from him--"

"My dear Ramos," exclaimed Don Inocencio, "yours is an enviable
position. To distinguish yourself, to raise yourself above the base
multitude, to put yourself on an equality with the greatest heroes of
the earth, to be able to say that the hand of God guides your hand--oh,
what grandeur and honor! My friend, this is not flattery. What dignity,
what nobleness, what magnanimity! No; men of such a temper cannot die.
The Lord goes with them, and the bullet and the steel of the enemy are
arrested in their course; they do not dare--how should they dare--to
touch them, coming from the musket and the hand of heretics? Dear
Caballuco, seeing you, seeing your bravery and your nobility, there come
to my mind involuntarily the verses of that ballad on the conquest of
the Empire of Trebizond:

"'Came the valiant Roland
Armed at every point,
On his war-horse mounted,
The gallant Briador;
His good sword Durlindana
Girded to his side,
Couched for the attack his lance,
On his arm his buckler stout,
Through his helmet's visor
Flashing fire he came;
Quivering like a slender reed
Shaken by the wind his lance,
And all the host united
Defying haughtily.'"