"Did your grandfather smuggle, Gil?"
"He was no better and no worse than other men; who knows what—we will talk later of that. Come!"
He took her hand in his, and again together they fled along the passage. As no sound of pursuing feet came to their ears, confidence began to return. They were like two children running a race. Silencio laughed aloud, and as they got further from the entrance to the passage he whistled, he sang, he shouted! The sound of his laughter chilled the heart of Raquel with fear.
"Gil," she pleaded, "they will hear you. They will know where we have gone." She laid her fingers on his lips as they ran, and he playfully bit them, as he had seen her close her teeth upon El Rey's.
The passage was a long one. Raquel thought that it would never end.
"Have we come more than two miles, Gil?" she asked.
Raquel was not used to breathless flights in the dark. Silencio laughed.
"Poor little girl! Does it seem so long, then? When we have reached the further end we shall have come just three hundred feet."
At last, at last! the further door was reached. Silencio unlocked it and pushed it open. This was rendered somewhat difficult by the sand which had been blown about the entrance since last he had brushed it away. A little patient work, and the two squeezed themselves through the narrow opening.