Lilt and step fell into sudden silence at the corner of the house. The newcomer had halted, apparently struck by the sight of the two figures, shadowed as they were through the vapours at the garden gate by the lantern light. Rockhurst’s head as he bent over the lock was lit up fantastically. The bold features, the thin, upturned mustache, quivering now with a mischievous smile, the peaked beard, black as raven’s wing, and the hat with its challenging tilt and its incredible plume, all seemed to proclaim in him one of Don John’s own rakish soldiers of fortune. The key turned in the lock. The next instant the Capitan (the red plume sweeping over the hat-brim proclaimed his rank) sprang forward with a growl like an angry dog’s and plucked at Rockhurst’s cloak, even as the latter was pushing the door open. “Hey, there, comrade!” he whispered, “you are caught at it—breaking into an honest burgher’s house! Out of this, sharp!” “Breaking in, camarado? Why, not at all,” responded Rockhurst, in his own Franco-Spanish. “Merely entering where I am expected, and my servant there holds the light.—Come in, Marcelin.” He stepped lightly through the doorway, leaving his cloak in the other’s grasp. His voice, in the undertone they both deemed prudent to adopt, yet conveyed the perfection of mockery. “Expected? _Cuerpo de Dios!_” said the gallant, and fell back a step, blank surprise robbing him, it seemed, of all other emotion for the present. “Even so, Señor Caballero, witness this key. (Up with the light, Marcelin, that the señor may see for himself.) Witness the token.” He brandished first the key, then the scented handkerchief, with gay gesture. “May I trouble you for my cloak? Then I shall wish you good night.” Marcelin, grinning, stood between the two, his back against the door-post, the basket on his arm, holding up the lantern. The light fell full on the Spaniard’s visage: young and handsome enough it was, though now livid with fury. Still speechless, he seemed rooted to the spot, his black eyes starting, the wings of his nostrils distended upon his angry breath. Rockhurst waited a second or two, then with a laugh:— “Marcelin,” he ordered, “relieve the noble Capitan of my cloak: he will understand my impatience.” The little valet, shifting the lantern into the basket, put out his hand obediently for the ragged garment in question. But here the newcomer, suddenly leaping into active ferocity, made a headlong rush into the garden, and had not Rockhurst by a dexterous step aside avoided the onslaught, would have seized his rival by the throat. “Come in, Marcelin, and shut the door,” came the mocking voice from the darkness. “Let us unravel this little question of precedence in snug privacy. We shall want your lantern, my friend.”