The monk laughed a low chuckling laugh.
"They will find the holy Hermitage equally well guarded on that side!" he said. And as they stood silent the rose of dawn began slowly to unfold itself over the tree-tops with that awful windless stillness which characterises the day-breaks of the south. The glades of the wood were filled with a glimmering filmy light, in which it was easy to imagine the spirits of the dead hovering over their earthly tenements.
The gipsies came on as usual, freely and easily, land pirates on their own ground, none able to make them afraid. They had been checked, it is true, at the palace. The royal guard (so they imagined) seemed to have returned unexpectedly thither, contrary to their information, but on the other hand they had successfully plundered all the storehouses, cellars, and despachos of the great square.
Some of them still carried botas of wine (the true "leather bottel") in their hands or swung across their shoulders, and ever and anon took a swig to keep their courage up as they came near. Some sang and shouted, for were they not going to rout the lazy monks, always rich in money and plate, out of their lurking places? Was it not they who had first tried to make Christians of the Romany, and by so doing had shown the government how to entrap them into their armies, subjecting the free blood of Egypt to their cursed drafts and conscriptions?
"To the knives' point with them, then!" they shouted. "They who prate so much of paradise, let them go thither, and that with speed!" This would be a rare jest to tell for forty years by many a swinging kettle, and while footing it in company over many a lonely and dispeopled heath.
Thus with laughter and shouting they came on, and to Rollo, peering eagerly over the battlements, the white-wrapped corpses along the walls seemed to turn slowly blood-red before his eyes—the flaunting crimson of the sky above contrasting with the green of the woods, and tinging even the white shrouds with its ominous hue. But still the gipsies came on.
First of all strode the man who had called himself the Executioner of Salamanca, Ezquerra, he who had saved the life of José Maria upon the scaffold. He came forward boldly enough, intending to thunder with his knife-handle upon the great door. But at the foot of the steps he stopped.
Looking to either hand, he saw, almost erect within their niches, a strange pair of figures, apparently wrapped in bloody raiment from head to foot. He staggered back nerveless and shaken.
"What are these faceless things?" he cried; "surely the evil spirits are here!" And in deadly fear he put his hand before his eyes lest his vision should be blasted by a portent.
And from the other side of the Hermitage came an answering cry of fear.