"As his prisoner fast he kept her,
In his hands her life did lie;
Cupid's bands did tie them faster
By the twinkling of an eye----"
He stopped abruptly and pointed ahead of him with the little viol, then wrapped it up again in his valise and said:
"See, amígo, there is the village--what was its name cut on the pedestal? Now what are we? Eh? And whence come we if any questions are asked?"
"You are a young Spanish gentleman," I said, repeating a lesson I had hitherto in our ride tutored him in, "from Vigo. I am a Frenchman. We are on our way to Bayonne to join the French forces. Also, we neither of us know English."
"Bon, pas un mot," he replied, catching me up brightly. "Et nous parlons Anglais comme une vache parle Espagnol. N'est-ce fas, mon ami?"
"C'est ça. En avant," I replied, and with a laugh we each touched our horses with the heel and cantered down into the village of Chantada.
'Twas a poor place enough for any travellers to see, consisting of a long, but very wide street, with a fountain in the midst of a wide open square, around which there lay a number of grunting swine--lean and repulsive--and also some score or so of geese, all basking in the morning sun.
Yet next in importance to the church, which was on one side of this plaza, was that which we most sought for, an inn, and, perhaps because of the road being one of importance 'twixt both Portugal and Vigo to France, it was a large, substantial-looking house, long, and with many rooms on either side the great porte, as well as in the two stories beneath its sloping and serrated Spanish roof; also, it looked prosperous--a huge gilt coronet hung out over the unpaved street. For name it had painted along all its front, the words "Taverna Duquesa Santa Ana."
Under the great archway we rode in, seeing that in a vast courtyard there stood a travelling coach on which, although there were no horses attached to it, some baggage was still left piled up beneath some skins; hearing also the stamping of several horses in their stables.
"Ask," said I to Juan, speaking in French--as agreed between us, there was to be no more English spoken unless we were certain no ears could overhear us--"ask if we can be accommodated for some hours, say, until night. Then we must resume our journey. Ask that."