"On such a night as this!" exclaimed Juan, shuddering and glancing out through the uncurtained window at the flakes of snow which still fell. "It would be death," he whispered, shuddering again.
"You are easily appalled," I said, speaking coldly to him for the first time since our acquaintance. "Yet, remember, I warned you of what you might expect in such an expedition as this. You would have done better to accept the admiral's offer. A cabin in the Pembroke would have been a lady's withdrawing room in contrast to what we may have to encounter."
"Forgive me. Forgive," he hastened to say pleadingly. "Indeed, indeed, Mervan, I am bold and no coward--but, remember, I am of the tropic south, and 'tis the cold of the river that appalls me--not fear for my life. Like many of our clime, I can sooner face death than discomfort."
"There will be enough facing of both ere we have done--that is, if we ever get farther than here," I said, almost contemptuously.
"So be it," he exclaimed, springing to his feet and evidently bitterly hurt by my tone. Indeed, 'twas very evident he was, since the tears stood in his eyes. "So be it. We face it! Now," and he rapped the table between us as though to emphasise his words, "continue your plans, make your suggestions, bid me swim rivers, cross mountains, plunge into icy streams or burning houses, and see if I flinch or draw back again. Only--only," and his voice sank to its usual soft tones, "do not be angry with me."
That it was impossible to be angry with him long I felt, nor, for some unexplained reason, could I despise him for his evident objection to discomfort--the discomfort which would arise from so trifling a thing--to me, a cuirassier--as swimming one's horse across a river on a winter night. And, as my contempt, such as it was, vanished at once at his plea to me not to be angry with him, I exclaimed:
"At worst it shall be made as light for you as may be, since you are only a boy after all! And if that worst comes," I continued, in a good natured, bantering way, which caused the tears to disappear and the smiles to return, which brought back to my mind a song my good old father used to sing about "Sunshine after Rain"--"if that worst comes, why, I will swim the river with you on my back, and your jennet shall swim by my horse's side. Now, for the landlord!"
We found that unclean personage a-sitting over a fair good fire, which roared cheerfully up a vast open chimney from the stone floor upon which the logs were, with, by his side, a woman who was blind, as we saw very quickly when she turned eyes on us which were naught but white balls with no pupils to them. And, because we at once perceived that there was no power of sight in those dreadful orbs, I made no more to do, but, slipping of my finger into my waistcoat pocket, pulled out two great gold doubloons--worth more than our guineas--and held them up before him. Then I said in French, and speaking low, because I knew not whether that stricken one might understand or not:
"See, this will pay our addition and more. Now listen. You may equally as well have them as the guarda frontéra at Tuy. Will you?"
He nodded, grasping the pieces--I noticed that he kept them from clinking against each other, perhaps because he wanted not his wife to know that he had gotten them--then put each into a different pocket, and said: "She understands not the French. Speak."