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Her reputation for goodness was unchanged by the lapse of time, her goodness stands approved to-day, and two dramatists, Tirso de Molina and Roca de Togores, have depicted her as a heroine in their plays. Under the reign of Alfonso XI., Castile was rent by two factions, one in support of the king's wife, Maria of Portugal, and the other friendly to his beautiful mistress, Leonora de Guzman.
On the morning following the council of war, he and his swarthy friend, Captain Guzman, hoisted sail on their little catboat, at the wharf of the capital, and catching the favoring breeze, curved out into the stream, which was half a mile wide, and began their voyage against a moderate current. Old campaigners like them needed little luggage.
He neither tired of trudging on foot, nor cared for cold or heat. For him all seasons of the year were genial spring. His sleep was as sound on a heap of straw as on soft mattresses, and he made himself as snug in a hayloft as between two Holland sheets. In short, he made such way in the profession he had chosen, that he could have given lessons to the famous Guzman de Alfarache.
For when the lord high admiral determined to return, Amyas asked leave to follow the Spaniard; and asked, too, of Sir John Hawkins, who happened to be at hand, such ammunition and provision as could be afforded him, promising to repay the same like an honest man, out of his plunder if he lived, out of his estate if he died; lodging for that purpose bills in the hands of Sir John, who, as a man of business, took them, and put them in his pocket among the thimbles, string, and tobacco; after which Amyas, calling his men together, reminded them once more of the story of the Rose of Torridge and Don Guzman de Soto, and then asked: "Men of Bideford, will you follow me?
It was the same Guzman Bento who, becoming later Perpetual President, famed for his ruthless and cruel tyranny, readied his apotheosis in the popular legend of a sanguinary land-haunting spectre whose body had been carried off by the devil in person from the brick mausoleum in the nave of the Church of Assumption in Sta. Marta.
Leger vowed that as the bridge had given him a good dinner, he would give the bridge one; offered a bet of five pounds that he would find them, out of the pool below Annery, as firm and flaky a salmon as the Appledore one which they had just eaten; and then, in the fulness of his heart, invited the whole company present to dine with him at Annery three days after, and bring with them each a wife or daughter; and Don Guzman being at table, he was invited too.
At first Alfonso x., the Wise, king of Castile and Leon, was much displeased at this extension of Portuguese power, but on Dom Affonso agreeing to marry his daughter Beatriz de Guzman, the Spanish king allowed his son-in-law to retain his conquests and to assume the title of King of the Algarve, a title which his descendants still bear.
The alcalde an old, skinny Moreno, a sergeant of Guzman Bento's time had cleared respectfully out of his house with his three pretty daughters, to make room for the foreign senora and their worships the Caballeros. It had been promised to him, he affirmed, straightening his bent back martially, "many years ago, for my valour in the wars with the wild Indios when a young man, senor."
Mexia was afraid to close with Guzman, knowing him to have great bodily strength, but kept him in play by his superior agility, leaping and skipping about, yet never coming near enough to wound him.
The sons of Ricardo Guzman stepped forward promptly, and Law waved them toward the boat landing, where the two helpers were waiting with Ricardo's remains. Despite the Ranger captain's easy assumption of command, the strain of the situation had not subsided, and Longorio drew swift attention to himself when he said: "It is fortunate that I chanced to learn of this matter.
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