V. I PLEDGE MY WORD, 100 VI. IDLE DAYS, 134 VII. A DAUGHTER OF HERODIAS, 155 VIII. HOW I SET THE SIGNAL, 174 IX. I COMMUNE WITH MYSELF, 202 X. OF MY DEPARTURE, 222 SIR QUIXOTE OF THE MOORS. CHAPTER I. ON THE HIGH MOORS. Before me stretched a black heath, over which the mist blew in gusts, and through whose midst the road crept like an adder. Great storm-marked hills flanked me on either side, and since I set out I had seen their harsh outline against a thick sky, until I longed for flat ground to rest my sight upon. The way was damp, and the soft mountain gravel sank under my horse's feet; and ever and anon my legs were splashed by the water from some pool which the rain had left. Shrill mountain birds flew around, and sent their cries through the cold air. Sometimes the fog would lift for a moment from the face of the land and show me a hilltop or the leaden glimmer of a loch, but nothing more--no green field or homestead; only a barren and accursed desert. Neither horse nor man was in any spirit. My back ached, and I shivered in my sodden garments, while my eyes were dim from gazing on flying clouds. The poor beast stumbled often, for he had traveled far on little fodder, and a hill-road was a new thing in his experience. Saladin I called him--for I had fancied that there was something Turkish about his black face, with the heavy turban-like band above his forehead--in my old fortunate days when I bought him. He was a fine horse of the Normandy breed, and had carried me on many a wild journey, though on none so forlorn as this. But to speak of myself. I am Jean de Rohaine, at your service; Sieur de Rohaine in the province of Touraine--a gentleman, I trust, though one in a sorry plight. And how I came to be in the wild highlands of the place called Galloway, in the bare kingdom of Scotland, I must haste to tell. In the old days, when I had lived as became my rank in my native land, I had met a Scot,--one Kennedy by name,--a great man in his own country, with whom I struck up an intimate friendship. He and I were as brothers, and he swore that if I came to visit him in his own home he would see to it that I should have the best. I thanked him at the time for his bidding, but thought little more of it.