"Not he," said Jack with a laugh. He saw that the events of the past few days had wrought her nerves to a high pitch of excitement, and tactfully turned the conversation into a quieter channel. He asked for the name of the house to which she was going on the morrow, assured her that, when the inevitable capitulation came, the French would allow generous terms to such brave defenders, and at length took his leave, promising to visit her whenever he could snatch an opportunity.
"And will you be able to save the old house?" she asked, as he was going out at the door.
"I shall do my best, for the sake of old times, be sure of that."
"I know you will. Vaya usted con Dios, Jack!"
Before he reached the foot of the stairs, Jack saw, in the dim light of the small hanging lamp, a portly figure ascending. He crossed to the other side and waited to allow the visitor to pass.
"Buenas noches, Señor!" said Padre Consolacion, sweeping off his large shovel hat; then he stopped as he recognized the same youth whom he had seen earlier in the week.
"Padre mio," cried Juanita from the top, "come along; I want to speak to you."
"Buenas noches, Padre!" said Jack; and the priest, after a moment's hesitation, went up slowly.
Hard by the Casa Alvarez a narrow tortuous lane of mean houses, dirty in appearance and evil in repute, ran almost due east from the ramparts. It was not a district in which, before the siege, any person worth robbing would choose to be abroad after nightfall. But when, towards dusk on this fifth of February, a well-dressed man passed rapidly down the street and disappeared into one of the least reputable of the houses, the few denizens who observed him did so without a thought of their knives, almost without a sense of curiosity. To such a height of abnegation had the public danger brought the professional lawbreakers of Saragossa.
It was a house of three stories, and the stranger, threading his way gingerly through the gloomy entrance and up the narrow stairway, gathered from the evidence of all his senses that every story was fully occupied. In hardly another street in this part of Saragossa could a house have been found where its whole population was not herded in cellars below-ground. But here the lane was so narrow, and so closely surrounded by buildings, that the inhabitants were in no danger from the French bombardment, and lived in a security which few of their fellow-citizens enjoyed.