Thus burdened, they walked slowly down the lane, turned to the right, and found themselves in a street filled with soldiers and citizens, among whom were many women and priests. Almost all, even the priests, were armed, and many were hastening in the direction of the Augustine convent, where the French, after a desperate struggle, had just succeeded in forcing an entrance to the town. Barricades had been erected at various parts of the street. No one showed any surprise at the sight of an old lady carried on a chair. Strange incidents of the siege were happening every day. Every hour some new family was obliged to quit its dwelling and seek safety in flight. Unnoticed and unmolested, Jack and his companions in a few minutes reached the house in the Calle del Coso to which Juanita had referred. They were admitted immediately to the patio. There Juanita found her friends eating a meal the frugality of which spoke only too plainly of the straits to which the city was now reduced. The exhausted condition of the old lady demanded instant attention, and while the group of friends gathered about her solicitously, Jack took a hurried farewell of her niece.
"Now that you are in safety, Señorita, I can leave you and go to fulfil an errand I have. I trust the Señora will soon recover from her weakness and terror, and that you will not suffer from the strain of this frightful morning."
"Señor, you have the heart-felt thanks of my aunt and myself. But for your timely help—I dare not think of it. And poor Francisco! To think of him dead, killed by those horrible French! ... We can never thank you enough."
Jack was conscious of some constraint in the young lady's manner, which he ascribed to the reaction from her excitement and the peril recently gone through.
"I am only too glad that I happened to be passing at that moment, Señorita," he said. "And now, farewell!"
He bowed. The young lady looked at him with a curiously scrutinizing expression in her eyes; then, returning his bow with somewhat more formality, Jack thought, than the occasion required, she said:
"Adios—Señor!"
CHAPTER XIX
Palafox the Man
Night on the Ebro—Across the Boom—Heroines of the Siege—The Captain-General—An Interview—A Missing Letter—War to the Knife—An Interruption—Santiago Sass—First Impressions