"Ah," he said, "if the _Senorita_ could only see my mare La Perla! I got her three months ago from the stable of a black-blooded National whose house we burnt near Zaragoza. She has carried me ever since without a day's lameness. There is not the like of her in the regiment. Our mounts are for the most part mere _garrons_ of Cataluna or Aragonese ponies with legs like the pillars of a cellar, surmounted by barrels as round as the wine-tuns themselves." At this Concha looked still more pensive. Presently she heaved another sigh and tapped her slender shoe with a chance spray of heath. "Oh, I wish----" she began, and then stopped hastily as if ashamed. "If it be anything that I can do for you," cried the young man, enthusiastically, "you shall not have to wish it long!" As he spoke he forsook the stone on which he had been sitting for another nearer to the pretty cross-tied shoes of Andalucian pattern that showed beneath the skirts of Concha's _basquina_. "Ah, how I love horses!" murmured Concha; "doubtless, too, yours is of my country--of the beautiful sunny Andalucia which I may never see again!" "The mare is indeed believed by all who have knowledge to have Andalucian blood in her veins," answered the Alavan. Concha rose to her feet impulsively. "Then," she said, "I must see her. Also I am devoured with eagerness to see you ride." She permitted her eyes to take in the trim figure of the Vitorian, who had also risen to his feet. "Do go and bring her," she murmured; "I will take care of your musket. You need not be a moment, and--I will wait for you!" A little spark kindles a great fire in a Spanish heart, and the young man, counting the cost, rapidly decided that the risk was worth running. The horses of the Estella regiment were picketed in a little hollow a few hundred yards behind the main camp. It was his duty to watch these two strangers, of whom one had already gone back to the camp, while as to the other--well, Adrian Zumaya of the province of Alava felt at that moment that he could cheerfully devote the rest of his life to watching that other. In a moment more he had laid down his musket at Concha's feet, and set off as fast as he could in the direction of the horses, keeping well out of sight in the trough of a long roller of foot-hill until he was close to the cavalry lines, and could smell the honest stable-smell which in the open air mingled curiously with those of aromatic thyme and resinous juniper. In five minutes he was back, riding his best and sitting like a Centaur. Concha's eyes glistened with pleasure, and she ran impulsively forward to pat the cream-coloured mare, a clean-built, well-gathered, workmanlike steed.