"Farewell, my friend, my companion!" he exclaimed, wringing my hand. "God keep you from harm!"
"Wish me more than that, Montgomery," I protested.
"Ah, more—more, with all my heart!" he cried. "God grant you win your way to your lady—that you win her sweet self!"
"My thanks, dear friend!" I choked, gripping him by the shoulders. "We talk of patriotism; but I know, and you know, it is for her sake alone I am putting my neck into the noose."
"No, no," he rejoined. "It is not alone love, it is duty as well that calls you. And I fear the worst. Would that I might even now dissuade you from the attempt!"
"Dissuade me?—now? I should go, even though I felt as sure as you do that the outcome will be the garrotte or a blank wall and a firing squad. No; what grieves me most is the thought that we may never again meet. I hope to win my way to Chihuahua; I must win my way to—her! But can I then leave New Spain? Never one of Nolan's men has come home."
"It may chance that you will wish to stay, John."
"No, not even for her sake, unless—" I hesitated—"unless the Spanish creoles rise and throw off the rule of Old Spain."
"A revolution? That would be a grand opening for you!" His eyes flashed with militant fire, only to darken again with grief. "But the people of New Spain are too dispirited to revolt. If you linger in that tyrannical land, it will be as a prisoner in one of their foul gaols—or worse!"
"For her I'd risk the worst a thousand times over! Take cheer! They will never suspect me as a spy. The Le Lande claim will carry me through."