At dawn Quijada and Jeromín set out, with no more than the necessary huntsmen and hounds. Jeromín was riding a black horse, and wore over his peasant's dress a loose coat of green "monte." They hunted until ten o'clock, having very good sport, and at that hour the huntsman announced that the hounds were on the scent of a stag heading towards Espina. Quijada and Jeromín followed penetrating into the country, which became more and more solitary, until the hounds suddenly stopped breathless and, questing about as if they had lost the scent, then started off on a cross scent on the opposite side. At the same time, from that direction came the sound of horns and a great noise of calling and shouting, and like an arrow a noble stag was seen passing between the ilex trees, another excited pack of hounds, and a lot of hunters who were following. Luis Quijada sat still on his horse, and said to Jeromín, who was attentively looking at the disappearing hunters, "Those are the King's huntsmen. Let us leave them the mountain." So they then changed their course towards an open space which had been made by the felling of some oaks, and to the right they saw the forester's tower, and to the left the walls of the convent, and between the two edifices a spinney of about a hundred oak trees, which had been left to afford shade for the animals called "_atalayas_." From these trees came two gentlemen, riding slowly as if they were waiting for something, or were talking quietly. Jeromín saw them first, and called Quijada's attention to them while they continued riding towards them as if he intended to meet them. Suddenly Jeromín stopped short; he had recognised in one of the riders the man with a hooked nose and long beard whom he had seen in the garden of the Descalzos in Valladolid five years before. Quijada also stopped, and turning in the saddle towards Jeromín, who remained behind him, said with a certain emotion foreign to the calm man, "Come up, Jeromín, and do not let this dismay you. The great lord whom you see is the King; the other the Duque de Alba. Do not be frightened, I say, because he wishes you well and intends to confer favours on you." The two riders had come up, followed at a long distance by two others who appeared to be huntsmen belonging to the convent. Jeromín had no time to answer; but he recognised in the King the fair, pale young man with the beard cut in the Flemish fashion whom he had seen cross the square of Valladolid, among the shouts of the people, when he looked from the rose window of the sacristy of the Descalzos. The five years that had since passed had, without ageing him, given gravity to his face and repose to his manners. D. Philip was at this time thirty-two.