They were young: the elder, maybe, three-and-twenty, short, thick-set, with features just now darkened by his ill-humour, but probably sullen enough at the best of times: the younger, tall and nervous and extraordinarily fair for a Spaniard, with a weak, restless mouth and restless, passionate eyes. Indeed, either this restlessness was a disease with him or he was suffering just now from an uncontrollable agitation. Eyes, mouth, feet, fingers--the whole man seemed to be twitching. I set down his age at eighteen. On the table stood a large flask of wine, from which he helped himself fiercely, and beside the flask lay a long bundle wrapped in a cloak. This young man, having drained his glass at a gulp, let out an oath and sprang up suddenly with a glare upon Fuentes, who had stretched out his legs and was already absorbed in his reading. "Señor Stranger," he began impetuously, "we would have you to know, if the innkeeper has not already told you----" "Gently!" interposed his comrade. "You are going the wrong way to work. My friend, Sir"--he addressed Fuentes, who looked up with a mild surprise--"my friend, Sir, was about to suggest that the light is poor for reading." "Oh," answered Fuentes, smiling easily, "for a minute or two--until they bring my wine. Moreover, I wear excellent glasses." "But the place is not too well chosen." Fuentes appeared to digest this for a moment, then turned around upon me with a puzzled air. "My good Pedro, you have not misled me, I hope? I am short-sighted, gentlemen; and if we have strayed into a private garden I offer you my profoundest apologies." He gathered his manuscript into a roll and stood up. "To be plain with you, Sir," said the dark man sullenly, "this is not precisely a private garden, and yet we desire privacy." "Oho?" After a glance around, Fuentes fixed his eyes on the bundle lying on the table. "And at the point of the sword--eh?" The two young men started and at once began to eye each other suspiciously. "No, no," Fuentes assured them, smiling; "this is no trap, believe me, but a chance encounter; and I am no _alguacil_ in disguise, but a poor scholar returning to Salamanca for his doctorate. Nor do I seek to know the cause of your quarrel. But here comes the wine!" He waited until the tapster had set flask and glasses on the table and withdrawn. "In the interval before your friends arrive you will not grudge me, Sirs, the draining of a glass to remembrance in a garden where I too have loved my friends, and quarrelled with them, in days gone by--days older now than I care to reckon." He raised the wine and held it up for a moment against the sunset. "Youth--youth!" he sighed. "You are welcome, Sir," said the younger man a trifle more graciously; "but we expect no seconds, and, believe me, we shall presently be pressed for time."