Also we learnt that it behooved us to be very careful when we set out next day, or we might find it impossible to enter Spain, which now lay close at hand, and separated only by the Minho from this place; or, being in, might find it hard to go forward.
"For," said the host, a filthy, unkempt creature who looked as though he were more accustomed to attending to cattle in their sheds than to human beings, but who by great good fortune was able to speak broken French, "at Tuy, where you must pass into Spain, they are rigourous now as to papers, letting none enter who are not properly provided. _Basto!_ 'tis not a week ago that one went forward who was passed through with difficulty. And a Spaniard, too, though from the Indies."
"From the Indies!" exclaimed Juan, with impetuosity. "From the Indies! Why, so am I and--and this señor," looking at me, "both from the Indies. Therefore, we can pass also, I should suppose."
"Oh, for that," answered the man, "I know not. Yet this old man went through, somehow. He had come up from the south--from Cadiz, as I think, or Cartagena, or the Sierras--in a great coach and four, travelled as a prince, had good provisions with him, and ho!--he gave me to taste of it!--some strong waters that made me feel like a prince, too, though the good God knows I am none!" and he cast his eyes round the filthy room into which we had been shown. "Also, he had his papers all regular; also," and here he gave a glance at us of unspeakable cunning, "he was generous and open-handed. That spared him much trouble."
"Perhaps 'twill spare us, too!" again exclaimed Juan. "We can also be generous and open-handed."
"It will do much. Yet the papers! The papers! Have you the papers?"
Now, we had no papers whatsoever that would stand us in such stead; therefore, when we were alone together in the room which was to be ours, and in which there were two miserable, dirty-looking beds, side by side, covered with sheepskins for coverlets--and perhaps for blankets, too!--we fell to discussing what must be done; for it was at once plain and easy to see that at Tuy we should never get through. I had no papers nor passports whatever, while Juan bore about him only those which proved that he was a subject of England.