"'Twas went on the storm increased, the snow no longer came in flakes against the window of the room below, in which we sat, but, instead, lay thick and heavy in masses on the sill without--was driven, too, against the window by the fierce, tempestuous wind that howled down from the mountains above, and rocked the miserable inn.
"There is no going on to-night," Gramont said, coming in out of the storm after having gone forth to attend to the horse that had brought him from Lugo, and having bestowed it in the stables, where were the animals on which Juana and I had also ridden. "No going on to-night." Then, changing the subject abruptly, he said: "Where is that man?"
Not pretending to doubt as to whom he made allusion, I said:
"The Alcáide?"
"Ay, the Alcáide."
Whereon I told him of all that had happened since my arrival with the mute, and of his immediate departure further on into Portugal.
"You should have slain him," he said, "the instant you had disarmed him. You loved Juana and she you--she told me so when she divulged his scheme to me in the prison--you should never have let him go free with life."
"I had disarmed him. I could not slay a weaponless, defenceless man."
"One slays a snake--awake or sleeping. He merited death."
"Yet to him, in a manner, we all owe our lives. Juana--I--you."