"Well, of course anyone at Madrid watching me might have found out the day on which we were going to start, and might have sent a message to Don Silvio in time to enable him to ride here before we came along. He may, of course, have brought three or four men with him; he is more likely to have done that than to have trusted to recruiting some fellows here. It is just as well--if it is the man--that you should have recognized him, Roper, for at any rate we shall not be taken by surprise."
"Perhaps, sir, it would be as well to stop a few days here, or to change our route; there are two or three roads by which we might get to Saragossa. They would certainly be farther than the direct one; but it would make little difference whether we arrived there two or three days earlier or later."
"That is true enough, Roper; but if he is watching us here, he could follow us by one road as well as another. We have our pistols and swords, and I should say that we could render a pretty good account of four or five of them."
"I have no doubt we could, captain; still, I would rather not fight against long odds if I could avoid it. You see, sir, since I got that fifteen hundred pounds banked to my credit in England I feel more careful about my life than before. It did not much matter then whether I went down or not; now it seems to me that my life has a distinct value, and I don't want to throw it away."
"Well, I can say the same, Roper. Of course I always knew I was coming into an estate some day, but I don't know that I thought much about it. Now my life is of great value because it is of value to Donna Mercedes. I don't say anything about the money I have acquired, but certainly for her sake I do hold to life pretty strongly; at the same time I cannot turn back from my duty for an unknown danger and merely because you think you have recognized Don Silvio. I have proved that I am a far better swordsman than he. Since my duel with him I have practised a good deal with my pistols, and can, I think, account with them for two or three assailants. You have practised as well, and I fancy that you ought to be able to settle with two of them in your four shots. Let us suppose that Don Silvio has six fellows with him--I should hardly say that he would bring more. Well, if we can each dispose of two, that only leaves us with three, counting Don Silvio himself, to manage."
"Well, captain, that is all right; but if these six men are lying in ambush and fire together, they may upset our calculations altogether."
"That is certainly so, Roper. But unless we are going to turn tail and ride back to Madrid on the strength of your belief that you saw Don Silvio, I do not see how that is to be helped. Mind, it is I and not you whom Don Silvio wants to kill. I have got my shirt of mail, and I do not think that a pistol bullet would go through it; so that if they direct their fire at me, unless I am shot through the head I reckon that I shall still be in fighting order after their first discharge. At any rate, Roper, I do not mean to turn back."
"Well, if you go on, of course I go on, sir," Roper said doggedly; "there is no question at all about that."
"I think, Roper, the best thing for us to do would be, when we have taken our meal, to sally out in different directions with our cloaks on and our caps over our faces. Possibly one or other of us may alight upon him if he is here. If we meet him, we will talk the matter over again. I don't want to do anything headstrong; and if we ascertain that the count is here, we will discuss whether we can make a detour that will throw him off the scent, though I say honestly I don't think such an attempt would be of any use. If he has men with him they will certainly be posted on watch round this hotel, and he will learn all that there is to be learned of our movements; and whatever we do, we shall have to fight for it. If he has more than six men I should say that if we are attacked we had better trust to our horses and not to the strength of our arms, and ride for it. There is nothing cowardly in running away from a greatly superior force, and certainly I shall not hesitate to do so if I see that they are too strong for us."
Accordingly, after dinner they put on their cloaks and sallied out.