For he turned and looked at me--it was in the fast gathering twilight, as side by side always, we were slowly riding up a mountain path--looked--then, as I gazed, the tears rolled down his coarse face! And, poor unhappy, afflicted thing! those tears continued to trickle down that face till night hid it from my eyes.
I knew now that he understood at least, that he comprehended the words of pity and remorse I poured forth before the darkness came; at least the touch I made gently on his sleeve was read aright by him. For on his broad, expressionless face, to me for so long a stolid mask, there came a placid smile, and once he returned my touch lightly as still we rode on, and on, and on.
We halted that night to rest our horses and ourselves at a miserable inn, high up in the mountains, a place round which the snow was falling in great flakes, that seemed, indeed, to be embedded in snow. A ghastly, horrid place in which, as I sat shuddering by the fire, while my companion and the landlord slept near it--wondering if by now Juana had accomplished her dreadful purpose, unable longer to bear the company of the man, Morales, to whom she had sold herself; or, almost worse still, the company of her sin stained father; wondering too, if by now that splendid form was stiff in death!--I almost cursed the escape that had come to me. In truth, I think that now, upon this night, amidst the horrors of this lonely mountain inn, I was almost a madman; for the soft beat of the flakes upon the glass of the window seemed to my frenzied mind like the tapping of ghostly fingers; as I fixed my eyes upon those flakes and saw them alight one by one upon the panes and then dissolve and vanish, it looked to me as though they were fingers that scratched at the window and were withdrawn only to return a moment later. Also the wind screamed round the house--I started once, feeling sure I heard a woman--Juana--shriek my name, plucked at the sword by my side and would have made for the door, but that the landlord laughed at me and pushed me back, saying that those shrieks were heard nightly and all through the night during the winter.
At last, however, I slept, wrapped in my cloak before the peat fire, the mute in another chair by my side. And so, somehow, the night wore through. The morning came, and we were on our road once more, ten leagues still to be compassed ere the frontier was reached, with, behind us, as now I gathered from my mutilated companion's manner in answer to my questions, the possibility that we might be pursued. That after us, in hot chase, might be coming some from Lugo who had discovered our escape.
The mountain water courses and rivulets hummed beneath the frozen snow bound over them by the bitter frost, the tree boughs waved above our heads and across our path as, gradually descending once more to the plain, the chestnuts and the oak trees took the place of the gaunt black pines left behind above; once on this bitter morning we saw the sun steal out from amidst the clouds--lying down low on the horizon as though setting instead of rising. Yet on we rode for our lives, with upon me a deeper desire than the salvation of my own existence--the hope that I should be in time to save Juana, to wrench her from Morales ere it was too late, to bear her away at last to happiness and love unspeakable. Rode on, my black horse stumbling once over a mass of stone rolled down from the heights above; the dappled grey coming to its haunches from a similar cause, yet both lifted quickly by a sharp turn of our wrists and rushing on again down the declivity, danger in every stride and only avoided by God's mercy.
The leagues flew by--were left behind--a long billowy plain arrived at, sprinkled with hamlets from which the cheerful smoke rose to the sky; the mute had passes which took us through that other town of Viana; the last spot of importance was reached--and passed!--that lay between us and the border--between us and Portugal and safety.
Then once more our beasts slackened in their stride, again the ground rose upward, once more the hills were before us, above them at the summit was the frontier, Terroso. Another hour and we should be there--Juana's and my fate determined.
To use whips--neither of us had spurs--was cruel, yet there was no other way; therefore we plied them, pressed reeking flanks, rode on and on mercilessly. And now the end was at hand; afar off I saw a cabin over which floated both the banner of Spain and of Portugal. We were there some moments later--the mute's papers again examined--our passage allowed.
We had escaped from Spain!
"You ride quickly," the Portuguese aduanista said; "seek some others, perhaps, who come before you?" and he addressed himself to my companion, probably because he bore the passports. Then continued: "If 'tis a señor and señora you desire, they are in the fonda half a league further on."