‘There are certainly no Frenchmen anywhere about,’ said the little man, with a return to his indifferent manner.

‘Or robbers—ladrones?’

‘Ladrones en grande^*—no! Assuredly not,’ was the answer in a cold philosophical tone. ‘What is there left for them to do after the French? And nobody travels in these times. But who can say? Opportunity makes the robber. Still, that mariner of yours has a fierce aspect, and with the son of a cat rats will have no play. But there is a saying too, that where honey is, there will soon be flies.’

This oracular discourse exasperated Byrne. ‘In the name of God,’ he cried, ‘tell me plainly if you think my man is reasonably safe on his journey.’

The homunculus, undergoing one of his rapid changes, seized the officer’s arm. The grip of his little hand was astonishing. ‘Bernardino has taken notice of him. What more do you want, señor? And listen—men have disappeared on this road—on a certain portion of this road, when Bernardinc kept a meson, an inn, and I, his brother-in-law, had coaches and mules for hire. Now there are no travellers, no coaches. The French have ruined me. Bernardino has retired here for reasons of his own after my sister died. They were three to torment the life out of her, he and Erminia and Lucilla, two aunts of his—all affiliated to the devil. And now he has robbed me of my last mule. You are an armed man. Demand the macho from him, with a pistol to his head, señor—it is not his, I tell you—and ride after your man who is so precious to you. And then you shall both be safe, for no two travellers have been ever known to disappear together in those days. As to the beast, I, its owner, I confide it to your honour.’

They were staring hard at each other, and Byrne nearly burst into a laugh at the ingenuity and transparency of the little man’s plot to regain possession of his mule. But he had no difficulty to keep a straight face, because he felt deep within himself a strange inclination to do that very thing. He did not laugh, but his lip quivered; at which the diminutive Spaniard, detaching his black, glittering eyes from Byrne, turned his back on him brusquely with a gesture and a fling of the cloak which somehow expressed contempt, bitterness and discouragement all at once. He turned away and stood still, his hat aslant, muffled up to the ears. But he was not offended to the point of refusing the silver duro^* which Byrne offered him with a non-committal speech as if nothing extraordinary had passed between them.

‘I must make haste on board now,’ said Byrne then.

‘Vaya usted con Dios,’^* muttered the gnome. And this interview ended with a sarcastic low sweep of the hat, which was replaced at the same perilous angle as before.

Directly the boat had been hoisted the sloop’s sails were filled on the offshore tack, and Byrne imparted the whole story to his captain, who was but a very few years older than himself. There was some amused indignation at it—but while they laughed they looked gravely at each other. A Spanish dwarf trying to induce an officer of His Majesty’s Navy to steal a mule for him—that was too funny, too ridiculous, too incredible. Those were the exclamations of the captain. He couldn’t get over the grotesqueness of it.

‘Incredible. That’s just it,’ murmured Byrne at last, in a significant tone.

They exchanged a long stare. ‘It’s as clear as daylight,’ affirmed the captain impatiently, because in his heart he was not certain. And Tom, the best seaman in the ship for one, the good-humouredly deferential friend of his boyhood for the other, was becoming endowed with a compelling fascination, like a symbolic figure of loyalty appealing to their feelings and their conscience, so that they could not detach their thoughts from his safety. Several times they went up on deck, only to look at the coast as if it could tell them something of his fate. It stretched away, lengthening in the distance, mute, naked and savage, veiled now and then by the slanting, cold shafts of rain. The westerly swell rolled its interminable angry lines of foam, and big dark clouds flew over the ship in a sinister procession.