"Have you any luggage that I can send for?"
"I have a kit-bag, which I will fetch myself in the morning. It is out on the plain. I did not care to bring it from the town until I knew that the vessel I came in had sailed."
"I can lend you some things for the night," Juan said. "You are a little taller than I am, but they will be near enough."
Some wine and biscuits were now brought in, and some excellent cigars produced.
"Were they thieves that attacked you, think you, Don Juan?" his host asked, after the latter had given a detailed account of his adventure.
"I cannot say, but I own I have an idea it was my life that they wanted rather than my valuables. I had a fancy that a man was following me, and I went to see the man I had spoken to about the mules. Coming back I heard a whistle behind me, and twenty yards farther three men sprang out, and one ran up from behind, so that I don't think it was a chance encounter."
"Do you suspect anyone?"
The young Mexican hesitated a moment before he answered. "No, señor; I have no quarrel with anyone."
"I do not see how, indeed, you could have an enemy," Don Guzman said, "seeing that you have been here only for a fortnight; still, it is curious. However, I have no doubt there are plenty of fellows in the town who would put a knife between any man's shoulders if they thought he was likely to have a few dollars in his pocket. Your watch-chain may have attracted the eye of one of these fellows, and he may have thought it, with the watch attached to it, well worth the trouble of getting, and would have considered it an easy matter, with three comrades, to make short work of you, though I own that when you showed fight so determinedly I wonder they did not make off, for, as a rule, these fellows are rank cowards."
Will Harland observed that when the don asked if Juan had any suspicions as to the author of the attempt, Donna Christina, who had returned to the room when his wounds were dressed, glanced towards him, as if anxious to hear his answer. Putting that and the young Mexican's momentary hesitation together, he at once suspected that both he and the girl had a strong idea as to who was at the bottom of this attempt. The subject was not further alluded to, the conversation turning upon the United States, concerning which the Mexican asked Harland many questions.