CHAPTER XX.
"THE COWL DOES NOT ALWAYS MAKE THE MONK."
We were drawing very near to Lugo now, as the wintry morning gave signs of breaking; already the great spurs and cañons of the mountains that flanked the east side of the river Minho began to shape themselves into something tangible and distinct from the dull clouds at their summits, and their peaks and crags to stand out clearly. Also, we noticed that villages were scattered about at the base of these mountains; observed lights twinkling in the windows of cottages, and passed a bridge which spanned the river and carried on a road that led from that east side to the western one; a road with, on it, a great pedestal of rock, serving, as others which we had passed had served us, as milestones and finger-posts; a road leading, as we learnt, from another Viana, different from the one in Portugal at which Juan and I had landed from the English fleet.
We were drawing very near.
For the last two or three hours we had ridden almost in silence, knee to knee, all wrapped in our long cloaks, and with nothing breaking in upon that silence but, sometimes, the hoot of an owl from out the beeches and tamarisks which fringed the road, and sometimes the scream of an eagle far up in the mountains, roused, perhaps, from his eyrie by the clang of our animals' hoofs upon the hard-bound, frosty earth.
Yet some words had been spoken, too, ere we lapsed into this silence; for, as our friend and deliverer had exclaimed, "You! You!" on hearing that James Eaton had robbed Juan of whatever might have been left in his care by the lad's dead father, Juan himself had quickly exclaimed:
"Is he known also to you, then?"
"He was once, long ago--ay, long ago!" Then he paused, as though unwilling to tell more, though, a moment later, he said:
"And now you think he is ahead of us?--that we shall find him in Lugo?"
"Without doubt," Juan and I answered, both speaking together, while the former went on: