e away from the door. "Two __Lugarenos__,"
he said, "Manuel and another one, did go last night, as directed by the
friar"--he supposed--"to meet the _Juez_ in the bush outside Rio Medio."

I had guessed that much, and told him of Manuel's behaviour under my
window. How did they know my chamber?

"Bad, bad," muttered Castro. "La Chica told her lover, no doubt." He
hissed, and stamped his foot.

She was pretty, but flighty. The lover was a silly boy of decent,
Christian parents, who was always hanging about in the low villages. No
matter.

What he could not understand was why some boats should have been held in
readiness till nearly the morning to tow a schooner outside. Manuel came
along at dawn, and dismissed the crews. They had separated, making a
great noise on the beach, and yelling, "Death to the _Inglez!_"

I cleared up that point for him. He told me that O'Brien had the duenna
called to his room that morning. Nothing had been heard outside, but the
woman came out staggering, with her hand on the wall. He had terrified
her. God knows what he had said to her. The widow--as Castro called
her--had a son, an _escrivano_ in one of the Courts of Justice. No doubt
it was that.

"There it is, Senor," murmured Castro, scowling all round, as if every
wall of the room was an enemy. "He holds all the people in his hand in
some way. Even I must be cautious, though I am a humble, trusted friend
of the Casa!"

"What harm could he do you?" I asked.

"He is civil to me. _Amigo Castro_ here, and _Amigo Castro_ there. Bah!
The devil, alone, is his friend! He could deliver me to justice, and get
my life sworn away. He could------_Quien sabe?_ What need he care what
he does--a man that can get absolution from the archbishop himself if he
likes."

He meditated. "No! there is only one remedy for him." He tiptoed to my
ear. "The knife!"

He made a pass in the air with his blade, and I remembered vividly the
cockroach he had impaled with such accuracy on board the _Thames_. His
baneful glance reminded me of his murderous capering in the steerage,
when he had thought that the only remedy for _me_ was the knife.

He went to the loop-hole, and passed the steel thoughtfully on the stone
edge. I had not moved.

"The knife; but what would you have? Before, when I talked of this
to Don Carlos, he only laughed at me. That was his way in matters of
importance. Now they will not let me come in to him. He is too near
God--and the Seno