"Where the deuce am I?"
It was Florence Kearney who asked this question, interrogating himself;
time, the morning after their retreat up the mountain. He was lying on
a low pallet, or rather bench of mason work, with a palm mat spread over
it, his only coverlet the cloak he had brought with him from Don
Ignacio's carriage. The room was of smallest dimensions, some eight or
nine feet square, pierced by a single window, a mere pigeon-hole without
sash or glass.
He was yet only half awake, and, as his words show, with but a confused
sense of his whereabouts. His brain was in a whirl from the excitement
through which he had been passing, so long sustained. Everything around
seemed weird and dream-like.
Rubbing his eyes to make sure it was a reality, and raising his head
from the hard pillow, he took stock of what the room contained. An easy
task that. Only a ricketty chair, on which lay a pair of duelling
pistols--one of the pairs found under the carriage cushions--and his hat
hanging on its elbow. Not a thing more except a bottle, greasy around
the neck, from a tallow candle that had guttered and burnt out, standing
on the uncarpeted stone floor beside his own boots, just as he had drawn
them off.
Why he had not noticed these surroundings on the night before was due to
extreme fatigue and want of sleep. Possibly, the Burgundy, mixed with
the Madeira and Old Pedro Ximenes, had something to do with it. In any
case he had dropped down upon the mat of palm, and became oblivious,
almost on the moment of his entering this strange sleeping chamber, to
which the mayor-domo had conducted him.
"Queer crib it is," he continued to soliloquise, after making survey of
the room and its containings, "for a bedroom. I don't remember ever
having slept in so small a one, except aboard ship, or in a prison-cell.
How like the last it looks!"
It did somewhat, though not altogether. There were points of
difference, as a niche in the wall, with a plaster cast on a plinth,
apparently the image of some saint, with carvings in the woodwork,
crosses, and other emblems of piety.
"It must be an old convent or monastery," he thought, after noticing
these. "Here in Mexico they often have them in odd, out-of-the-way
places, I've heard. Out of the way this place surely is, considering
the climb we've had to reach it. Monks in it, too?" he added, recalling
the two men he had seen on the preceding night, and how they where
habited. "A strange sort they seem, with a _captain_ at their head--my
prison companion! Well, if it give us sanctuary, as he appears to think
it will, I shall be but too glad to join the holy brotherhood."
He lay a little longer, his eyes running around the room, to note that
the rough lime-wash on its walls had not been renewed for years; green
moss had grown upon them, and there were seams at the corners, stains
showing were rainwater had run down. If a monastery, it was evidently
not one in the enjoyment of present prosperity, whatever it might have
been in the past.
While still dreamily conjecturing about it, the door of his room was
gently pushed ajar, and so held by whoever had opened it. Turning his
head round, Kearney saw a man in long loose robes, with sandalled feet
and shaven crown, girdle of beads, crucifix, cowl, and scapular--in
short, the garb of the monk with all its insignia.
"I have come to inquire how you have slept, my son," said the holy man,
on seeing that he was awake. "I hope that the pure atmosphere of this,
our mountain home--so different from that you've been so lately
breathing--will have proved conducive to your slumbers."
"Indeed, yes," rejoined he inquired after, conscious of having slept
well. "I've had a good night's rest--the best allowed me for a long
time. But where--"
While speaking, he had dropped his feet to the floor, and raised himself
erect on the side of the bed, thus bringing him face to face with the
friar. What caused him to leave the interrogatory unfinished was a
recognition. The countenance he saw was a familiar one, as might be
expected after having been so close to his own--within a few feet of
it--for days past. No disguise of dress, nor changed tonsure, could
hinder identification of the man who had partaken of his chain in the
Acordada; for he it was.
"Oh! 'tis you, Don Ruperto!" exclaimed Kearney, suddenly changing tone.
"The same, my son," rejoined the other, with an air of mock gravity.