of the jail. Men detached
themselves from the crowd, and went running about to announce my
arrival. The _alcayde_ drew his long body into the _patio_, and turned
to lock the little door with an immense key. In the crowd all sorts
of little movements happened. Women crossed themselves, and furtively
thrust pairs of crooked, skinny, brown, black-nailed fingers in my
direction. The man like Caesar said:

"I ask your pardon, Senor Caballero. I did not know. How could I tell?
You are free of all the _patios_ in this land."

The tall _alcayde_ finished grinding the immense key in the lock, and
touched me on the arm.

"If the senor will follow me," he said. "I will do the honours of this
humble mansion, and indicate a choice of rooms where he may be free from
the visits of these gentry."

We went up steps, and through long, shadowy corridors, with here and
there a dark, lounging figure, like a stag seen in the dim aisles of a
wood. The _alcayde_ threw open a door.

The room was like a blazing oblong-box, filled with light, but without
window or chimney. Two men were fencing in the illumination of some
twenty candles stuck all round the mildewed white walls on lumps of
clay. There was a blaze of silver things, like an altar of a wealthy
church, from a black, carved table in the far corner. The two men, in
shirts and breeches, revolved round each other, their rapiers clinking,
their left arms scarved, holding buttoned daggers. The _alcayde_
proclaimed:

"Don Vincente Salazar, I have the honour to announce an English senor."

The man with his face to me tossed his rapier impatiently into a corner.
He was a plump, dark Cuban, with a brooding truculence. The other faced
round quickly. His cheeks shone in the candle-light like polished yellow
leather, his eyes were narrow slits, his face lugubrious. He scrutinized
me intently, then drawled:

"My! You?... Hang me if I didn't think it would be you!"

He had the air of surveying a monstrosity, and pulled the neck of his
dirty print shirt open, panting. He slouched out into the corridor, and
began whispering eagerly to the _alcayde_. The little Cuban glowered at
me; I said I had the honour to salute him.

He muttered something contemptuous between his teeth. Well, if he didn't
want to talk to me, I didn't want to talk to him. It had struck me that
the tall, sallow man was undoubtedly the second mate of the _Thames_.
Nicholas, the real Nikola el Escoces! The Cuban grumbled su