I had said we were safe here, and of this safety we had sure proof not many hours after her unhappy father had departed on his unknown journey; a journey that led I knew not where, no more than I knew what would be the end of it. And this proof was that, in the afternoon of the same day, the landlord of the inn came running in to us as fast as he could scamper across the already frozen snow; his face twitching with excitement, his voice shaking, too, from the same cause.
"Holy Virgin!" he exclaimed, while he gesticulated like a madman, his wife doing the same thing by his side, "who and what have I sheltered here in my house. Pirates and filibusters, gaol breakers and murderers, women whose vows are made and broken day by day. 'Tis mercy we are not all stabbed to the death in our beds," and again he grimaced and shook and spluttered.
"You are as like," I said sternly, with a tap to my sword hilt, "to be stabbed to the death now, and at once, if you explain not this intrusion and your words, fellow." For he had roused my ire by bursting in on Juana and me in the manner he had done, and by frightening her, as I knew by the way she clung to me. "Answer at once, what mean you?"
"There are at the frontier," he said, speaking now more calmly, also more respectfully as he noted my attitude, while his wife ceased her clamour too, "some half dozen Spaniards from Lugo, all demanding where you are--and--and the wo--the lady; also asking for one they call their Alcáide, as well as another, who, they say, is a hundred-fold assassin. Likewise they vow they will have you back to Lugo."
"Will they! Well, we will see for that! Meanwhile, what say the frontiermen on this side, here in Portugal?"
"They dispute. They refuse. They say 'tis whispered o'er all our land that the king has joined with the English brigands----"
"Fellow! remember." And again I threatened him.
"With the English nation against Spain and France. It may be so or not; I do not know. Yet I think you will be spared to--to--slay----"
Again he halted in his speech, reading danger in my glance, while I, turning to Juana, bade her keep calm and await my return from the border, to which I meant to proceed to see what was a-happening.
At first she would not hear of my doing this; she threw herself upon my neck, she besought me by our newborn love, by all our hopes of happiness in days to come, not to go near those men, Reminded me, too, that even now we were free to escape, to seize upon the horses, push on further into Portugal and to safety. Also she pleaded with me to remember that if aught happened to me, if I was taken again and carried back to Spain, all hope would indeed be gone, no more escape possible. Wept, also, most piteously, and besought me to recollect that if aught such as this befell she would indeed be alone in the world, and must die.