"Traveling is my passion," said Lady Mabel. "From childhood I have longed to see foreign lands, and to find myself surrounded by outlandish people. I suppose it is owing to my having been kept close at home, yet encouraged to follow the footsteps of travelers over page after page of their rambles. My journey hither, through the wilderness of Alemtejo, has but whetted my appetite. And there is something peculiarly fascinating in the idea of traveling in Spain, the land of adventure and romance." "Just now is no good time for such a journey," said L'Isle; "there are too many French and other robbers besetting the roads." "There would be too little of romance and too much of adventure in meeting with them," said she. "It is most provoking to be thus tantalized; the cup at my lips, and I cannot taste of it; Spain in sight, and I cannot explore it. I am eager to visit the Alhambra and Escurial, and other show-places, and take a long ramble in the Sierra Morena. I would wish to engage the most skillful _arriero_ in all Spain, and, mounted on his best mule, roam all over the country, through every mountain-pass, and across every desolate plain, and make a pilgrimage to every spot hallowed by poetic or historic fame. I would search out, as a shrine of chivalry, each field on which the Cid displayed the gleaming blade of _Tizona_, and on which the hoofs of his _Babieca_ trampled on the Moor. I wonder if my guide could not show me, too, the foundation-stones of the manor-house of the good knight of La Mancha, the site at least of the bower of Dulcinea del Toboso, and Gil Blas' robbers' cave?" "Just at this time," said L'Isle, "the cave of Captain Rolando and his comrades, being in the north of Leon, is particularly inaccessible, for there are some ninety thousand similar gentry wintering between us and it." "Those fellows have been very quiet of late, and it will probably be some time before they are stirring again," said Lord Strathern.