I sank into a kind of reposeful belief in the work of accident. Something would happen. I did not know how soon and how atrociously my belief was to be justified. I exercised my ingenuity in the most approved lover-fashion--in devising means how to get secret speech with Seraphina. The confounded silly maids fled from my most distant appearance, as though I had the pest. I was wondering whether I should not go simply and audaciously and knock at her door, when I fancied I heard a scratching at mine. It was a very stealthy sound, quite capable of awakening my dormant emotions. I went to the door and listened. Then, opening it the merest crack, I saw the inexplicable emptiness of the gallery. Castro, on his hands and knees, startled me by whispering at my feet: “Stand aside, Señor.” He entered my room on all-fours, and waited till I got the door closed before he stood up. “Even he may sleep sometimes,” he said. “And the balustrade has hidden me.” To see this little saturnine bandit, who generally stalked about haughtily, as if the whole Casa belonged to him by right of fidelity, crawl into my room like this was inexpressibly startling. He shook the folds of his cloak, and dropped his hat on the floor. “Still, it is better so. The very women of the house are not safe,” he said. “Señor, I have no mind to be delivered to the English for hanging. But I have not been admitted to see Don Carlos, and, therefore, I must make my report to you. These are Don Carlos’ orders. ‘Serve him, Castro, when I am dead, as if my soul had passed into his body.’” He nodded sadly. “_Si!_ But Don Carlos is a friend to me and you--you.” He shook his head, and drew me away from the door. “Two __Lugareños__,” he said, “Manuel and another one, did go last night, as directed by the friar”--he supposed--“to meet the _Juez_ in the bush outside Rio Medio.” I had guessed that much, and told him of Manuel’s behaviour under my window. How did they know my chamber? “Bad, bad,” muttered Castro. “La Chica told her lover, no doubt.” He hissed, and stamped his foot. She was pretty, but flighty. The lover was a silly boy of decent, Christian parents, who was always hanging about in the low villages. No matter. What he could not understand was why some boats should have been held in readiness till nearly the morning to tow a schooner outside. Manuel came along at dawn, and dismissed the crews. They had separated, making a great noise on the beach, and yelling, “Death to the _Inglez!_” I cleared up that point for him. He told me that O’Brien had the duenna called to his room that morning. Nothing had been heard outside, but the woman came out staggering, with her hand on the wall. He had terrified her. God knows what he had said to her. The widow--as Castro called her--had a son, an _escrivano_ in one of the Courts of Justice. No doubt it was that.