"Excuse me, but I have studied your methods."
"Well, then," I replied, "I had the strongest objection, but you have made me forget it—as you have forgotten your repugnance to visit Salamanca." For although Fuentes flitted up and down and across Spain like a will-o'-the-wisp, I had heard that he ever avoided the city where he had lived and studied.
His fine eyes clouded, and he muttered some Latin words as it were with a voice indrawn.
"I beg your pardon?" put in Wellington sharply.
"Cecidit, cecidit Salmantica illa fortis," Fuentes repeated.
"'Cecidit'—ah! I see—a quotation. Yes, they are knocking the place about: as many as fifteen or sixteen colleges razed to the ground." He opened the newspaper again and ran his eyes down the report. "You'll excuse me: in England we have our own way of pronouncing Latin, and for the moment I didn't quite catch——Yes, sixteen colleges; a clean sweep! But before long, Señor Fuentes, we'll return the compliment upon their fortifications."
"That must be my consolation, your Excellency," Fuentes made answer with a smile which scarcely hid its irony.
The General began to discuss our route: our precautions he left to us. He was well aware of the extreme risk we ran, and once again made allusion to it as he dismissed us.
"If that were all your Excellency demanded!"
Fuentes' gaiety returned as we found ourselves in the street. "We shall get on together like a pair of schoolboys," he assured me. "We understand each other, you and I. But oh, those islanders!"