"Verdaderamente, Señor," replied the guerrillero, recognizing from Jack’s tone that he had a caballero to deal with. In a few minutes the horse was stabled, and Jack was seated at the table, partaking of the savoury stew poured bubbling from the chaldron, and answering the men’s eager questions about the end of the siege of Saragossa. They belonged to the band of which Pablo Quintanar and Antonio had been the leaders, and were burning with anxiety as to the fate of those sturdy guerrilleros. Many a deep growl of rage and indignation burst from them when they learnt of Quintanar’s treason, many a sigh of satisfaction when they heard of his fate; and when they knew that Antonio had come safely through the siege, they were all confident that somehow or other he would escape from the French, and hasten to rejoin them in their mountain fastnesses. Jack in his turn asked for information, which the men were not very ready to give. All that he learnt of their movements was that they had recently left Soria and were going southward by easy stages, hoping to meet members of their band escaping from Saragossa. He spent a comfortless night in the dirty inn, and departed next morning early, glad to have got off from such rough companions without the loss of his horse, on which they had cast longing eyes. All that day he travelled by devious paths among the mountains, asking his way of the few people he met, putting up at night in a ruined cabin, and arriving late on the following evening in the neighbourhood of Morata. Remembering that the Alvarez country house was near at hand, he found on enquiry that it lay a few miles to the north, and was at present in charge of one old man, who had been a gardener on the estate. Suspecting that Morata itself might be garrisoned by the French, he decided to turn off before reaching the town, and to seek shelter for the night at the Alvarez villa. Spring had set in unusually early this year, and as Jack rode through the lanes he rejoiced in the bright sunshine and the scent of lavender and rosemary, violets and narcissus, that filled the warm air. He reached the villa at dusk. It stood half-way up a hill, in a walled garden, amid luxuriant foliage of laurels. On three sides the garden wall was approached by the young growth of olive plantations. The house itself was a long low building of white stone, mellowed by age and weather. A broad oak balcony ran round, sheltering the ground-floor rooms from the sun’s rays; and amid its massive columns creeping plants, already in full leaf, pushed their way towards the roof. As Jack rode up, the odours of honeysuckle and clematis greeted his nostrils, and he noted the small white stars of the jessamine glittering among their narrow dark-green leaves.