n chuckled a little when the Englishman remarked upon their
danger, and tapped his long rifle significantly.

"The danger of the Cristino soldier, you mean," he said, "why, masters
mine, I could lead you to a place from which you might shoot yonder lad
so secretly that his comrades would never know from what quarter arrived
his death."

It was evening ere they drew near the village of Sarria, which lay, a
drift of rusty red roofs and whitewashed walls beneath the tumbled
Aragonese foot-hills. The river ran nearly dry in its channel and the
mill had stopped. There was not enough water to drive the clacking
undershot wheel of Luis Fernandez the comfortable, propertied miller of
Sarria, who had been so cruelly wounded by the outlaw Ramon on the night
when he claimed shelter from the Carlist monks of Montblanch. Ah, well,
all that would soon be at an end, so at least they whispered in Sarria!
If all tales were true, monks, monastery tithes, and rights of
sanctuary, they would all go together. The wise politicians at Madrid,
eager for their country's good (and certain advantages upon the stock
exchange), were about to pass the besom of destruction over the
religious houses, sweeping away in a common ruin grey friar and white
friar and black friar. Nay, the salaried parish priests would find
themselves sadly docked, and even stout Father Mateo himself was
beginning to quake in his shoes and draw his girdle tighter by a hole at
a time to prepare for the event.

So at least the bruit went forth, and though none save the Prior of
Montblanch and his confidant knew anything for certain, the air was full
of rumours; while between the Carlist war and the report of the great
coming changes, the minds of men were growing grievously unsettled.
Honest folk and peaceful citizens now went about armed. The men sat
longer at the _cafes_. They returned later home. They spoke more sharply
to their wives when they asked of them why these things were so.

By the little village gate where Gaspar Perico, the chief representative
of the town dues of Sarria, sat commonly at the receipt of custom, a
group of men occupied a long bench, with their pints of wine and the
sweet syrup of pomegranates before them, as is the custom of Aragon on
summer evenings.

The venta of Sarria was kept by a nephew of Gaspar's, the octroi man,
one recently come to the district. His name was Esteban, and like his
uncle he had already got him the name of a "valiant,"