This has all the ingredients for an old-time derring do romance, but that sort of thing has to be supremely well done to carry its one time appeal today. This failed, dismally, for me --and I rather enjoy cloak and sword glamor now and again. Given a courageous, devil-may-care hero, poor but proud young Ramon, from his castle in the crags near the Moorish border -- and the lovely Leonor to whom his troth was plighted, but who doubted him too readily for my taste -- and old Don Pedro who was endorsed by Leonor's father as suitor for her hand -- and Zulema, Moorish princess who cared not what means she used to ensnare Ramon -- and what more can you ask. The details of the life and background and period seem authentic (though at times I felt that details were deliberately injected for instruction to the reader). And the story has plenty of pace and action, color and passion. It ought to jell, but it doesn't.