The little crescent moon was shining clearly now between the long-drawn rifts of the rushing clouds. Larralde turned to the right again, up a narrow street which seemed to promise a friendly darkness. The ascent was steep, and the Spaniard gasped for breath as he ran—his legs were becoming numb. He had never been in this street before, and knew not whither it led. But it was at all events dark and deserted. Suddenly he fell upon a heap of bricks and rubbish, a whole stack of chimneys. He could smell the soot. Conyngham was upon him, touched him, but failed to get a grip. Larralde was afoot in an instant, and fell heavily down the far side of the barricade. He gained a few yards again, and, before Conyngham’s eyes, was suddenly swallowed up in a black mass of falling masonry. It was more than a chimney this time; nothing less than a whole house carried bodily to the ground by the fall of the steeple of the church of Santa Maria del Monte. Conyngham stopped dead, and threw his arms over his head. The crash was terrific, deafening—and for a few moments the Englishman was stunned. He opened his eyes and closed them again, for the dust and powdered mortar whirled round him like smoke. Almost blinded, he crept back by the way he had come, and the street was already full of people. In the Calle Preciados he sat down on a door-step, and there waited until he had gained mastery over his limbs, which shook still. Presently he made his way back to the house where he had left Concha. The man Sebastian had, a week earlier, seen and recognised Conyngham as the bearer of the letter addressed to Colonel Monreal, and left at that officer’s lodging in Xeres at the moment of his death in the streets. Sebastian approached Conyngham, and informed him that he had in his possession sundry papers belonging to the late Colonel Monreal, which might be of value to a Royalist. This was, therefore, not the first time that Conyngham had climbed the narrow stairs of the tall house with two doors. He found Concha busying himself by the bedside, where Sebastian lay in the unconsciousness of deep drink. ‘He has probably been drugged,’ said the priest. ‘Or, he may be dying. What is more important to us is, that the letter is not here. I have searched. Larralde escaped you?’ ‘Yes; and of course has the letter.’ ‘Of course, amigo.’ The priest looked at the prostrate man with a face of profound contempt, and, shrugging his shoulders, went towards the door. ‘Come,’ he said, ‘I must return to Toledo and Julia. It is thither that this Larralde always returns, and she, poor woman, believes in him. Ah, my friend’—he paused and shook his long finger at Conyngham. ‘When a woman believes in a man she makes him or mars him; there is no medium.’ CHAPTER XVIII IN TOLEDO ‘Meddle not with many matters; for if thou meddle much thou shalt not be innocent.’