"So be it. Let us ride together--and at once. Every moment we tarry here makes our position more dangerous. Those men will no sooner have returned to Chantada than every available soldier will be sent forward to arrest us, even though we be in Lugo itself. You will be recognised without doubt if you stay an instant in the town. Your one chance is to get into it and out again as soon as may be.
"And you?" I asked, as now we put spurs to our horses and dashed along the forest track. "And you? If any of those who were in this affray return with the soldiers you speak of, it will be hard for you, too, to escape recognition. Your form cannot be disguised."
"It will be disguised again," he answered very quietly, "when I have once more resumed the monk's garb. I have it here," and he tapped the great valise strapped on his horse's back. "It has not been worn since I got ashore at Vigo, and that's far behind this by many leagues. There are none here like to recognise me."
"You stay, then, in Lugo?"
"I must stay. I have affairs."
He said this so decidedly that we neither of us ventured to ask him any more questions, though, a moment or two afterward, he volunteered to us the statement that, if another horse he had previously bought when he landed at Vigo had not broken down, he would long ere this have been in Lugo. Only the finding of a fresh animal--the one he now bestrode--had taken him some time, and thereby caused him to be late on his road, which, as we said gratefully enough, was fortunate for us.
"Ay," he replied, "it was; and also that I was breathing my animal in the forest at the time those others overtook you. But, nom d'un chou! I have been a fighter in my day myself, and, since I could not see two men set upon by five, my old instincts were aroused; though," he added, with extreme sang froid, "had it been an even fray, I might have left you to it."
And now it seemed to both Juan and myself as though this man's assistance to us necessitated us showing some confidence in him; wherefore, very briefly, we gave him some description of why we were travelling together, and of how, because Juan had naught else of much importance to do at the outset of his arrival in Europe, he had elected to be my companion as far as Flanders.
"Humph!" he exclaimed at this, "he is a young knight errant, as I told him oft enough in the galleon, when he talked some rhodomontade about being on his way to Europe to seek out and punish a villain who had wronged him. Well, sir, even if he finds not the man, he is likely enough to meet with sufficient adventures in your company ere he reaches Flanders."
"He thinks he has found him already," I said quietly, in reply.