"It is at number five, Calle de la Merced, but they will await, E. M."
"And the other carriage that is on the road?" Marcos asked the man. "The carriage which brings the caballero--has it arrived in Saragossa?"
"Not yet," answered the driver. "I have heard from one who passed them on the road that they had a second mishap just after leaving the inn of The Two Trees, where their Excellencies took coffee--a little mishap this one, which will only delay them an hour or less. He has no luck, that caballero."
The man looked quite gravely at Marcos, who returned the glance as solemnly. For they were as brothers, these two, sons of that same mother, Nature, with whom they loved to deal, fighting her strong winds, her heat, her cold, her dust and rivers, reading her thousand and one secrets of the clouds, of night and dawn, which townsmen never know and never even suspect. They had a silent contempt for the small subtleties of a man's mind, and were half ashamed of the business on which they were now engaged.
As the man withdrew in obedience to Marcos' salutation, "Go with God," the clock struck twelve.
"Come," said Marcos to his father, "we must go to number five, Calle de la Merced. Do you know the house?"
"Yes; it is one of the many in Saragossa that stand empty, or are supposed to stand empty. It is an old religious house which was sacked in the disturbances of Christina's reign."
He walked to the window as he spoke and looked out.
The house had been thrown open for the first time for many years, and they now occupied one of the larger rooms looking across the garden to the Ebro.
"Ah! you have ordered the carriage," he said, seeing the brougham standing at the door, and the rusty gates thrown open, giving egress to the Paseo del Ebro.