Still through a land of pine and heather with beautiful little valleys full of vines, figs, and olives, we drove for two hours more, and, just as the black shadows began to lengthen, we drove into the town of Leiria, the Calippo of the Romans, and for long the stronghold whence the Moors harried the advancing Christians to the north. It is a lovely place on the banks of the Liz, set in the midst of pine-clad hills, and the centre of a great agricultural district. Here, again, the two abrupt eminences that loom over the town are crowned respectively by the enormous mediæval stronghold and the religious house that for ever seems to keep it company—the sword and the cross, twin instruments of soldier and priest, to keep the people in subjection, both alike happily now superseded, in Portugal at least, by more enlightened means.
[Illustration: IN THE MAIN STREET OF OUREM.]
I started soon after my arrival at the inn, where there was no particular temptation to remain, to scale the hill from which the castle frowned down upon the town. The townspeople seemed to care nothing for the vast ruin that to me was the one attraction of the place. No one cared to guide me up the steep. It was easy, they said, to find the way by following the path, and the castle ruins were open to all. So I started alone, and wound round the lower ascent, finding myself at last on the side of the hill farthest from the town, and at a point from which the castle was apparently quite inaccessible, as the ascent was almost a sheer precipice. A couple of women and some children were in a field by the wayside, and from them I learnt that I should have taken another path, and have ascended on the opposite face of the hill. It was annoying, for the day was already declining, and I had other things to do on the morrow. Just then an officious urchin of twelve volunteered to show me a way he knew of by the side I was on, and rather than lose my opportunity I followed him across a ploughed field to the foot of the steep.
A rocky path aslant the hill amidst the undergrowth seemed to offer no great difficulty at first, and I began the climb. The path, if it can so be called, was continued by other slanting ascents more difficult than the first, but still intent only upon each next step, I scrambled on by the aid of tufts of esparto grass, until I became aware that the track had ended altogether, and that the farther ascent was apparently impossible. Not until then had I looked down, but when I did so I understood in a moment the peril in which I was. I stood at a height of some five hundred feet above the level, and descent by the way I had come was absolutely impossible. For the last hundred feet I had only scrambled up by the aid of occasional stones that afforded a momentary lodgment for the toe and by clutching tufts of grass, but these would not help me to descend. The pine-needles that lay thick underfoot made the slope as slippery as ice, and I knew that if I attempted to retrace my steps I should certainly be dashed to pieces. The poor women below knew it too; for one was wringing her hands in horror, and had thrown her apron over her face to hide from her the coming catastrophe, whilst the other was loudly bewailing, whilst she belaboured the head of the urchin who had been the cause of the trouble. For one moment panic seized me, but it was succeeded immediately by a cool wave of critical, speculative interest, as if another person’s life and not mine were at stake, as to the sporting chance of my ever being able to negotiate the hundred feet of sheer precipice that lay between me and the top. Each step achieved was a triumph, and my whole soul was concentrated upon the chances of the next being successful. Of course, the ascent had to be made by long zigzags on the face of the precipice, and again and again, as a stone slipped from beneath my foot or a frond of bracken yielded to my grasp, I gave myself up for lost. But I never glanced below, and the jagged and frowning battlements above me gradually drew nearer and nearer, until at last, I know not how, I stood beneath them, panting but safe, and then, looking from the giddy height to the field below, I saw quite a large group of peasants now, waving their black nightcaps, and shouting in token of rejoicing at my safety.