The Spanish Cavalier: A Story of Seville

by A. L. O. E.

The conversation reverted to politics. Some of the sentiments of the speaker were expressed in language so enigmatical as to be almost unintelligible to a stranger. Lucius noticed that one of the men sharpened his huge knife against the sole of his boot; and that he who looked like a brigand examined the priming of his pistol.

After about an hour had been spent in smoking and talking, one after another the Spaniards rose from their seats; each wrapped himself in his mantero, and without further toilet stretched himself to rest on the floor. Lucius then asked the landlord to show him his room.

The Spaniard lighted a torch, and with slow deliberate steps led the way up a rude staircase, which might more properly be termed a ladder. When he had reached the top, he ushered his guest into an attic-room, sufficiently spacious, but so low that the head of the Englishman almost touched the smoke-blackened rafters, for ceiling there was none.

The landlord stuck the torch into an iron ring which projected from the wall, but ere he did so, held it near to Lucius, so that the light might flash on the Englishman's face.

"I take it you're the Inglesito who brought the Book to the house of Don Alcala," said he.

"How know you that an Englishman ever visited that house?" asked the young man quickly. He half repented that he had put the question, such an expression of dark suspicion and threatening insolence passed across the visage of the Spaniard. That look was the landlord's only reply; as soon as he had fitted the torch into the iron ring, he left the chamber without even the common courtesy of bidding his guest "good-night."

Lucius examined his lodging-place carefully as soon as he found himself alone. There was scarcely an article of furniture within the room, save a three-legged stool and a bed. The latter was so disgustingly filthy, that for a resting-place Lucius would have preferred even the unswept, dirt-stained floor. There was no ornament in the apartment, unless a little plaster image of some saint in a niche could be called by that name. Almost all the panes in the window had been broken away, and the night-breeze, finding free passage, made the torch flicker and flare. This dreary guest-chamber in the lonely posada was just one which imagination might picture as the scene of a midnight murder.

Lucius was on his guard; he had no intention of sleeping that night; he made no attempt to undress; ablutions were out of the question, for the room contained neither basin nor water. The young man looked to the priming of his pistol, then seated himself near the window, and gave himself up to reflection.

"I am as certain as I am of my own existence that yon landlord knows of the robbery committed by Chico, and that he is the villain's accomplice. The thief is probably at this moment concealed in the house, for he is scarcely likely, encumbered with his booty, to have travelled far from Seville by daylight. That Chico should willingly stay to appeal at the trial of his deeply-wronged master I cannot for a moment believe. The robber's one object will be to get clear off with the jewels and plate, for it would be ruin to him were it to be known that such treasure is in his possession. But how could I—even should I succeed in discovering the lurking-place of this Chico—rescue that treasure from his grasp, and restore it to its rightful owner? I am not in England, where I should have the power of the law to back me. Unless report do them injustice, some of the alguazils are as much robbers as are the brigands whom they affect to pursue; nay, the very magistrates themselves, it is said, can scarcely be trusted. A foreigner like myself, destitute of interest or money, would have as much chance of wrenching the property of Aguilera out of the clutch of thieves, licensed or unlicensed, as of moving the rock of Gibraltar. I am far more likely to get myself into trouble, than Aguilera out of it, by any appeal to Spanish justice. It seems probable enough that I shall never have the opportunity even of making such appeal; I do not now hold the safest of positions, if I have read the look of that landlord aright. I may have unwelcome visitors to-night, and may as well look to the fastenings of the door."

Lucius rose from his seat and went up to the door; there was neither bolt nor bar on its inner side, nothing but a rusty latch; the occupant of the room had no means whatever of shutting out an intruder. This confirmed the suspicions of Lucius: he lifted the latch, and tried to pull open the door, but it resisted all his attempts. The door had been locked on the outside, and the young Englishman started to find himself indeed a prisoner in his attic. To add to his alarm, at the same moment the flame of the torch suddenly went out, and the room was left in total darkness, save for a faint white light through the window which told that the moon was rising.