The roads called forth curses from Joshua, struggling with the led sumpter. Years ago he had journeyed into Spain with Beauvallet, but he protested that he had forgotten long since how incomparably bad were the roads. He rode to the rear, and observed all with bright, calculating eyes. "Naught but sheep!" he grunted. "Enough to ravage the land. God's Life, but this is a poor country! Ruin stares us in the face, master, from all sides. Here are no crops, no snug farmers. Naught but bare rocks, and dust. And sheep--I forget the sheep, which you would have thought hardly possible. Why, call you this a road? Ho, we Englishmen can still teach the Spaniards some few matters, it seems!" "Set a guard on that tongue of yours," Beauvallet said sharply. "Let me hear no talk of Englishmen. Ay, this is a waste country. Now, how might a runner go at speed, to the Frontier, let us say?" "He might not, master, on these roads, without foundering. It's a land of the Dark Ages, one would say. Bethink you of the fair manor my lord has built him in Alreston, and look on these grim fortresses!" He spoke of a gloomy castle seen some miles back along the road, and shuddered. "Nay, I like not this land. It frowns, master! Mark what I say, it frowns!" Over the Guadarrama Mountains they climbed, and dropped on to the great, parched plateau. They rode league upon weary league, and at last saw Madrid ahead, and came to it in the cold of the evening. Joshua shivered on his horse, and muttered against a climate so extreme. He was roasted by day, he swore, but when evening fell Arctic winds arose that were like to lay him low of a fever. Beauvallet knew Madrid of old, but found it grown since his day. He made his way to the inn of the Rising Sun, lying some paces off the Puerta del Sol. It was not necessary to caution Joshua again. That wiry individual ceased complaining as they climbed the steep streets into the heart of the town, and might be trusted to carry all off with a bold front. Beauvallet had no fear of unwitting betrayal from him. French he spoke fluently, if roughly, and Spanish very fairly. He was not likely to slip into his own tongue through inability to find words in a foreign language. Sir Nicholas bespoke a private room at the inn, and supped there that evening, waited on by Joshua. "Since it is very certain that the French Ambassador is not privy to this correspondence I carry, you will say, Joshua, that I am travelling for my pleasure. You know naught of secret documents." "Master, what will you do with those papers?" Joshua asked uneasily. The corners of Sir Nicholas' mouth lifted under the trim moustachio. "Why, present them to his Catholic Majesty! What else?" "'S death, sir, will you go into the lion's den?" quaked Joshua.