Ere I reached the village that I now saw before me I had met two such bands, I wondered, and then wondered at my own wonder.
The chief house of the village was become an inn.

Two long tables stood in the patio where no fountain now flowed nor orange trees grew nor birds sang in corners nor fine awning kept away the glare.

Twenty of these wild and base fighting men crowded one table, eating and drinking, clamorous and spouting oaths.

At the other table sat together at an end three men whom by a number of tokens might be robbers of the mountains.
They sat quiet, indifferent to the noise, talking low among themselves in a tongue of their own, kin enough to the soldiery not to fear them.
The opposite end of the long table was given to a group to which I now joined myself.

Here sat two Franciscan friars, and a man who seemed a lawyer; and one who had the air of the sea and turned out to be master of a Levantine; and a brisk, talkative, important person, a Catalan, and as it presently appeared alcalde once of a so-so village; and a young, unhealthy-looking man in black with an open book beside him; and a strange fellow whose Spanish was imperfect.
I sat down near the friars, crossed myself, and cut a piece of bread from the loaf before me.