She nodded, and, the obstruction in the road removed, they journeyed on, slowly but more or less surely, toward the distant castle.
"We will stop at old Pedro's inn to-night, for I am frantic to hear of my brother," she said as they advanced. Carlos was too deep in thought to speak again.
And up at that same inn the usual nightly round of mediæval revelry was going on. This ancient structure, indeterminate in age and style of architecture, was built upon uneven ground. To save expense and trouble, in the distant days of its inception, it had been built upon two levels, without the excavating for foundations. Time and the weather had warped and twisted the old wooden floors and beams so that by this date it had numerous levels. Yet the remaining furniture was of substantial oak, and here and there could be seen evidence of the expenditure, in days long past, of good Spanish gold.
Asleep, with his head on the square table by the fireplace, was Pedro, the old proprietor. Two villagers sat at another table in the side of the big room playing cards, with wordy arguments about their winnings and losses.
A young woman of perhaps twenty-three, dark-skinned, dark-eyed and dark-tressed, crossed the floor from an adjoining room, to answer a knock at the door.
From the room she had left came the sound of singing and mandolines.
"Hello, Vardos—any more news?" she asked of the peasant who entered the portal bearing a basket of food.
"Still no word or sign of the Prince," he said apologetically, avoiding her scornful look. "Here's yesterday's basket untouched as usual."
"And you left to-day's basket at the castle gate?" she asked sharply.
"Yes, this is the fifteenth night," he replied, looking back at the door.