At sunrise
in would pour peasants from the vale below, bringing vegetables
and poultry, and mountaineers with quails and conies,
and others with divers affairs. Outgoing would be those
who tilled a few steep gardens beyond the wall, messengers
and errand folk, soldiers and traders for the army before
Granada.
It was full early when I came to the wall. I could make
out the heavy and tall archway of the gate, but as yet was
no throng before it. I waited; the folk began to gather, the
sun came up. Zarafa grew rosy. Now was clatter enough,
voices of men and brutes, both sides the gate. The gate
opened. Juan Lepe won out with a knot of brawny folk
going to the mountain pastures. Well forth, he looked back
and saw Zarafa gleaming rose and pearl in the blink of the
sun, and sent young merchantward a wish for good. Then
he took the eastward way down the mountain, toward lower
mountains and at last the Vega of Granada.
CHAPTER III
THE day passed. I had adventures of the road, but
none of consequence. I slept well among the rocks,
waked, ate the bit of bread I had with me, and fell
again to walking.
Mountains were now withdrawing to the distant horizon
where they stood around, a mighty and beautiful wall. I
was coming down into the plain of Granada, that once had
been a garden. Now, north, south, east, west, it lay war-
trampled.
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