Walthew understood his brevity: there was no time for questions and explanations.
Grahame took off his hat as Blanca joined them.
"I must see Silva. Wait in the shadow," she said, and moved quickly away.
The men stood silent. They had much to say, but it would keep, and the means of escaping from the town occupied their minds. The street was deserted and seemed strangely quiet after the girl's footsteps died away, but indistinct cries came across the flat roofs as if something were happening. Walthew looked about sharply in tense impatience, but could see nothing, and Blanca did not return. At last, however, she came silently toward them through the gloom.
"It is impossible for Silva to give us the mules," she said. "The Government has seized all he has, and two rurales guard the stable."
"Then we must try to get away on foot," Grahame replied. "Would you be safer, señorita, if you got some of your friends to hide you?"
"No," she said; "I must take my father some news I have picked up, and Gomez will leave no place unsearched when he learns that I have been here. I think we shall be out of danger if we can reach a house I know."
They went down the street, quickly but silently, and as they turned the corner a man sprang out from the gloom beside a wall and immediately afterward disappeared. A few moments later they heard a whistle, and Blanca led the men into a narrow lane.
"It is off our way, and we must run!" she said.
She shook off Walthew when he tried to take her arm; and they had gone some distance before they heard footsteps behind them. The pursuers did not seem to gain much ground, but when they slipped round a corner somebody shouted, and the girl sped across the square they had entered. A little farther on, they heard a heavier tread on the uneven stones.