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He shall not want English hands to help him in this extremity. Come then with me, until I gather more aid." So saying, he walked through the wood at a great pace, followed by the jester and the swineherd. It was not consistent with Wamba's humour to travel long in silence.
A single lamp hung slowly swinging in the arch of Wamba's Gate, and the streets were but ill lighted with an oil lantern at an occasional corner. Conyngham had been in Toledo before, and knew his way to the inn under the shadow of the great Alcazar, now burnt and ruined.
When his reign was concluded he left a record of wisdom and sagacity rare in those days, in any land. His taking off the stage was as remarkable as his coming on. According to a custom of the period Wamba's head was shaved, and he was clothed in the habit of a monk. The meaning of this was that if he died, he would, as was fitting, pass into the Divine presence in penitential garb.
Indeed, the infirmity of Wamba's brain consisted chiefly in a kind of impatient irritability, which suffered him not long to remain quiet in any posture, or adhere to any certain train of ideas, although he was for a few minutes alert enough in performing any immediate task, or in apprehending any immediate topic.
The moon was rising as the carriage rattled across the Bridge of Alcantara, and Larralde, taking the air between Wamba's Gate and the little fort that guards the entrance to the city, recognised the equipage as it passed him. He saw also the outline of Concha's figure in the darkest corner of the carriage, with his back to the horses, his head bowed in meditation.
The rapid Tagus girdling the city like a horseshoe left only the declivity to the west to be defended, and the ruins of King Wamba's wall show with what jealous care that work was done. But the Moors, after they captured the city, apparently did little for its defence.
"Ha!" said Front-de-Boeuf, "thou changest thy tone, Sir Priest, and speakest brief and bold, as if thy heart were in the slaughter of the Saxon herd; and yet thou art thyself of kindred to the swine?" Cedric was no ready practiser of the art of dissimulation, and would at this moment have been much the better of a hint from Wamba's more fertile brain.
My sermon is too long for the occasion too short for the text. I close a discourse not much wiser, perhaps, than poor Wamba's, with his "Pax vobiscum!" Flora and Guy met with perfect composure on both sides. She did not appear to think that she had any claim upon him arising from what had passed, but it was evident that he was still the favorite, and that all others were complete "outsiders."
Through the gate of one we were led into a garden of simple flowers belted with a world-old parapet, over which we could look at a stretch of the Gothic wall of King Wamba's time, before the miserable Roderick won and lost his kingdom. A pomegranate tree, red with fruit, overhung us, and from the borders of marigolds and zinnias and German clover the gray garden-wife gathered a nosegay for us.
A guard, which had been stationed in the outer, or anteroom, and whose spirits were already in a state of alarm, took fright at Wamba's clamour, and, leaving the door open behind them, ran to tell the Templar that foemen had entered the old hall.
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