I expected him to borrow money, but what he wanted was less expensive, and more extraordinary. He wanted me to go to the seashore near Cascaes and bring back to him a handful of pebbles. As he could not pay for such a service from a man in my position, he would gladly make me a friendly gift of anything that might strike my fancy in the shops of Lisbon.
No questioning of mine as to the meaning of this extraordinary request brought any explanation. He regretted that he could not enlighten me as to his reason, but for him the matter was of vital importance. I utterly refused to fetch the pebbles or to go anywhere near the seashore. It flashed across my mind that this very handsome, English-looking gentleman might be a police spy set to dog my footsteps. He certainly dogged me all right. I could hardly get away from him, wherever I went, and he pressed me to take wine with him at the open-air cafés. One night when we sat together in Black Horse Square, he became uneasy, and kept glancing over his shoulder at the crowded tables. Presently he rose, and said, “Let us take a stroll.” I agreed, and was quickly aware that we were being followed by three men.
I spoke to him.
“One of us is being shadowed. Is it you or me?”
“Me,” he said. “As long as you stay with me, I am safe. Let us slip into this place....”
He pushed open the swing door of a wine shop, and we went inside. He ordered a bottle of cheap wine, and before it had been brought, three men entered and sat near the door.
My strange acquaintance sipped a little wine, spoke to me loudly in English about the weather, and whispered the words, “Follow me quickly!”
He rose from the table, and went rapidly out of the back door of the restaurant into the courtyard, and out through a side door into the street by which we had entered. It was dark, but as we walked we saw, at the end of the street, under a lantern, three men standing motionless.
“Hell!” said my acquaintance.
He plunged into a narrow alley, and then through a labyrinth of little streets until suddenly we emerged on the square opposite our hotel.