"Stop, mother; we cannot afford to have any Barranco de los Martires business this time! We are not in Granada within the gipsy barrio, remember, nor yet within hearing of the bells of Sevilla. Do as I bid you, and help me to bathe and bind up the scoundrel's pate."
The old woman did so with an air of protest, finally, however, consenting to make a plaster of certain herbs which she found in the household cabinet of simples, and having boiled them, applied the result like a turban to Don Tomas's unconscious crown.
All the while she murmured bitterly at intervals, "It is a pity! A pity! I do not believe he will die—unless, in spite of the Englishman, La Giralda has the nursing of him!"
Presently Ramon returned with his gun, which he would have set himself down to clean with the utmost nonchalance, if Rollo had not summoned him away to more important business.
"It is the accursed night-dew!" he said in explanation; "much depends on never putting off the drying and oiling of one's weapons."
"Now," said Rollo, "if you are ready, I in my turn should like to have my little interview with Don Luis!"
"You?" cried the outlaw, astonished.
Rollo nodded.
"Why not?" he said cheerfully; "we shall need his assistance very often to-day! Open the door, La Giralda."
The door clicked open, and there sat Luis Fernandez blinking upon a smuggled keg of French spirits, and in the corner the Tia's little black eyes twinkled like restless stars from her uneasy pillow.