The two guards came clambering down the face of the rock. Concepçion glanced at his late companion writhing in the sharpness of death.
‘Here or at Ronda, to-day, or to-morrow, what matters it?’ muttered the quiet-eyed man at Conyngham’s side. The Englishman turned and looked at him.
‘They will shoot me too, but not now.’
Concepçion sullenly awaited the arrival of the guards. These men ever hunt in couples of a widely different age, for the law has found that an old head and a young arm form the strongest combination. The elder of the two had the face of an old grey wolf. He muttered some order to his companion, and went towards the mule. He cut away the outer covering of the burden suspended from the saddle, and nodded his head wisely. These were boxes of cartridges to carry one thousand each. The grey old man turned and looked at him who lay on the ground.
‘A la longa,’ he said with a grim smile. ‘In the long run, Antonio.’
The man gave a sickly grin and opened his mouth to speak, but his jaw dropped instead, and he passed across that frontier which is watched by no earthly sentinel.
‘This gentleman,’ said the quiet-eyed man, whose guide had thus paid for his little mistake in refusing to halt at the word of command, ‘is a stranger to me—an Englishman, I think.’
‘Yes,’ answered Conyngham.
The old soldier looked from one to the other.
‘That may be,’ he said, ‘but he sleeps in Ronda prison to-night. To-morrow the Captain-General will see to it.’