This lent additional piquancy to the game—when it became necessary to snatch a condemned prisoner from the very heart of the Spanish camp, the glory attending success would be all the greater.
Not that Roderic sought additional sources of danger—he would have been satisfied with much less, since his one purpose was to save Leon and win his sister.
A clock in the city boomed the hour.
"I am on time—now to see if my fellow laborer has reached the rendezvous," Roderic muttered.
At one point the shadow of the corner tower fell athwart the white road and here he turned.
A little birdlike trill greeted his ears—it might have proceeded from some feathered songster ensconced among the leafy vines that covered the rugged wall, and which had been disturbed by his stealthy advance.
The American seemed to believe otherwise, for he quickly imitated the sound.
Whereupon there appeared a figure from behind a buttressed base of the tower wall, a figure that approached him at first eagerly, then coyly.
Roderic took several steps forward to meet the half unwilling advance of the other.