Though we trudge
hence with nothing but the rags on our backs, we shall be no worse off
to-morrow than we were this morning."

"Why, that's true enough!" cries he, plucking up his courage. "Let the
thieving rascal take our poor nag and our things for his payment, and
much good may they do him. We will wipe this out of our memory the
moment we leave his cursed inn behind us."

It seemed to me that this would not greatly advance us, and maybe Don
Sanchez thought the same, for he presently asks:

"And what then?"

"Why, Senor," replies Dawson, "we will face each new buffet as it comes,
and make a good fight of it till we're beat. A man may die but once."

"You think only of yourselves," says the Don, very quietly.

"And pray, saving your Senor's presence, who else should we think of?"

"The child above," answers the Don, a little more sternly than he had
yet spoken. "Is a young creature like that to bear the buffets you are
so bold to meet? Can you offer her no shelter from the wind and rain but
such as chance offers? make no provision for the time when she is left
alone, to protect her against the evils that lie in the path of
friendless maids?"

"God forgive me," says Jack, humbly. And then we could say nothing, for
thinking what might befall Moll if we should be parted, but sat there
under the keen eye of Don Sanchez, looking helplessly into the fire. And
there was no sound until Jack's pipe, slipping from his hand, fell and
broke in pieces upon the hearth. Then rousing himself up and turning to
Don Sanchez, he says:

"The Lord help her, Senor, if we find no good friend to lend us a few
shillings for our present wants."

"Good friends are few," says the Don, "and they who lend need some
better security for repayment than chance. For my own part, I would as
soon fling straws to a drowning man as attempt to save you and that
child from ruin by setting you on your feet to-day only to fall again
to-morrow."

"If that be so, Senor," says I, "you had some larger view in mind than
that of offering temporary relief to our misery when you gave us a
supper and Moll a bed for the night."

Don Sanchez assented with a grave inclination of his head, and going to
the door opened it sharply, listened awhile, and then closing it softly,
returned and stood before us with folded arms. Then, in a low voice, not
to be heard beyond the room, he questioned us very particularly as to
our relations with other men, the length of