"These have belonged to the mother of the Conde, who resided here; where can the poor lady have fled--what may have become of her?" said Isidora as they wandered on, her voice and Quentin's sounding strange and hollow in the emptiness of the great villa. All the bed-chambers were untouched, save in some instances where a mirror or cheval glass was starred or smashed by a pistol-shot; and so, ere long, the visitors in their search found themselves in the chapel, a little gothic oratory of very florid architecture, which had evidently formed a portion of a much older edifice than the present villa; for there, on a pedestal tomb, having a row of carved weepers round it, and little niches and sockets for twelve votive lamps, lay side by side the effigies of two knights in chain-armour, with their cross-hilted swords and military girdles on, and their hands folded in prayer. Quentin drew near them with interest, for he remembered the quaint effigy of Sir Ranulph Crawford, Keeper of the Palace of Carrick, in the old kirk of Rohallion, and while Isidora knelt for a moment before the little altar, he read on a brass plate this inscription: "Aqui yazen el noble y valiente Conde, Don Fernando de Estremera, y su hijo, Don Antonio, Condes de Maciera y Estremera; fueron muertos en una batalla con los Infieles, en tiempo del Rey Don Alfonso de Castile, Leon, y Galicia. Requiescant in pace." "More than seven hundred years ago," thought Quentin. "Sir Ranulph's tomb is a thing of yesterday compared with this." He surveyed with emotions of pleasure and interest this little oratory, the sanctuary of which, with its half Moorish and arabesque-like carvings was a miracle of art and a mass of gilding. It must have been erected almost immediately after the expulsion of the Arabs from that part of Castile, and so those Counts of Maciera had lived and died before the days of the Cid himself, "The venging scourge of Moors and traitors, The mighty thunderbolt of war! Mirror bright of chivalry, Ruy, my Cid Campeador!" for he had been born when Canute the Dane swayed his sceptre over England, and when Malcolm of Scotland--Rex Victoriosissimus--was nailing the hides of the Norsemen on the doors of his parish churches. It was a remote period to look back to, and yet, in some of her national features, particularly in a proneness to bloodshed, Spain was pretty much the same as when the Cid shook his lance before the walls of Zamora. Light, many hued, crimson, blue, and green, streamed, with flakes of dusky yellow, through the chapel's deep-arched windows, shedding a warm glow on its carved pillars, ribbed arches, and lettered stones that marked the graves of the dead below, where the Condes de Maciera, "el noble--el magno," were mingling with the dust; but now their dwelling-place was desolate, and the heir of all their titles, a half-desperate outlaw and soldier, was serving as a guerilla in the band of Baltasar the Salamanquino.