For a few miles Jack followed the highroad, meeting no one but an old wizened woman staggering along under a basket-load of onions. Then, thinking it well, as he approached the district in which there was a possibility of encountering the enemy’s vedettes, to avoid the main thoroughfare, he struck off to the right along what was little better than a cart track, discovering from his map that this would lead him to his destination by way of Pedroso, Cantalapiedra, and Carpio, villages which were scarcely likely to be selected as billeting-places by any considerable force. It was a dreary ride. The road was heavy with the recent rains. It passed through a country consisting partly of bare heath, partly of grain-fields, now black and desolate. He had started from Salamanca shortly after eleven o’clock, and, owing to interruptions and the state of the roads, it was nearly three in the afternoon before he arrived at Cantalapiedra, little more than half-way to Medina. By that time he was hungry, and his steed was both hungry and tired. Dismounting before a posada at the entrance to the town, he sent the mule to be fed and rubbed down, and went into the house to seek refreshment himself. There was no other guest in the place, and the landlord, slow and stolid like a genuine Spaniard, showed neither pleasure nor displeasure at the appearance of a traveller. In reply to Jack’s request for food, he brought, after some delay, a basin of very greasy soup of a reddish tinge, due to the saffron with which it had been liberally sprinkled, and a dirty carafe of violet-coloured wine, which Jack found, when he poured it out, almost thick enough to cut with a knife. The bread, however, was eatable, if a trifle salt, and Jack munched away with an appetite that evoked a gleam of interest in the landlord’s solemn eyes. He began to ask questions, and indeed to show himself inquisitive, remarking on the strange fact of a young man travelling alone through disturbed country at such a time. Jack good-humouredly parried enquiries that seemed too direct, merely explaining that he had been on a visit to Salamanca, and was riding across country because, having heard rumours that the French were in possession of Valladolid, he had no wish to fall into their hands. The landlord dryly told him that travelling anywhere in Spain was rather dangerous for a man with good clothes on his back and money in his pocket, for if he escaped the French he might fall in with bandits, and there was little to choose between them when plunder was in question. In answer to this Jack opened his coat and showed the man the butt of a big Spanish pistol. "Even a peaceful merchant," he said with a laugh, "may prove an awkward customer to tackle." The landlord shrugged. "One against a troop of French cavalry, or a gang of bandits, would fare rather badly," he said. "I suppose you will want a bed to-night, Señor?" "Not I. I’m going to push on to Medina."