“I also; but there are occasions. As likely as not this soldier would have been in the firing party told off to shoot you to-morrow morning. There would not have been much fair fight in that. And had I not killed him, we should both have been tried by drum-head court-martial, and shot or strangled to-night. This way. Now, I defy them to catch us.”
As he spoke, Carmen plunged into a heap of ruins by the wayside, with the intricacies of which, despite the darkness, he appeared to be quite familiar.
“Nobody will disturb us here,” he said at length, pausing under the shadow of a broken wall. “These are the ruins of the Church of Alta Gracia, which, in its fall during the great earthquake, killed several hundred worshippers. People say they are haunted; after dark nobody will come near them. But we must not stay many minutes. Take off the zambo’s shirt and trousers, and put on your shoes and stockings—there they are—and I shall doff my cloak of religion.”
“What next?”
“We must make off with all speed and by devious ways—though I think we have quite thrown our pursuers off the scent—to a house in the outskirts belonging to a friend of the cause, where we shall find horses, and start for the llanos before the moon rises, and the hue and cry can be raised.”
“What is the journey?”
“That depends on circumstances. Four or five days, perhaps. Vamanos! Time presses.”
We left the ruins at the side opposite to that at which we had entered them, and after traversing several by-streets and narrow lanes reached the open country, and walked on rapidly till we came to a lonesome house in a large garden.
Carmen went up to the door, whistled softly, and knocked thrice.
“Who is there?” asked a voice from within.