Noveli cut into this impassioned outburst. "He cannot get away. Every port will be stopped, and none allowed to set sail on any vessel. The Frontier will be barred before he can reach it, and even if it were not you forget that he has no pass." Perinat pointed a prophetic finger. "You may stop the ports, you may bar the Frontier, but he will slip through your guards, and laugh at you as he does so! Ah, to have had him, and to let him go!" His fierce gaze swept the group. "The ports! the Frontier! Why came he into Spain? Heard you not the true reason from Carvalho's lips? Where is Doña Dominica de Rada?" "Why, on the road to Vasconosa," said someone. "But----" "Then let the King send there for him!" said Perinat. "And still he will be too late! The villain's away, I tell you!" Another gentleman came to join the group, one whose eyes were restless and uneasy, and whose fingers twitched rather nervously. Don Rodriguez de Carvalho, on whom the news had fallen like a thunderbolt, was in a sorry case. Sharing to the full the popular dread of El Beauvallet, he did not know what to do. He feared for his son's life, he feared for his niece's safety, and he dared not divulge Beauvallet's probable destination for fear of implicating Dominica, and seeing her and her wealth swallowed up by the Holy Inquisition. He came now, fussy and fidgeting, to hear what was being said of the escape, and was in time to catch Perinat's last words. Perinat pounced on him at once. "Ah, in a good hour, Carvalho! Tell me, will not this pirate be after your niece?" Don Rodriguez looked startled. He stammered:--"I do not think it--I cannot suppose it. She was resolute in denying him. Maybe we mistake--what should El Beauvallet hope to make in Spain?" "He is self-declared," interposed Aranda, "That evening when I first met him he dared to speak his own name! Do you remember, Losa? He said that if El Beauvallet stood where he stood then he would still laugh. What impudence! What daring! One gasps at it." Perinat, obsessed by the one idea, brushed this aside. "You waste time! The King should be told of this. It is for you, Carvalho, to warn him." Don Rodriguez hesitated and was lost. "If you think it wise, señors.... But I cannot agree with you. I cannot suppose that my niece would suffer him. She is head-strong indeed, but she does not forget--in short, señors, if El Beauvallet seeks her indeed it is against her will." "Against her will when she declared she knew him not?" burst out Perinat. "The girl's besotted!" Losa lifted a finger to silence Perinat. "I think that the King should be told that Doña Dominica de Rada is on her way to Vasconosa, and that El Beauvallet may well be on her heels," he said. "Well, señor, well.... If you do not think it is to waste his Majesty's time," Don Rodriguez said unhappily.