"You saw a goatherd present—an old fellow with a sheep-skin dress, a long beard, a crook, and bota."
"Yes."
"'T was I. Last night I was a goatherd, because it suited my purpose to appear so, and to laugh at the terror of those miserable soap-boilers on hearing the whistle of bullets in the Sierra; to-day I am Fabrique de Urquija, the friend of poor Juan Roa; and had you been less kind to that poor nun than you were, it was my intention to have shot and robbed you both, which I could easily have done, despite your swords and revolvers, your English impudence and cool assurance. Vaya usted con Dios, and may you have a pleasant ride to Seville; but attend more to the rules of common politeness when next you speak of Urquija beyond the security of your own lines at Gibraltar. I am not a bad fellow, señores, at times, though more apt to take the advice of a curer of fish than a curer of souls in Lent."
With these words he leaped on his horse, and slinging his long gun by his right leg, galloped into the cork wood, and disappeared.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE ALCALDE.
This rencontre, by illustrating the danger of lingering and of making chance acquaintance—dangers for which no credit would be given by the Horse Guards, and against which we found no hints afforded by our "John Murray"—caused us to hasten through Estrelo without paying a visit to the nuns of Santa Theresa, which (on the base of our acquaintance with Sister Veronica) we had proposed to do; and a ride of ten miles further, through a fruitful and beautiful district, brought us to the ancient ducal town of Medina Sidonia, where the Spanish commandant invited us to dinner, and where, finding ourselves in safe quarters, we spent a pleasant evening, and with cigars and Ciudad Real, Tresillo and Monte, whiled away the hours until we retired to our posada, where we slept undisturbed by rats or robbers, as quietly as if we had been in the best hotel in London.
We crossed a stream next day, and arrived at Arcos de la Frontierra, a picturesque little town, situated upon a lofty rock, almost insulated by the Guadalete, and so difficult of access on the south and west that we had some trouble in discovering an entrance to it anywhere.
The aspect of the place, with all its flat-roofed or red-tiled houses clustering on the summit of a steep and abrupt rock; its two large parish churches, with the square campanile of Santa Maria, and the façade of the palace of the reverend the vicar-general to the metropolitan of Seville, all lit up by the flush of a Spanish setting sun, and throwing a huge broad shadow across the girdling Guadalete, and that rich undulating country which stretches far away beyond it, pleased me so much that, dismounting at the foot of the eminence, I seated myself among some fallen walls and prostrate columns—doubtless fragments of the ancient Arcobriga—to make a little sketch of the place.
Reclined against a mass of vine-covered ruin, Slingsby of "Ours" had fallen fast asleep with his horse's bridle buckled over his left arm, and both he and the nag occupied a prominent place in the foreground of my view, and a wayside cross, covered with rich creepers, and having a sulky-looking raven seated on its summit, was in the middle distance. My labours proceeded rapidly and greatly to my own satisfaction when they were suddenly interrupted by a heavy hand being roughly laid on my shoulder. I looked up. Four men, muffled in the inevitable, invariable, and eternal dirty brown cloak, in which we always see the mysterious characters stride, swagger, and swell on the boards of minor theatres, and which a Spaniard is never without, under any circumstances, appeared beside me. Two had drawn swords, and two cocked blunderbusses.