His present state was as puzzling to himself as to the padre, who had him conveyed within doors, and, strangely enough, into the boudoir, the features of which brought back to Quentin's memory some of the exciting and bewildering passages of last night. The unextinguished lamp yet smoked on the table, broken crystal cups and champagne flasks, chairs overturned, and a phial of very suspicious aspect, all attracted the attention of Padre Florez. As he examined the latter, and applied his nose and lips to the mouth, while endeavouring to discover what the contents had been, he changed colour, and became visibly excited.
"Look to the stranger—what a mere boy he is!—but look to him, Ramon, mi hijo," said he, "while I go to my room—my laboratory—and see what I can do for him."
The padre, who had a deep and friendly interest in the household of his patrona the countess-dowager, and of the young Conde now serving with the guerilla band of Baltasar de Saldos, looked anxiously through the suites of rooms as he proceeded, sighing over the slashed Murillos and smashed mirrors, and the too evident sabre-cuts in the richly-carved cabinets of oak and ebony, in the gilded consoles, the beautiful tables of marqueterie; and he groaned at last over the ruins of some alabaster statuettes and great jars of Sèvres and majolica, which, in the last night's search, the French had wantonly dashed to pieces.
Ere long, he reached his own room, and on looking about, he missed at once his quarto volume on poisons, the work he had been studying—particularly that fatal passage from Celius—when the French dragoons drove the whole household from the villa. It was gone; but in its place on the desk he found the two bottles left by Isidora, the decoctions of mandrake and henbane. Here was a clue to the illness of the Ingles below; but how had the matter come to pass? Had he poisoned himself? This the padre doubted; but as an instant remedy was necessary, an inquiry and explanation would follow the cure.
Selecting certain simples, the Padre Florez hurried back to his patient, who was stretched on the sofa of the boudoir in a very bewildered condition, endeavouring to understand and reply to the somewhat earnest and impetuous inquiries of Ramon and his brother muleteers, who were now en route from Marvao to Portalegre—news which could not fail to interest Quentin; but he replied only by a languid and haggard smile.
He told them, however, that the sister of Don Baltasar de Saldos was in the villa, and implored them to search for her, which they did, in considerable excitement and surprise, leaving, as Ramon said, not even a rat-hole unexamined, but no trace of her could be found. Then Quentin rather surprised them by saying, impetuously, that she had been carried off by the French.
"Is it a dream, is she dead, or has she fled?" he asked of himself again and again; "no, no; she would never leave me willingly, her insane love forbids the idea."
Ramon, in searching for the sister of the formidable guerilla chief, whose name was already finding an echo in every Castilian heart, found Quentin's cap, sabre, and pistols, and fortunately the despatch or reply of Don Baltasar to Sir John Hope. Ignacio Noain found a lady's shoe of Cordovan leather, which the padre identified as having belonged to Donna Isidora. This served to corroborate the strange story of Quentin; but Florez remembered that the donna was in the habit of visiting the countess at the villa, and this little slipper might have been left behind by her on some occasion. It was found, however, in the vestibule, where it had fallen from her foot as the dragoons somewhat roughly dragged her away.
"In what way came this young stranger to speak of De Saldos' sister at all? Had they eloped together? If so," thought the padre, "then Heaven help the Englishman, for his doom is sealed!"
"I am ill—ill, padre—ill in body and sick at heart!" said Quentin faintly, as Florez, watch in hand, felt his pulse.