with streams, and arrowy peaks known only to the eagle and the heron; the black defiles of the _Despeñaperros_ break between where the dead bodies of Moors once carpeted the soil--and beyond the bare corn tracts of La Mancha open out, and smiling vine terraces purple with fruit. (Dear to the modern mind is the name of the Sierra Morena, as Don Quixote’s country, where you may follow him as a living man between Montiel and Toledo. The Cueva de Montesino, where he sojourned with Sancho Panza, the Posada de la Melodia, where he cut the necks of the wine-skins for Moors, the Venta de las Cardenas, where Dorothea and her lover were wounded, the scene of his penance in the mountain cleft, and Sierra Nueva, where he liberated the slaves.) Below, in the Campo de Montiel, beside the bare shores of a chain of lakes bordering the course of the river Guadiana, Don Enrique and Du Guesclin are watching in their tents. _How can they seize the king?_ This question is asked twenty times a day. No one answers; and, if they seize him, _what will they do with him?_ To this there is no answer either. There are no traitors in the castle of Montiel. Mem Rodrigues is with the king, along with the faithful Emanuel, and the governor, Garcia Morano, is a true man. Now it happens that Mem Rodrigues is very friendly with Du Guesclin, in that in-and-out fashion common between foes who drink out of the same wine cup to-day and run at each other’s throats to-morrow.