suspected that his legs either wandered or that he measured
some of the course twice over. The Bay of Rosas could contain all the
navies of the world. A notable harbour in peace or war, with its
watch-tower at either side, and its strong castle in the midst, it was
no inconsiderable place in the reign of the Golden Philip.

Even in these last years when the gold was becoming dim, when its late
array of war-ships had mostly found a resting-place on the rocky
skerries of Ireland or the Hebrides, there were sometimes as many as six
or eight king's ships in the bay--a fact which John d'Albret had omitted
to reckon in his forecast of chances concerning the harbourage of Rosas.

The landlord of the Parador was a jovial, bustling man--a type not
Spanish but purely Catalan. In the rest of Spain, your landlord shows
himself little, if at all. Generally you serve yourself, and if you want
anything you have not brought, you buy it in the town and descend to the
kitchen to cook it. But the host of the Inn of Rosas was omnipresent,
loquacious, insistent, not to be abashed or shaken off.

He met the Abbe John on the doorstep, and taking in at a glance his
frayed court suit, his military bearing, and the long sword that swung
at his heels, the landlord bowed low, yet with vigilant eyes aslant to
measure the chances of this young ruffler having a well-filled purse.

"Your Excellency," he cried, "you do honour to yourself, whoever you may
be, by coming to seek lodgings at the hostel of La Cabeladura d'Oro, as
we say in our Catalan. Doubtless you have come seeking for a place and
pay from Philip our king. A place you may have for the asking--the pay
not so surely. It behooves me therefore to ask whether you desire to eat
in my house at the Table Solvent or at the Table Expectant?"

"I do not gather your meaning, mine host," said John d'Albret haughtily.

"Nay, I am a plain man," said the landlord, "and you may read my name
above my door--Sileno Lorent y Valvidia. That tells all about me.
Therein, you see, you have the advantage of me. I know nothing about
you, save that you arrive at my door with a cocked bonnet and a long
sword."

John d'Albret felt that it was no time to resent this Catalan
_brusquerie_. Indeed, he himself was enough of a Gascon to respect the
man's aplomb. For what would be rudeness intentional in a Castilian, in
a man of Catalonia is only the rough nature of the borderer coming out.
So the Abbe John answered hi