Romances of Alexandre Dumas (Volume 4); D'Artagnan Ed (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: m. DON INIGO VELASCO DE HARO. Feom the position she occupied, at the bottom of one of the hollows we have described, the lovely maiden with the goat was unable to see the young horseman enter the inn or leave it; but she seemed to listen attentively for any sound that might indicate what was taking place there, and several times she raised her beautiful eyes questioningly, as if astonished that the passage of the rich and well-favored youth was followed by no extraordinary occurrence. The fact was that, not having left her place, and not having heard the dialogue between the traveller and the innkeeper, she naturally knew nothing of the wholly selfish considerations on the part of the frequenters of the inn to which the fair Dofia Flor's love courier was indebted for his escape, safe and sound, from their hands. Meanwhile, and just as Don Ramiro d'Avila, having taken all necessary steps to make sure that the inn of the Moorish King should be worthy to receive Don Inigo Velasco and his daughter, galloped out of the courtyard and rode on toward Granada, the vanguard of the caravan heralded by the gallant quartermaster began to become visible to the gypsy's eyes. The caravan in question was divided into three distinct parts. The first ?which served as a vanguard and, as we have said, was just coming in sight on the western slope of the little mountain ? consisted of a single man, belonging to the domestic household of Don Inigo de Velasco; but, like the campieri in Sicily, who are servants in times of peace and become soldiers in the hour of peril, this man was dressed in a half-military, half-livery costume, carried a long shield at his side, and held straight in the air, like a lance, with the butt resting on his knee, an arquebus whose lighted match left no quest...