The party here assembled consisted of five persons: the first of whom was the page already described under the name of Leonard de Monte, and who, now stretched upon the ground, seemed making a light repast, while the dwarf Bartholo, standing beside him, filled a small horn cup with wine from a gourd he carried, and presented it to the young Italian with a low inclination of the head. The other three personages who made up the group were evidently servants. The colours of their dress, however, were very different from those of the Marquis of St. Real, and they were also armed up to the teeth, though their garb bespoke them the followers of some private individual, and not soldiers belonging to any of the parties which then divided the land. Besides the human denizens of the scene, five horses were browsing the forest grass at a little distance. Three of these were equipped with saddles; while two still bore about them the rough harness, if harness it could be called, by means of which they had been attached to a small vehicle, somewhat between a carriage and a car, which, with its leathern curtains and its wicker frame, might be seen peeping out from amongst the bushes hard by. While the page concluded his repast, two of the servants--the other seemed the driver of the carriage--stood behind him with their arms folded on their bosoms, but still in an attitude so common in those times of trouble as to have found its way into most of the pictures which have come down from that epoch to the present. The same movement which crossed the right and left arms over the chest had easily brought the hilt of the sword, and the part of the broad belt in which it hung, up from the haunch to the breast, where the weapon was supported by the pressure of the left arm and the right hand, and was ever ready for service at a moment's notice. The youth, however, who was the principal person of the party, and the dwarf, who seemed to ape his demeanour, wore their swords differently, following the extravagant court fashion of the day, and throwing the weapon which, in those times, might be needed at every instant, so far behind them, that the hilt was concealed by the short cloak then worn, and would have been out of the reach of any but a very dexterous hand. When the page had concluded his repast, he wiped his dagger on the grass, and returned it to the sheath; and then, making the dwarf mingle some water from the stream with the wine he offered, he asked, ere he drank, "Are you sure, Bartholo, right sure, that we have passed them?" "Certain! quite certain!" answered the dwarf; "unless, noble----" "Hush!" cried the youth, holding up his hand impetuously; "have I not told thee to forget, even when we are alone, that I am any other than Leonard the page. Some day thou wilt betray me; and, by my troth, thou shalt repent it if thou dost. Go on! go on! What wert thou saying?"