That the Spanish provost and the six men under his command were already drunk there was no doubt: some of them were sitting at a long trestle table, sprawling across it, lolling up against one another, some singing scraps of bibulous songs, others throwing coarse, obscene jests across the table. Two men seemed to be on guard at the door, whilst one and all were clamouring for more wine. "Curse you, you..." the provost was shouting at the top of his voice when don Ramon entered the tap-room, "why don’t you bring another bottle of wine?" Two women were standing at the further end of the long low room, close to the hearth: they stood hand in hand as if in an endeavour to inculcate moral strength to one another. The eldest of the two women might have been twenty-five years of age, the other some few years younger: their white faces and round, dilated eyes showed the deathly fear which held them both in its grip. Obviously the girls would have fled out of the tap-room long before this, and equally obviously the two men had been posted at the door in order to cut off their retreat. At sight of their captain, the men staggered to their feet; the provost passed the word of command, fearful lest the ribald attitude of his men brought severe censure--and worse--upon himself. He stood up, as steadily, as uprightly as he could; but don Ramon took little notice of him; he called peremptorily to the two girls--who more frightened than ever now, still clung desperately to one another. "Here, wench!" he said roughly, "I want wine, the best you have, and a private room in which to sit." "At your service, señor!" murmured the elder of the two girls almost inaudibly. "What’s your name?" he asked. "Katrine, so please your Magnificence." "And yours?" "Grete, at your service, Magnificence," whispered the girls one after the other, clinging one to the other, like two miserable atoms of humanity tossed about by the hard hand of Fate. "At my service then, and quickly too," retorted don Ramon curtly, "go down into the cellar, Katrine, and get me a fresh bottle of Rhine wine--the best your heretical father hath left behind. And you, Grete, show me to another room, and when presently I order you to kiss me, see that you do not do it with such a sour mouth, or by Our Lady I’ll remember that your father must hang on the morrow, and that you are nothing better than a pair of heretics too. Now then," he added harshly, "must I repeat the order?"