"You had best call Juan," said his brother easily, "and bid him stable the mule. For the remainder of the night we are your guests; and, to ensure our sleeping well, you shall fetch out the choicest of the theses you have composed for your doctorate and read us a portion over our wine."
We lay that night, after a repast of thin wine and chestnuts, in a spare chamber, and on beds across the feet of which the rats scudded. I did not see Don Andrea again: but his brother, who had risen betimes, awakened me from uneasy slumber and showed me his spoil. Sure enough it included a pair of spectacles and a bulky roll of manuscript, a leathern jerkin, a white shirt, and a pair of velvet-fustian breeches, tawny yellow in hue and something the worse for wear. Below-stairs, in the courtyard, we found a white-haired retainer waiting, with his grip on the bridles of my mule and a raw-boned grey mare.
"The caballero will bring them back when he has done with them?" said this old man as I mounted. The request puzzled me for a moment until I met his eyes and found them fastened wistfully on my breeches.
Assuredly Fuentes was an artist. Besides the spectacles, which in themselves transformed him, he had borrowed a broad-brimmed hat and a rusty black sleeveless mancha, which, by the way he contrived it to hang, gave his frame an extraordinary lankiness. But his final and really triumphant touch was simply a lengthening of the stirrups, so that his legs dangled beneath the mare's belly like a couple of ropes with shoes attached. If Don Andrea watched us out of sight from his tower—as I doubt not he did—his emotions as he recognised his portrait must have been lively.
In this guise we ambled steadily all day along the old Roman road leading to Salamanca, and came within sight of the city as the sun was sinking. It stood on the eastern bank of the river, fronting the level rays, its walls rising tier upon tier, its towers and cupolas of cream-coloured stone bathed in gold, with recesses of shadowy purple. A bridge of twenty-five or six arches spanned the cool river-beds, and towards this we descended between cornfields, of which the light swept the topmost ears while the stalks stood already in twilight. Truly it was a noble city yet, and so I cried aloud to Fuentes. But his eyes, I believe, saw only what the French had marred or demolished.
A group of their soldiery idled by the bridge-end, waiting for the guard to be relieved, and lolled against the parapet watching the bathers, whose shouts came up to me from the chasm below. But instead of riding up and presenting our passes, Fuentes, a furlong from the bridge, turned his mare's head to the left and reined up at the door of a small riverside tavern.
The innkeeper—a brisk, athletic man, with the air of a retired servant—appeared at the door as we dismounted. He scanned Fuentes narrowly, while giving him affable welcome. Plainly he recognised him as an old patron, yet plainly the recognition was imperfect.
"Eh, my good Bartolomé, and so you still cling above the river? I hope custom clings here too?"
"But—but can it be the Señor Don——"