He laughed pleasantly, and moved towards the door.
‘Vara,’ said Father Concha.
‘Yes, reverendo.’
‘If I meet your wife in Madrid, what shall I say to her?’
Concepçion turned and looked into the smiling face of the old priest.
‘In Madrid, reverendo? How can you think of such a thing? My wife lives in Algeciras, and at times, see you—’ he stopped, casting his eyes up to the ceiling and fetching an exaggerated sigh, ‘at times my heart aches. But now I must get to the saddle. What a thing is Duty, reverendo! Duty! God be with your Excellencies.’
And he hurried out of the room.
‘If you would make a thief honest, trust him,’ said Concha, when the door was closed.
In less than an hour Concepçion was on the road accompanied by two troopers, who were ready enough to travel in company with a man of his reputation. For in Spain, if one cannot be a bull-fighter it is good to be a smuggler. At sunset the great heat culminated in a thunderstorm, which drew a veil of heavy cloud across the sky, and night fell before its time.
The horsemen had covered two-thirds of their journey when he whom they followed came in sight of the lights of Toledo, set upon a rock like the jewels in a lady’s ring, and almost surrounded by the swift Tagus. Conyngham’s horse was tired, and stumbled more than once on the hill by which the traveller descends to the great bridge and the gate that Wamba built thirteen hundred years ago.