at that time in Spain, although his strength was failing, he gave
to his eldest son his Castilian sword. He lay back then in the
huge, carved, canopied bed; his eyes closed, the red silk curtains
rustled, and there was no sound of his breathing. But the old
lord's spirit, whatever journey it purposed, lingered yet in its
ancient habitation, and his voice came again, but feebly now and
rambling; he muttered awhile of gardens, such gardens no doubt as
the hidalgos guarded in that fertile region of sunshine in the
proudest period of Spain; he would have known no others. So for
awhile his memory seemed to stray, half blind among those perfumed
earthly wonders; perhaps among these memories his spirit halted,
and tarried those last few moments, mistaking those Spanish
gardens, remembered by moonlight in Spring, for the other end of
his journey, the glades of Paradise. However it be, it tarried.
These rambling memories ceased and silence fell again, with
scarcely the sound of breathing. Then gathering up his strength
for the last time and looking at his son, "The sword to the wars,"
he said. "The mandolin to the balconies." With that he fell back
dead.

Now there were no wars at that time so far as was known in Spain,
but that old lord's eldest son, regarding those last words of his
father as a commandment, determined then and there in that dim,
vast chamber to gird his legacy to him and seek for the wars,
wherever the wars might be, so soon as the obsequies of the
sepulture were ended. And of those obsequies I tell not here, for
they are fully told in the Black Books of Spain, and the deeds of
that old lord's youth are told in the Golden Stories. The Book of
Maidens mentions him, and again we read of him in Gardens of
Spain. I take my leave of him, happy, I trust, in Paradise, for he