“Did you hear anything?” hastily asked one.
“No; did you?”
“I thought I heard something falling from above there,” replied the first speaker; pointing upward to the spot where Pepé was concealed.
“Bah! it was some mouse running into its hole.”
“If this slope wasn’t so infernally steep, I’d climb up and see,” said the first.
“I tell you we have nothing to fear,” rejoined the second; “the night is as black as a pot of pitch, and besides—the other, hasn’t he assured us that he will answer for the man on guard, who sleeps all day long?”
“Just for that reason he may not sleep at night. Remain here, I’ll go round and climb up. Carramba! if I find this sleepy-head,” he added, holding out his long knife, the blade of which glittered through the darkness, “so much the worse—or, perhaps, so much the better for him—for I shall send him where he may sleep forever.”
“Mil diablos!” thought Pepé, “this fellow is a philosopher! By the holy virgin I am long enough here.”
And at this thought, he crept out of the folds of his cloak like a snake out of his skin, and leaving the garment where it lay, crawled rapidly away from the spot.
Until he had got to a considerable distance, he was so cautious not to make any noise, that, to use a Spanish expression, the very ground itself did not know he was passing over it.