"There might be worse beds than that you would not use--may be worse for us ere long. Still, no matter. You slept warm here as I did upstairs. Yet 'tis well I did not waken. Now let us see for breakfast and our departure," and giving a glance at the landlord, who was bringing in a sort of thick soup in which I saw many dried raisins floating, also some eggs and coarse black bread, as well as some chocolate which smelt mighty good and diffused a pleasing aroma through the room, I tapped my waistcoat pocket to remind him of the other doubloons that were in it. And he nodded understandingly.
The journey to where we now stood this evening was as uneventful as though we had been traveling in safety in our own England. The road into which the man had put us in the morning led first of all through countless villages--I have since heard that in all Europe there is no land so thickly sown with villages as this poor one of Portugal--then trailed off into a dense chestnut-fringed track that was no longer a road at all.
And now we knew that we were close unto the spot where our first adventure on the journey, that we hoped might at last bring us to Flanders, must of necessity take place. We were but half an hour's ride from the crazy bridge the man had spoken of as connecting his country with Spain--the bridge on the other side of which was the rocky path, with, at the top of it, the hut in which we should find two Spanish guardas frontéras armed to the teeth and prepared to bar the way to all who could not show their right to pass.
Yet we were resolved to pass--or leave our bodies there.
"There is," the landlord had said, "a holy stone at the spot where the path leading to the bridge enters the cork wood. You cannot mistake it. Upon that stone is graven the Figure, beneath it an arrow pointing the way to Melagasso. Your path lies to the left and thus to the bridge. God keep you."
We left that stone as he had directed, with one swift glance upward at those blessed features--I noticing Juan crossed himself devoutly--slowly over fallen leaves that lay sodden on the earth beneath their mantle of snow, and over dried branches blown to the earth, our horses trod. And so for a quarter of an hour we pursued our way, while still the night came on swifter and swifter until, at last, we could scarce see each other's forms beneath the thick foliage above our heads.
Yet we heard now that swirling, rushing river--heard its murmur as it swept past its banks, and its deep swish as it rolled over what was doubtless some great boulder stone out in the stream--heard, too, its hum as it glided by the supports of the bridge that we knew was before us. Also, we saw above our heads a light gleaming--a light that we knew must come from the frontiermen's house.
And we had to steal up to where that light twinkled brightly, in what was now the clear, frosty air, since the snow had ceased--indeed, had not fallen all day--and all was clear overhead; to steal up, and then, if might be, make our hasty rush past on our horses' backs, or stay to cross steel and exchange ball with those who barred our way.
"Forward to the bridge!" I whispered to Juan, fearing that even from where we were my voice might be borne on the clear night air up to that height. "Loosen, also, your blade in its sheath! And your pistols, too--are they well primed?"
"Yes," he whispered back, his voice soft and low as a woman's when she murmurs acknowledgment of her love. "Yes."