dress as a nun in
order to alarm Marcos, and Sarrion's grave remark that it would of a
certainty frighten him.

They were silent for a moment. Then Juanita spoke with a sort of forced
lightness.

"You may have only one arm," she said, "but it is an astonishingly strong
one!"

And she looked at him surreptitiously beneath her lashes as she stood
with her hands on her hair.

CHAPTER XXVII

IN THE CLOUDS
Marcos tied his horse to a tree and led the way towards the cottage. It
seemed to be innocent of bars and bolts. The ford, known to so few, and
the evil name of the Wolf, served instead. The door opened at a push, and
Marcos went in. A wood-fire smouldered on an open hearth, while the acrid
smoke half-filled the room, blackened by the fumes of peat and charcoal.

Marcos stood on the threshold and called the owner by name. There was a
shuffling sound in an inner room and the scraping of a match. A minute
later a door was opened and an old woman stood in the aperture, fully
dressed and carrying a lamp above her head.

"Ah!" she said. "It is you. I thought it was the voice of a friend. And
you have your pretty wife there. What are you doing abroad at this hour
... the Carlists?"

"Yes," answered Marcos, rather quickly, "the Carlists. We cannot pass by
the road, so have sent the carriage back and are going across the
mountains."

The woman held up her hands and shook them from side to side in a gesture
of horror.

"Ah! but there!" she cried, "I know what you are. There is no turning
your back on your road. If you say you will go--you will go though it
rain rocks. But this child--ah, dear, dear! You do not know what you have
married--with your bright eyes. Sit down, my child. I will get you what I
can. Some coffee. I am alone in the house. All my men have gone to the
high valley, now that the snow is gone, to collect wood and to see what
the winter has done for our hut up in the mountain."

Marcos thanked her, and explained that they wanted nothing but a roof
under which to leave his horse.

"We are going up to the higher valley to-night," he said, "where we shall
find your husband and sons. And at daylight we must hurry on to Torre
Garda. But I want to borrow a dress and handkerchief belonging to one of
your daughters. See, the Senora cannot walk in that one, which is too
fine and too long."

"Oh, but my daughters ..." exclaimed the old woman, with deprecating
hands.

"They are very pretty girls," a