l a league and a half away. He addressed himself to the
task of reaching it, and we may suppose Manuela respected his efforts.
At any rate, there was silence between the pair for the better part of
an hour--what time the unwinking sun, vertically overhead, deprived
them of so much as the sight of their own shadows, and drove the very
crows with wings adust to skulk in the furrows. The shrilling of
crickets, the stumbling hoofs of an overtaxed horse, and the creaking
of saddle and girth made a din in the deadly stillness of this fervent
noon, and, since there was no other sound to be heard, it is hard to
tell how Manvers was aware of a traveller behind him, unless he was
served by the sixth sense we all have, to warn as that we are not alone.

Sure enough, when he looked over his shoulder, he was aware of a donkey
and his rider drawing smoothly and silently near. The pair of them
were so nearly of the colour of the ground, he had to look long to be
sure; and as he looked, Manuela suddenly leaned sideways and saw what
he saw. It was just as if she had received a stroke of the sun. She
stiffened; he felt the thrill go through her; and when she resumed her
first position she was another person.

CHAPTER V

THE AMBIGUOUS THIRD

"God save your grace," said Esteban; for it was he who, sitting well
back upon his donkey's rump, with exceedingly bright eyes and a
cheerful grin, now forged level with Manvers and his burdened steed.

Manvers gave him a curt "Good-day," and thought him an impudent
fellow--which was not justified by anything Esteban had done. He had
been discretion itself; and, indeed, to his eyes there had been nothing
of necessity remarkable in the pair on the horse. If a lady--Duchess
or baggage--happened to be sharing the gentleman's saddle, an
arrangement must be presumed, which could not possibly concern himself.
That is the reasonable standpoint of a people who mind their own
business and credit their neighbours with the same preoccupation.

But Manvers was an Englishman, and could not for the life of him
consider Esteban as anything but a puppy for seeing him in a
compromising situation. So much was he annoyed that he did not remark
any longer that Manuela was another person, sitting stiffly, strained
against his arm, every muscle on the stretch, as taut as a ship's cable
in the tideway, her face in rigid profile to the newcomer.

Esteban was in no way put out. "Many good days light upon