"Never!" he said. "Never!" And, as if to give emphasis to his words, he turned round in his saddle toward me, placing his left hand on the cantle as though to obtain a steady glance of my face, and continued.
"I told you we were friends, sworn friends and true. Also, that to be together was all that I asked. Mervan, our friendship is rivetted, bound, now; nothing but death or disaster shall part us--nothing; till at least, this journey is concluded. Then--then--if you choose to turn me off you may; but not before. You have not yet learnt, do not know yet, what a Spanish--a--a man reared amongst Spaniards feels when he swears eternal friendship."
After which he regained his position and rode on, looking straight between his horse's ears. But once I heard him mutter to himself, though still not so low, either, but what I heard it very well:
"Friendship. Diôs!"
And this warm, fervent youth, this creature full of emotion and glowing friendship, was him against whom the admiral had expressed some distaste when he learned that I proposed to ride in his company; had doubted if that companionship might not be of evil influence over my fortunes during the journey. If he knew nothing, what did it all mean? I asked myself. Above all (and this I had pondered on again and again, though without being able to arrive at any answer to the riddle), why warn me against one whom he, when brought into contact with that one himself, had treated with such scrupulous deference?
Even as I thought again upon these things I resolved that as our acquaintance, our friendship and comradeship ripened, I would ask Juan who and what he was.
For at present I knew no more than I have written down--that he was young and handsome, and was well to do. But beneath all, was there some mystery attached to him? Some mystery which the older and more far seeing eyes of Sir George had been able to pry into and discover, while mine were still blinded to it?
We were passing now through a wild and desolate region, a portion of the western extremity of northern Spain, in which we met no sign of human life or human habitation, hardly, indeed, any sign of animal life. Also we had struck a chain of mountains densely clothed with cork and chestnut woods, the trees of which were bare of leaves, and through the branches of which the wind moaned cheerlessly. On our left these mountains, after an interval of barren moorland, rose precipitously; to our right the Minho rolled sullenly along, the road we traversed lying between it and the moor. So desolate, indeed, was all around us now that we might have been two travellers from another world journeying through this, a forgotten or undiscovered one; no light either far or near twinkled from hut or cottage, neither bark of dog nor low of cattle reached our ears; all was desolate, silent and deserted.
Yet, even as the road lifted so that we knew we were ascending those mountains step by step, we observed signs which, added to the well kept state of the road itself, told us it was not an altogether unused one. For though the snow lay hard and caked upon it, we could observe where it had taken the impression of cart wheels and of animals' hoofs, could perceive by this that it was sometimes traversed.
And, presently, we observed something else, something that told us plainly enough that we were now in the direct way for Lugo, observed that there branched into the road we were travelling an even broader one than it--causing, too, our own road to broaden out itself as it ran further north; a road in the middle of which was a huge stone column or pedestal, with arms also of stone upon it, pointing different ways, and with, carved on them, words and figures.