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Beholding several other robbers on foot coming up, Pelayo returned to his station between the rocks, where he was assailed by them all at once. He received two of their darts on his buckler, a javelin razed his cuirass, and glancing down, wounded his horse. Pelayo then rushed forth, and struck one of the robbers dead: the others, beholding several huntsmen advancing, took to flight, but were pursued, and several of them taken.

The good merchant of Bordeaux and his family beheld this scene with trembling and amazement, for never had they looked upon such feats of arms. They considered Don Pelayo as a leader of some rival band of robbers; and when the bonds were loosed by which they were tied to the trees, they fell at his feet and implored mercy. The females were soonest undeceived, especially the daughter; for the damsel was struck with the noble countenance and gentle demeanor of Pelayo, and said to herself: “Surely nothing evil can dwell in so goodly and gracious a form.”

Pelayo now sounded his horn, which echoed from rock to rock, and was answered by shouts and horns from various parts of the mountains. The merchant’s heart misgave him at these signals, and especially when he beheld more than forty men gathering from glen and thicket. They were clad in hunters’ dresses, and armed with boar-spears, darts, and hunting-swords, and many of them led hounds in long leashes. All this was a new and wild scene to the astonished merchant; nor were his fears abated, when he saw his servant approaching with the hackney, laden with money-bags; “for of a certainty,” said he to himself, “this will be too tempting a spoil for these wild hunters of the mountains.”

Pelayo, however, took no more notice of the gold than if it had been so much dross; at which the honest burgher marvelled exceedingly. He ordered that the wounds of the merchant should be dressed, and his own examined. On taking off his cuirass, his wound was found to be but slight; but his men were so exasperated at seeing his blood, that they would have put the captive robbers to instant death, had he not forbidden them to do them any harm.

The huntsmen now made a great fire at the foot of a tree, and bringing a boar which they had killed, cut off portions and roasted them, or broiled them on the coals. Then drawing forth loaves of bread from their wallets, they devoured their food half raw, with the hungry relish of huntsmen and mountaineers. The merchant, his wife, and daughter, looked at all this, and wondered, for they had never beheld so savage a repast.

Pelayo then inquired of them if they did not desire to eat; they were too much in awe of him to decline, though they felt a loathing at the thought of partaking of this hunter’s fare; but he ordered a linen cloth to be spread under the shade of a great oak, on the grassy margin of a clear running stream; and to their astonishment, they were served, not with the flesh of the boar, but with dainty cheer, such as the merchant had scarcely hoped to find out of the walls of his native city of Bordeaux.

The good burgher was of a community renowned for gastronomic prowess: his fears having subsided, his appetite was now awakened, and he addressed himself manfully to the viands that were set before him. His daughter, however, could not eat: her eyes were ever and anon stealing to gaze on Pelayo, whom she regarded with gratitude for his protection, and admiration for his valor; and now that he had laid aside his helmet, and she beheld his lofty countenance, glowing with manly beauty, she thought him something more than mortal. The heart of the gentle donzella, says the ancient chronicler, was kind and yielding; and had Pelayo thought fit to ask the greatest boon that love and beauty could bestow–doubtless meaning her fair hand–she could not have had the cruelty to say him nay. Pelayo, however, had no such thoughts: the love of woman had never yet entered his heart; and though he regarded the damsel as the fairest maiden he had ever beheld, her beauty caused no perturbation in his breast.