"And what of all that?" asked Juan rather contemptuously. "I see nothing to regret, save that you did not give the insolent lad what he deserved, a sound beating."
"But, Señor Don Juan, you don't understand," gasped the poor friar. "I must fly immediately. If I stay here over to-night I shall find myself before the morning--there." And with a significant gesture he pointed to the grim fortress that loomed above them.
"Nonsense. They cannot suspect a man of heresy, even de levi,[#] for boxing the ear of an impudent serving-lad."
[#] Lightly.
"Ay, and can they not, your worship? Do you not know that the gardener of the Triana has lain for many a weary month in one of those dismal cells; and all for the grave offence of snatching a reed out of the hand of one of my lord's lackeys so roughly as to make it bleed?"[#]
[#] A fact.
"Truly! Now are things come to a strange pass in our free and royal land of Spain! A beggarly upstart, such as this Munebrãga, who could not, to save himself from the rack, tell you the name of his own great-grandfather, drags the sons and brothers--ay, and God help us! the wives and daughters--of our knights and nobles to the dungeon and the stake before our eyes. And it is not enough for him to set his own heel on our necks. His minions--his very grooms and pages--must lord it over us, and woe to him who dares to chastise their insolence. Nathless, I would feel it a comfort to make every bone in that urchin's body ache soundly. I have a mind--but this is folly. I believe you are right, Fray. You should go."
"Moreover," said the friar mournfully, "I am doing no good here."
"No one can do good now," returned Juan, in a tone of deep dejection. "And to-day the last blow has fallen. The poor woman who showed him kindness, and sometimes told us how he fared, is herself a prisoner."
"What! she has been discovered?"