"None--without papers."
"Good. It is war time! If it must be, it must."
CHAPTER XV.
"DRAW SWORDS!"
Another night had come--'twas already dark--and Juan and I sat on our horses in the cork wood, at the end of which we could hear the Minho swirling along beneath the ramshackle bridge that divided Portugal from Spain. And, as good fortune would have it, there was on this, the Portuguese side, no guarda frontéra whatever. Perhaps that poor, impoverished land thought there was naught to guard from ingress, also that nothing would be brought from Spain to them. The traffic set all the other way!
Because there was no need for us to be too soon where we were now; indeed, because 'twas not well that we should be here ere nightfall, the landlord had not awakened me until nine in the morning. And then, on his doing so, I perceived that the other sheepskin-clad bed by my side had not been occupied at all. Wherefore I started up in some considerable fright, calling out to him through the door to know where was my friend, the young señor, whom I had left warming himself at the great fire below over night, and saying that he would follow me to bed ere long.
"Oh! he is below," he replied. "Has passed the night in front of the fire wrapped in his cloak, saying that 'twas there alone he could keep himself from death by the cold. He bids me tell you all is well for your journey, the horses fresh; also there is a good meal awaiting you"; whereon I performed my ablutions, hurried on my garments and rapidly made my way to the public room below.
"Juan," I said, "you should have warned me of your intention of remaining below. This is not good campaigning, nor comradeship. Had I awakened in the night and found you missing, I should have descended to seek for you, fearing that danger had come to you, and 'tis not well for travellers to be aroused unnecessarily from their beds on winter nights. Also we should keep always together. Soldiers--and you have to be one now!--on dangerous service should not separate."
"Forgive," he said, as, it seemed, he was always saying to me, and uttering the words in his accustomed soft, pleading voice. "Forgive. But--oh! Mervan!" pausing a moment as though seeking for some excuse for having deserted me for the night--"oh! Mervan! that bed was so--so filthy and untempting. And the room so cold, when without fire. And it was so warm here. I could not force myself to leave this room."
Remembering what he had said about those who came from the tropics dreading cold and discomfort even more than death, I thought I understood how he should have preferred sleeping here to doing so above. Therefore, I merely said: