THE LONELY POSADA.
Night had come on before Lucius, on foot, and carrying a small
carpet-bag, entered the lane in which stood the lonely posada. The
night was dark, for the sky was unusually cloudy, and the moon had not
yet risen. Lucius was guided by the lights which gleamed from the
window of the inn to which he was bound.
"What shall be my plan of operations?" thought the young Englishman,
as he groped his way along the dark road, not infrequently stumbling
against the large stones which lay in his path. "I must conceal my
object, or I am likely to defeat it. I must make no inquiries
regarding Chico, but keep both my eyes and ears open to receive
whatever information may come in my way. Heaven speed my efforts, and
keep me from stumbling blindly on the difficult and possibly dangerous
course on which I have entered!"
Lucius reached the posada, of which the entrance, as usual, was open.
There was neither porter nor hostler visible, and the Englishman,
unquestioned, crossed the threshold, and found himself in a large
stone-paved apartment which, from its scent, he judged to be a stable.
This communicated through an open archway with another similarly paved
apartment, which from the same organ of smell was easily recognized as
the kitchen of the posada.
It was a strange and wild-looking place, that Spanish hostelry, as the
interior was seen by the light of a single iron lamp suspended from
the bare rafters, and a fire in the kitchen, round which a group of
dark figures appeared, engaged in smoking. Several other forms,
enwrapped in mantles, and apparently sleeping, encumbered the floor of
the stable. Its recesses were probably occupied by mules,--at least so
thought Lucius, from the occasional sound of a snort, or the click of
a hoof striking the stones; but the place was too dark for him to take
in at a glance all that its depths might contain.
Lucius, taking care not to brush against the sleepers as he passed
them, walked through the stable into the kitchen, the atmosphere of
which was heavy with mingled odours of stale tobacco, puchero, rancid
oil, and garlic.
"I wish you good evening, gentlemen," said Lucius, raising his hat to
the smokers before the fire, who scarcely turned their heads as he
entered. "Where is the landlord of the posada?"
The question was answered by a heavy, dark-featured man slowly rising
from the cane-bottomed chair which he had occupied, and taking a
cigarillo from his mouth. The landlord, for it was he, turned and
surveyed the stranger with a scrutinizing stare which was not
expressive of welcome.
"Can I lodge here to-night?" asked Lepine.
"A caballero and Inglesito," muttered the landlord gruffly, after his
survey of his guest. "He must have a room to himself, I trow."
"Presently," replied young Lepine; "but I should now prefer joining
these gentlemen at the fire." He hoped that something might be dropped
in conversation that might serve as a clue to guide him in his search
for Chico.
No one, not even the surly landlord, gave up his place to the
stranger; the courtesy so natural to Spaniards was not shown on the
present occasion. There being no unoccupied seat, Lucius set down his
bag on the floor, folded his arms, and stood near enough to the huge
fireplace to scrutinize by the red glare the features of those who
formed a semicircle before it. An ill-favoured set they mostly were,
but Chico was not amongst them.
Politics appeared to be the favourite topic of conversation amongst
these Spaniards. Lucius made several not very successful attempts to
turn it into the channel which would have better suited his views. The
Englishman spoke of the arrest of De Aguilera; some of the smokers had
heard of it, but merely shrugged their shoulders and went on puffing
their cigarillos, as if the affair were one in which they felt no deep
concern.
"Is reading the Scriptures an offence against the law?" inquired
Lucius.
"The law!" mockingly repeated one of the Spaniards, who wore his
peaked hat with a suspiciously brigand-like air. "The law is a net
that spreads its meshes far and wide to catch the flies and
mosquitoes; but the big wasps, with their rings of gold, break through
it easily enough."
"So the net wants mending," growled a comrade at his side.
"Or tearing to bits," laughed another of the guests; and the laugh was
echoed by his companions.
Lucius perseveringly renewed his inquiries as soon as the rude mirth
had subsided.
"Is the report true," he demanded, "that Don Alcala's own servant is
his accuser?" The Englishman purposely addressed the question to the
landlord.
"Who knows? I do not trouble myself about the matter," was the
careless reply. There was nothing in the hard, stolid countenance,
though Lucius surveyed it keenly, to betray the slightest intelligence
on the subject. Lucius was unable to draw the smallest information
from either the landlord or his guests.
The conversation reverted to politics. Some of the sentiments of the
speaker were expressed in language so enigmatical as to be almost
unintelligible to a stranger. Lucius noticed that one of the men
sharpened his huge knife against the sole of his boot; and that he who
looked like a brigand examined the priming of his pistol.
After about an hour had been spent in smoking and talking, one after
another the Spaniards rose from their seats; each wrapped himself in
his mantero, and without further toilet stretched himself to rest on
the floor. Lucius then asked the landlord to show him his room.
The Spaniard lighted a torch, and with slow deliberate steps led the
way up a rude staircase, which might more properly be termed a ladder.
When he had reached the top, he ushered his guest into an attic-room,
sufficiently spacious, but so low that the head of the Englishman
almost touched the smoke-blackened rafters, for ceiling there was
none.
The landlord stuck the torch into an iron ring which projected from
the wall, but ere he did so, held it near to Lucius, so that the light
might flash on the Englishman's face.
"I take it you're the Inglesito who brought the Book to the house of
Don Alcala," said he.
"How know you that an Englishman ever visited that house?" asked the
young man quickly. He half repented that he had put the question, such
an expression of dark suspicion and threatening insolence passed
across the visage of the Spaniard. That look was the landlord's only
reply; as soon as he had fitted the torch into the iron ring, he left
the chamber without even the common courtesy of bidding his guest
"good-night."
