At this moment the door of that very room opened again, and the tall servant came out, and turned down the corridor at the farther end of the patio.
"He is going to the cellar under the stairs for wine," whispered the old man. "Curse them! They are drinking my old master's store of Valdepenas."
The man had left the door open, and from within the room came the sound of a mellow baritone voice trolling out a sentimental ditty:
"J'ai fait un bouquet pour ma mie,
Un bouquet blanc;
J'ai mis mon coeur dedans,
Dedans mon bouquet blanc.
Comm' nous partions, v'là qu'elle cri-i-e:
'Oh! reviens t'en.'
'Marche!' dit mon lieutenant.
Je lui laiss' mon bouquet blanc.
J'ai mis mon coeur, j'ai mis mon coeur dedans,
Dedans mon bouquet blanc."
Shouts of applause followed the last words. Immediately afterwards the tall servant returned with a huge flagon, re-entered the room, and shut the door.
"Hombre," said Jack in a whisper, "you must go into that room."
"But, Señor, I'm afraid for my life. There's a big hound of a Frenchman there whose very voice makes me shiver."
"You must go in. I caught sight of a screen as that man entered just now. All I want you to do is to go in and show yourself—ask if they are fully supplied—and give me time to slip in behind you; then wait outside the door till I call."
The old man hesitated for a moment, then plucked up his courage and walked along the corridor, Jack following. The Spaniard opened the door, and was instantly ordered to go about his business. He moved back at once, but meanwhile Jack had slipped inside the room, and found that in an angle of the four-leaved screen he could conceal himself, not only from the persons in the room, but from anyone passing through the door. He quietly slit a hole in the screen with his penknife, and peeped through.
Around a ponderous old table of black oak, illuminated by a dozen wax candles and covered with dishes and flagons and glasses, sat four men. At the head, with his braided scarlet coat open from the neck, sat a fat, red-faced, big-moustachioed officer, whom Jack recognized at once as the blusterous commissary from whom he had coaxed such valuable information at Olmedo. At the foot sat a French captain, who was already half-drunk; on the other side was a young lieutenant, with pink cheeks. With his back to the door there was a man in Spanish dress, who at that moment beckoned forward the tall servant to fill the captain's empty glass. As the man moved round the table, Jack caught the glitter of Perez' one eye, and at the same instant recognized the seated Spaniard as Miguel Priego himself.