"Mervan! Mervan!" he almost moaned.
"'Tis that," I went on. "But--think not I say it unkindly, with lack of friendship or in forgetfulness of our new found camaraderie--for you the need does not exist."
"What!"
"Hear me, I say, Juan. I speak but for your safety. For you there is no duty calling; the risk does not exist. You are free--a traveller at your ease."
"Silence!" he cried--his rich, musical voice ringing clear through the vast sala in the midst of which we now stood once more; and as he spoke he raised his hand with a gesture of command. "Silence, I say! By the body of my dead and unknown father, you do not know Juan Belmonte. What! Set out with you and turn back at the first sign of danger, and that a danger to you alone! Oh!" he exclaimed, changing his tone again, emotional as ever. "Oh! Mervan, Mervan."
"I spoke but for your sake," I said, sorry and grieved to see I had wounded him. "For that alone."
"Then speak no more, never again in such a strain. I said I would never quit your side till Flanders is reached; no need to repeat those words. Where you go I go--unless you drive me from your side."
And now it was my turn to exclaim against him, to cry: "Juan! you think I should do that!" Yet even as I spoke, I could not but add: "The danger to you as well as me may be terrible."
"No more," he said. "No more. We ride together until the end comes--for one or both of us. Now, let us call the reckoning and begone. The horses are there," and he strode to the window and made a sign to the stable-man to be ready for us. Yet ere the landlord came, he spoke to me again.
"Remember," he said, "that beyond our camaraderie, of which you have spoken--ay! 'tis that and more, far more--beyond all this, I do believe the old man whose face I saw as the great lamps shone full on it is James Eaton. I have come to Europe, to this cold quarter of the world, to find him. Do you think with him not half a league ahead that I will be turned from the trail? Never! I follow that man to Lugo--since his beard is gone I cannot pluck him by that, but I can take his throat in my hands, thrust this through his evil heart," and he rapped the quillon of his sword sharply as he spoke. Then added: "As I will. As I will."