What did it mean?
Ere he answered either Juan's startled enquiries or my stare of amazement, which he must very well have seen in the moon's rays as I regarded him, he cantered off after my horse, which was standing quietly in the forest side by side with that other animal on whose neck the first wounded man had fallen--he was now lying dead upon the ground!--and brought both back to where we were, leading them by their reins.
"You will want your horse, monsieur," he said, "to continue your journey. Bon Dieu! you both made a good fight of it, though they would have beaten you had I not come up at the moment."
"Believe us, we both thank you more than words can express," I said, while Juan sat his jennet, still breathing heavily from his exertions, yet peering with all the power of those bright eyes at the man before him, "but your appearance is so different from what it was when last we met that--that I am lost in amazement. You were, sir, a holy monk then."
"Cucullus non facit monachum," he replied, in what I recognised to be very good Latin, then added, with a laugh: "In journeying through dangerous places we are not always what we seem to be. To wit: Monsieur was either an English soldier or sailor when I saw him last--an enemy to Spain and France--hating both, as I should suppose. Yet now he is a private gentleman, and, I imagine, desires nothing less than that his real position should be known."
"But you--you," Juan interposed, "you were monk from the first moment I set eyes on you, from the hour when we left Hispaniola. Are you not one?"
"My boy," he said, and as he spoke he touched Juan on the sleeve as they both sat their horses side by side--I being also mounted again by this time--"my boy, I replied to your companion just now with a proverb. I answer you with another: 'Look not a gift horse in the mouth.' I have saved your life, at least, if not this gentleman's. And----"
But Juan stammering forth some words of regret for the curiosity he had shown, he stopped him with still another touch on the sleeve, and said:
"Briefly, let me tell this: I had reasons to be in Spain, to quit the Indies and accompany the galleons, get a passage by some means. It suited me to come disguised as a monk; there was no other way. For, rightly or wrongly, both Spain and France are my enemies; in my own proper character I could never have reached here. Being here, I am still in danger if discovered; to avoid that discovery I have now doffed the monkish garb, so that all traces of me are lost. Enough, however; I am on my road to Lugo. Does your way lie the same road?"
We both answered that it did, whereon he said, speaking quickly and, as I noticed, in the tone of one who seemed very well used to issuing orders, as well as accustomed to deciding for himself and others: