Cartoner sat at one of the outside tables, where the hydrangeas, as large as a black currant bush, are ranged in square green boxes against the city wall. He was thoughtfully sipping his coffee when a man crawled between his legs and hid himself like a sick dog between Cartoner's chair and the hydrangea trees. The hiding-place was a good one, provided that the fugitive had the collusion of whosoever sat in Cartoner's chair.
“His Excellency would not betray a poor unfortunate,” whispered an eager voice at Cartoner's elbow, while, with a sang-froid which had been partly acquired south of the Pyrenees, the Briton sat and gazed across the Tagus.
“That depends upon what the unfortunate has been after.”
There was a silence while Truth wrestled with the Foe in the shadows of the bush in the green box.
“His Excellency is not of Toledo.”
“Nor yet of Spain,” replied Cartoner, knowing that it is good to speak the truth at times.
“They have chased me from Algodor. They on horseback, I running through the forest. You will hear them rattling across the bridge soon. If I can only lie hidden here until they have ridden on into the town, I can double and get away to Barcelona.”
Cartoner was leaning forward on the little tin table, his chin in the palm of his hand.
“You must not speak too loud,” he said, “especially when the music is still.”
For the Cafe of the New Gate had the additional attraction of what the proprietor called a concert. The same consisting of a guitar and a bright-coloured violin, the latter in the hands of a wandering scoundrel, who must have had good in him somewhere—it peeped out in the lower notes.