The evening had fallen ere the silent party caught sight of the town of Ronda, perched, as the Moorish strongholds usually are, on a height. Ronda, as history tells, was the last possession of the brave and gifted Moslems in Spain. The people are half Moorish still, and from the barred windows look out deep almond eyes and patient faces that have no European feature. The narrow streets were empty as the travellers entered the town, and the clatter of the mules slipping and stumbling on the cobble stones brought but few to the doors of the low-built houses. To enter Ronda from the south the traveller must traverse the Moorish town, which is divided from the Spanish quarter by a cleft in the great rock that renders the town impregnable to all attack. Having crossed the bridge spanning the great gorge into which the sun never penetrates even at midday, the party emerged into the broader streets of the more modern town, and, turning to the right through a high gateway, found themselves in a barrack yard of the Guardias Civiles. CHAPTER VI AT RONDA ‘Le plus grand art d’un habile homme est celui de savoir cacher son habileté.’ WHEN Conyngham awoke after a night conscientiously spent in that profound slumber which waits on an excellent digestion and a careless heart, he found the prison attendant at his bedside. A less easy-going mind would perhaps have leapt to some nervous conclusion at the sight of this fierce-visaged janitor, who, however, carried nothing more deadly in his hand than a card. ‘It is the Captain-General,’ said he, ‘who calls at this early hour. His Excellency’s letter has been delivered, and the Captain-General scarce waited to swallow his morning chocolate.’ ‘Very much to the Captain-General’s credit,’ returned Conyngham rising. ‘Cold water,’ he went on, ‘soap, a towel, and my luggage—and then the Captain-General.’ The attendant, with an odd smile, procured the necessary articles, and when the Englishman was ready led the way downstairs. He was a solemn man from Galicia, this, where they do not smile. In the patio of the great house, once a monastery, now converted into a barrack for the Guardias Civiles, a small man of fifty years or more stood smoking a cigarette. On perceiving Conyngham he came forward with outstretched hand and a smile which can only be described as angelic. It was a smile at once sympathetic and humorous, veiling his dark eyes between lashes almost closed, parting moustached lips to disclose a row of pearly teeth. ‘My dear sir,’ said General Vincente in very tolerable English, ‘I am at your feet. That such a mistake should have been made in respect to the bearer of a letter of introduction from my old friend General Watterson—we fought together in Wellington’s day—that such a mistake should have occurred overwhelms me with shame.’