Lucius examined his lodging-place carefully as soon as he found
himself alone. There was scarcely an article of furniture within the
room, save a three-legged stool and a bed. The latter was so
disgustingly filthy, that for a resting-place Lucius would have
preferred even the unswept, dirt-stained floor. There was no ornament
in the apartment, unless a little plaster image of some saint in a
niche could be called by that name. Almost all the panes in the window
had been broken away, and the night-breeze, finding free passage, made
the torch flicker and flare. This dreary guest-chamber in the lonely
posada was just one which imagination might picture as the scene of a
midnight murder.
Lucius was on his guard; he had no intention of sleeping that night;
he made no attempt to undress; ablutions were out of the question, for
the room contained neither basin nor water. The young man looked to
the priming of his pistol, then seated himself near the window, and
gave himself up to reflection.
"I am as certain as I am of my own existence that yon landlord knows
of the robbery committed by Chico, and that he is the villain's
accomplice. The thief is probably at this moment concealed in the
house, for he is scarcely likely, encumbered with his booty, to have
travelled far from Seville by daylight. That Chico should willingly
stay to appeal at the trial of his deeply-wronged master I cannot for
a moment believe. The robber's one object will be to get clear off
with the jewels and plate, for it would be ruin to him were it to be
known that such treasure is in his possession. But how could I--even
should I succeed in discovering the lurking-place of this
Chico--rescue that treasure from his grasp, and restore it to its
rightful owner? I am not in England, where I should have the power of
the law to back me. Unless report do them injustice, some of the
alguazils are as much robbers as are the brigands whom they affect to
pursue; nay, the very magistrates themselves, it is said, can scarcely
be trusted. A foreigner like myself, destitute of interest or money,
would have as much chance of wrenching the property of Aguilera out of
the clutch of thieves, licensed or unlicensed, as of moving the rock
of Gibraltar. I am far more likely to get myself into trouble, than
Aguilera out of it, by any appeal to Spanish justice. It seems
probable enough that I shall never have the opportunity even of making
such appeal; I do not now hold the safest of positions, if I have read
the look of that landlord aright. I may have unwelcome visitors
to-night, and may as well look to the fastenings of the door."
Lucius rose from his seat and went up to the door; there was neither
bolt nor bar on its inner side, nothing but a rusty latch; the
occupant of the room had no means whatever of shutting out an
intruder. This confirmed the suspicions of Lucius: he lifted the
latch, and tried to pull open the door, but it resisted all his
attempts. The door had been locked on the outside, and the young
Englishman started to find himself indeed a prisoner in his attic. To
add to his alarm, at the same moment the flame of the torch suddenly
went out, and the room was left in total darkness, save for a faint
white light through the window which told that the moon was rising.
The position of the young man was one to try the mettle of a hero.
Lucius found himself, for the first time, confronted with serious
danger, and that danger of a kind from which the boldest might shrink.
The idea of possible assassination in a lonely inn, under the cover of
darkness, and in a country where deeds of blood were too common to
make it likely that there would be any strict search for his body,
made a creeping sensation of horror thrill through the Englishman's
frame. But the spirit of Lucius struggled against and overmastered the
feeling of fear. He ejaculated a prayer to One who can see in
darkness, and protect in danger, and braced himself with firm
resolution to encounter the worst that might happen.
"They shall find me no easy victim, if it come to a struggle," said
the young man to himself; "with God and a good cause I will not fear
the villany of man."
There being no means of exit by the door, the captive naturally turned
to the window. Like the rest of the building, the casement had been
very roughly constructed, and had never been made to open. The dry-rot
had, however, got into the wood, and the whole framework was much
decayed.
"I think that this might give way under the strong wrench of the arm
of a desperate man," muttered Lucius to himself; and he forthwith
made an energetic attempt to force out some of the bars. A few violent
shakes did the work, and the Englishman had soon broken away enough of
the frame to make an aperture sufficiently wide to admit of the
passage of his body. Gasping from the physical effort, Lucius paused
to listen whether the noise which he had made had roused any of the
inmates of the posada. The attic was not over the kitchen; apparently
no one had heard him, for the dead silence was only broken by the wail
of the wind.
Lucius leaned out of the window and glanced down, to judge if escape
were practicable. The room was at the back side of the posada, and the
casement opened on a waste bit of ground which, as far as could be
seen in the dim light, appeared to be a mere receptacle for rubbish,
and not fenced in by any paling or wall. The height of the casement
from the ground was not so considerable that an active man, holding by
the window-sill, might not drop down without any very great risk of
breaking a limb. Had the iron ring fixed in the wall been near enough
to the window to have been available for a fastening, Lucius might
have torn the sheet into strips, and by means of such an improvised
rope have let himself down to the ground. But the ring was at the
further corner of the room, and there were such difficulties in the
way of making such a rope that Lucius dismissed from his mind a scheme
which must have involved considerable delay, when every minute was
precious.
The young man was cool enough to take every needful precaution to
avoid crippling himself by a fall. The cloak, which would have impeded
his motions, he flung out at the window, and the bedclothes followed,
to lessen the chance of his spraining an ankle, or breaking a bone.
His pistol the young man replaced in his belt; it must indeed add to
the difficulty of passing through a narrow aperture, but Lucius would
not leave so trusty a friend behind him.
"They will find the bird flown," said Lucius to himself, as, with as
little noise as possible, he passed first one limb, and then another,
through the hole in the broken frame. He had no small trouble in
trying to avoid cutting himself with the fragments of glass which
still, here and there, stuck in the wood. It was a work of time and
difficulty to get his whole body free, while he retained a firm grasp
on the sill. At last this task was effected; for an instant Lucius
hung by his hands--then let go--and with a gasp of relief the late
prisoner found himself safe on the ground.