"Then you think that he will return soon?"
"As he told me not of his intention of going out at all, I cannot say. He is away, sometimes, for hours in the forest."
"Well, in any case, we shall watch here until his return. It may be that he is some idle fellow, who prefers killing snakes to honest work; but it may also be that he is the escaped prisoner of whom we are in search."
"I hear little of what passes in the town," the priest said, quietly. "News would disturb my meditations, and I never question those who come here to ask for my prayers. I have heard of the escape of no prisoner."
"It was a young English officer who got away. There has been a great stir about it. Every house in the town has been searched, and every guard boat on the river has been warned to allow no boat to pass, without assuring themselves that he is not on board."
"This was a brown man, like ourselves, clad only in a petticoat of rough cloth, like other peasants."
"He may have dyed his skin," the officer said. "At any rate, we will stay until he returns, and question him. Two of my men shall take their places just inside the entrance, and seize him as he enters. Has he arms?"
"None, save his knife and the stick with which he kills the snakes. It may be that he has seen you coming hither and, if he has committed any crime, he would flee, and not return here at all."
"If he does not come back before it is the hour when I must return to the town, I shall leave four men to watch for him; and they will wait here, if it is for a week, until he comes back again."
"You can do as you please," the priest said, "only I pray you withdraw your men from the neighbourhood of this cell. I would not that my meditations were disturbed by their talk. I have come hither for peace and quietness, and to be apart from the world and its distractions."