Before them lay a high open plain, on which a large flock of
sheep, dusky, and many of them black in hue, were feeding, and filling
the air with their bleatings. On the right, beyond the plain, there
was a grove of the _Quercus Ilex_, rugged, stunted, thirsty-looking
trees, yet whose evergreen boughs gave promise of at least a partial
shade. The _arriero_ led the party toward it, but just as they
approached the wood, several large and savage dogs flew out, and
charged them with a ferocity that might have cost a solitary traveler
his life. They were busy repelling this assault, when five or six men
showed themselves from behind a thicket. Dark, sunburnt, smoke-dried
fellows they were, with shaggy hair, and rudely clad, each man having
a sheep-skin thrown over his shoulders, and most of them grasping
long, rusty guns in their hands.
Mrs. Shortridge called out "robbers!" and entreated L'Isle to fire
upon them. The commissary, too, but more coolly, pronounced them to be
robbers, "when they find an opportunity to follow that calling; but,
just now, they are watching their flocks."
"Shepherds! those ruffians, shepherds!" exclaimed Lady Mabel; "O!
shades of Theocritus and Virgil, what a satire upon pastoral poetry!"
Shepherds, however, they were, who called off their dogs, after
reconnoitring the party.
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