They let that lass go somewhat too
easily--eh, Andres?"

And the little ape-faced man, first sliding his dagger into its sheath
as they emerged upon an open rocky bit of road with a few tall
stone-pines all leaning back from the sea-winds, answered after his
fashion, biting his words maliciously as he uttered them.

"Yea, belike," he muttered; "indeed, it was a strange thing that within
five hundred yards of the sea, where they had their boat anchored ready,
they should not turn and fight for the prisoner. How many were there of
them, think you, Felieu?"

"Four I saw--and there might have been another. One cowered in the hood
of a cloak, as if he feared that his face would be seen----"

"That makes five, and we but three! The thing smells of an ambush. Well,
all we have to do is to be ready, and, if need be, fight like the Demon
of the South himself. It is our prisoner or the stake for you and me, my
lad!"

The little, ape-faced, bat-eared Andres, who had never told any what he
had been sent there for, was arguing the matter out by himself.

"There is something behind this," he said; "they have a card somewhere
we have not seen the front of."

They marched a while, the silence only broken by the fall of the mule's
feet on the stones.

"I have it," cried Andres, suddenly elevating his thin voice above a
whisper. It was only a squeak at best, but it aroused the First Familiar
from his dreams of honour at the mule's bridle.

"Silence there, you Andres," he commanded, "or by Saint Vincent I will
wring your neck!"

"Wring my neck! He dares not," snarled the little wrinkled man, with an
evil grin, in the darkness--"he dares not, big as he is, and he knows
it. He would find a dozen inches of steel ensconced between his ribs. If
I am no bigger than an ox-goad, I am burnt at the end, and can drive
home a sharp point with any man."

"Do not mind the hog," said Felieu the Esplugan. "What was it you
thought of?"

"That Don Raphael Llorient was out with a band of his lads from the
Castle of Collioure. Doubtless he headed them off from the boat, and
they had to save themselves as best they might. So they scattered among
the sand-hills!"

"Hum, perhaps--we shall see," said Felieu the Esplugan. "At any rate,
keep your eyes open and your knife ready to the five-finger grip. We
must kill, rather than let her go. You know the rule."

Indeed, they all knew the rule. No relaxation of the Arm Spiritual till
the culprit, a