“There it is, Señor,” murmured Castro, scowling all round, as if every wall of the room was an enemy. “He holds all the people in his hand in some way. Even I must be cautious, though I am a humble, trusted friend of the Casa!” “What harm could he do you?” I asked. “He is civil to me. _Amigo Castro_ here, and _Amigo Castro_ there. Bah! The devil, alone, is his friend! He could deliver me to justice, and get my life sworn away. He could------_Quien sabe?_ What need he care what he does--a man that can get absolution from the archbishop himself if he likes.” He meditated. “No! there is only one remedy for him.” He tiptoed to my ear. “The knife!” He made a pass in the air with his blade, and I remembered vividly the cockroach he had impaled with such accuracy on board the _Thames_. His baneful glance reminded me of his murderous capering in the steerage, when he had thought that the only remedy for _me_ was the knife. He went to the loop-hole, and passed the steel thoughtfully on the stone edge. I had not moved. “The knife; but what would you have? Before, when I talked of this to Don Carlos, he only laughed at me. That was his way in matters of importance. Now they will not let me come in to him. He is too near God--and the Señorita--why, she is too near the saints for all the great nobility of her spirit. But, _que dia-bleria_, when I--in my devotion--opened my mouth to her I saw some of that spirit in her eyes....” There was a slight irony in his voice. “No! Me--Castro! to be told that an English Señora would have dismissed me forever from her presence for such a hint. ‘Your Excellency,’ I said, ‘deign, then, to find it good that I should avoid giving offence to that man. It is not my desire to run my neck into the iron collar.’” He looked at me fixedly, as if expecting me to make a sign, then shrugged his shoulders. “_Bueno_. You see this? Then look to it yourself, Señor. You are to me even as Don Carlos--all except for the love. No English body is big enough to receive his soul. No friend will be left that would risk his very honour of a noble for a man like Tomas Castro. Let me warn you not to leave the Casa, even if a shining angel stood outside the gate and called you by name. The gate is barred, now, night and day. I have dropped a hint to Cesar, and that old African knows more than the Señor would suppose. I cannot tell how soon I may have the opportunity to talk to you again.” He peeped through the crack of the door, then slipped out, suddenly falling at once on his hands and knees, so as to be hidden by the stone balustrade from anybody in the _patio_. He, too, did not think himself safe. Early in the evening I descended into the court, and Father Antonio, walking up and down the _patio_ with his eyes on his breviary, muttered to me: “Sit on this chair,” and went on without stopping.