Some hardy coral fishers were despatched to wait for me at a point on
the coast; and when Ferdinand urged the French to secure my person, I
was already in my barony of Macumer, amidst brigands who defy all law
and all avengers.

The last Hispano-Moorish family of Granada has found once more the
shelter of an African desert, and even a Saracen horse, in an estate
which comes to it from Saracens. How the eyes of these brigands--who
but yesterday had dreaded my authority--sparkled with savage joy and
pride when they found they were protecting against the King of Spain's
vendetta the Duc de Soria, their master and a Henarez--the first who
had come to visit them since the time when the island belonged to the
Moors. More than a score of rifles were ready to point at Ferdinand of
Bourbon, son of a race which was still unknown when the Abencerrages
arrived as conquerors on the banks of the Loire.

My idea had been to live on the income of these huge estates, which,
unfortunately, we have so greatly neglected; but my stay there
convinced me that this was impossible, and that Queverdo's reports
were only too correct. The poor man had twenty-two lives at my
disposal, and not a single _real_; prairies of twenty thousand acres,
and not a house; virgin forests, and not a stick of furniture! A
million piastres and a resident master for half a century would be
necessary to make these magnificent lands pay. I must see to this.

The conquered have time during their flight to ponder their own case
and that of their vanquished party. At the spectacle of my noble
country, a corpse for monks to prey on, my eyes filled with tears; I
read in it the presage of Spain's gloomy future.