"You ride quickly," the Portuguese _aduanista_ said; "seek some others, perhaps, who come before you?" and he addressed himself to my companion, probably because he bore the passports. Then continued: "If 'tis a señor and señora you desire, they are in the _fonda_ half a league further on."
"_They_," he said, "'_They!_' God be praised!" I murmured. Had any tragedy occurred it would not have been "they."
Not waiting to answer, but briefly nodding my thanks, we went on, the last half league dwindling to little more than paces now.
And then I saw the _fonda_, a place no bigger than a wooden cabin, I saw a woman seated on a bench outside against its wall, her elbows upon her knees, her dark head buried in her hands.
She heard the ring of our horses' hoofs upon the road, all sodden as it was with half-melted snow, and sprang to her feet--then advanced some paces and, shading her eyes, looked up the way that we were coming; dashed next her hand across those eyes as though doubting what she saw, and ran down the road toward us.
As I leapt from my horse she screamed, "Mervan!" and threw herself into my arms, her lips meeting mine in one long kiss, then staggered back some paces from me, exclaiming:
"How! How, oh, my love, how--how have you escaped--found your way here--to me?"
"How?" I repeated after her, startled at the question; startled, too, at the tone of her voice. "How! Do I not owe my salvation to you--to your power over him--the Alcáide?"
"My God! No!" she answered. "Never would he have aided you to escape." Then, suddenly, as some thought struck her, she screamed aloud: "Mervan--Mervan--where is my unhappy father?"
"No! No! No! Oh, God! what has happened? Has he been left behind to meet his doom?"
And, as she spoke, she reeled and would have fallen had I not caught her in my arms.
He had been left behind--and I was here! He whose escape had been arranged for was still a prisoner--I, whose doom had been fixed, was free.
What did it mean? What mystery had taken place?
One glance toward the _fonda_ fifty yards away was sufficient to show that mystery there was--as unintelligible to another as to Juana. And more than mystery!--that my presence here was as hateful as unexpected, to one person at least. To Morales, the Alcáide!