"By my faith!" said he; "I think the predictions of the old people at Craigrollo are likely to prove true, and that, after all, the spoon of Sir Ringan----" A gesture of impatience from me arrested him. "Young gentleman," said the captain of the pistoliers, "you have been, I suspect, the dupe of two sharpers; but may the lesson teach you to beware of those pitfalls which beset the path of a soldier! This actress, the Señora Bandolo, is just what all Spanish actresses are, and never cared a rush about you; besides, without doubt, she must have been the spy who, from Glückstadt, Hamburg, and Altona, communicated all our movements to the Imperialists." "And this varlet of a Hausmeister," said I-- "Is doubtless her majo, her cavalier, or bully," replied the Baron; "for the fellow's whole aspect, his cold pomposity, and dogged eye, announce him one. Every Spanish dancer has a _majo_," he continued, as we adjourned to the _Three Golden Helmets_, and ordered a flask or two of Orleans. "We should know something of them, Herr Baron," said Fritz; "you remember when we served in the Spanish guards----" "Many things better now forgotten, Fritz. They are such ruffians that not even the Holy Brotherhood dare to attack them; and they intimidate even the actresses who employ them as protectors, and have to study all their caprices. When a lady is on the stage, her majo is in the pit, with his brown sombrero drawn over his brow, and on the least gesture of impatience, or sound of dissatisfaction among the people, he throws back his mantle, uncovering the hilts of his poniard and toledo. Now," continued Karl, sipping his wine, "on the last night Prudentia danced, I saw this man, Otto, in the pit, and thought he had all the aspect----" "Of that Spanish majo we had such a desperate brawl within the Consistorio at Madrid," said Fritz. "The Imperial camp swarms with Spanish and Italian posture-girls and their attendants; but is this suspicious fellow to be really our military guide?" "He has been well accredited," replied the baron, smoothing his short thick mustache; "so let us not, by vague suspicion, wrong any man in the public service." "I will always consider him a villain," said Ian, who had struggled to understand what we were saying. "Philip Rollo," he added in Gaëlic, as he turned to me with a sombre aspect on his swarthy face, "you have dishonoured the sword of a Highland gentleman by notching it on the blade of such a wretch." "Ian, has he not leagued with this girl to rob and ridicule me? What would you have had me to do?" "Do!" reiterated the fierce M'Alpine, with his red eyes flashing; "by the grey stone of M'Gregor, I would have shot him through the head like a fox or a wolf, and as an enemy to mankind." The captain of pistoliers smiled at this, which he did not understand, being sputtered out in Red Angus's fiercest Gaëlic; but he said--