their earthly tenements.

The gipsies came on as usual, freely and easily, land pirates on their
own ground, none able to make them afraid. They had been checked, it is
true, at the palace. The royal guard (so they imagined) seemed to have
returned unexpectedly thither, contrary to their information, but on the
other hand they had successfully plundered all the storehouses, cellars,
and _despachos_ of the great square.

Some of them still carried _botas_ of wine (the true "leather bottel")
in their hands or swung across their shoulders, and ever and anon took a
swig to keep their courage up as they came near. Some sang and shouted,
for were they not going to rout the lazy monks, always rich in money and
plate, out of their lurking places? Was it not they who had first tried
to make Christians of the Romany, and by so doing had shown the
government how to entrap them into their armies, subjecting the free
blood of Egypt to their cursed drafts and conscriptions?

"To the knives' point with them, then!" they shouted. "They who prate so
much of paradise, let them go thither, and that with speed!" This would
be a rare jest to tell for forty years by many a swinging kettle, and
while footing it in company over many a lonely and dispeopled heath.

Thus with laughter and shouting they came on, and to Rollo, peering
eagerly over the battlements, the white-wrapped corpses along the walls
seemed to turn slowly blood-red before his eyes--the flaunting crimson
of the sky above contrasting with the green of the woods, and tinging
even the white shrouds with its ominous hue. But still the gipsies came
on.

First of all strode the man who had called himself the Executioner of
Salamanca, Ezquerra, he who had saved the life of Jose Maria upon the
scaffold. He came forward boldly enough, intending to thunder with his
knife-handle upon the great door. But at the foot of the steps he
stopped.

Looking to either hand, he saw, almost erect within their niches, a
strange pair of figures, apparently wrapped in bloody raiment from head
to foot. He staggered back nerveless and shaken.

"What are these faceless things?" he cried; "surely the evil spirits are
here!" And in deadly fear he put his hand before his eyes lest his
vision should be blasted by a portent.

And from the other side of the Hermitage came an answering cry of fear.

"Be brave, Ezquerra!" called out one behind him; "'tis nothing--only
some monk's trick!"

Ezquerra ove