The Spanish soldiers advanced to carry out Miguel's order, but Bates merely tightened his grip and looked enquiringly at Jack for instructions. Jack could not but admire Miguel's astuteness. He was perfectly well aware that the man would be released as soon as he was out of reach; but while loth to let him escape scot-free, he saw how powerless he was in the face of Miguel's declaration. It was a matter for the Spanish authorities, in which, except as a witness, he himself had no concern; and it was nothing to the point that the Spanish authorities were hiding in cellars, lofts, and even, as he had heard, in pig-styes. He turned to the old man, and said:
"I fear, Señor, that, as things are, we have no choice but to return this man to the care of his present—master. Bates," he added in English, "let him go."
In apparent abstraction, Bates gave a farewell twist to the Spaniard's neck-band, shot him among the knot of tattered soldiery in the doorway, drew himself up, and saluted. With a ceremonious bow Miguel followed his men from the room, several of them carrying with them painful mementoes of the affray. Wilkes shadowed them to the end of the corridor. Meanwhile the venerable Spaniard had taken a decanter and several glasses from a press in the corner of the room.
"You will permit me, Señor," he said to Jack, "my servant having deserted me, to offer you and your worthy soldiers a little refreshment. It is a poor expression of my gratitude to you and them, but it comes, believe me, from a full heart."
The men willingly tossed off their bumpers, and soon afterwards escorted Jack to his quarters. He there learnt from them that while at supper they had been summoned by Pepito, who announced in broken English, eked out by gestures, that el Señor Lumsden was in urgent need of help. He had apparently been shadowing Jack as usual, had seen him enter the house, and a moment after heard Miguel hounding on his willing dupes to kill the English bandit.
"The little rascal is always putting me in his debt," said Jack to himself as the squad saluted and marched off. "He is quite a guardian angel."
No one but Jack had cause to regard Pepito in this gracious light.
"What I want to know," asked Corporal Wilkes wrathfully, when he returned to his billet "—what I want to know is, what's become of my supper?"
Only Pepito knew.
CHAPTER XIV