"Yet these two brothers--they were nearly of one height, by the way--obtained their bachelor's degrees, and in time their licentiates, though as rewards for different degrees of learning. They were from Villacastin, beyond Avila in Old Castille: but their father, a hidalgo of small estates there, possessed also a farm and the remains of a castle across the frontier in the kingdom of Leon, a league to the west of Salvatierra on the Tormes. It had come to him as security for a loan which was never paid: and, dying, he left this property to his younger son Andrea. Now when the French set a Corsican upon the throne of our kingdoms, these two brothers withdrew from Salamanca; but while Andrea took up his abode on his small heritage, and gave security for his good behaviour, Eugenio, the elder, turned his back on the paternal home (which the French had ravaged), and became a rebel, a nameless, landless man and a wanderer, with his guitar for company. You follow me?" "I follow you, Señor Don Eugenio----" "Not 'de Fuentes,'" he put in with a smile. "The real name you shall read upon certain papers and parchments of which I hope to possess myself to-night. In short, my friend, since we are on the way to Salamanca, why should I not apply there for my doctor's degree?" "It requires a thesis, I have always understood." "That is written." "May I ask upon what subject?" "The fiend take me if I know yet! But it is written, safe enough." "Ah, I see! We go to Salvatierra? Yes, yes, but what of me, who know scarcely any Latin beyond my _credo_?" "Why, that is where I feel a certain delicacy. Having respect to your rank, _caballero_, I do not like to propose that you should become my servant." "I am your servant already, and for a week past I have been an Asturian. It will be promotion." He sprang up gaily. "What a comrade is mine!" he cried, flinging away the end of his cigarette. "To Salvatierra, then--Santiago, and close Spain!" Darkness overtook us as we climbed down the slopes: but we pushed on, Fuentes leading the way boldly. Evidently he had come to familiar ground. But it was midnight before he brought me, by an abominable road, to a farmstead the walls of which showed themselves ruinous even in the starlight--for moon there was none. At an angle of the building, which once upon a time had been whitewashed, rose a solid tower, with a doorway and an iron-studded door, and a narrow window overlooking it. In spite of the hour, Fuentes advanced nonchalantly and began to bang the door, making noise enough to wake the dead. The window above was presently opened--one could hear, with a shaking hand. "Who is there?" asked a man's voice no less tremulous. "Who are you, for the love of God?" "_Gente de paz_, my dear brother!--not your friends the French. I hope, by the way, you are entertaining none."