"Senor, good morrow," replied the Spaniard, with a hand on his dagger, while he surveyed Quentin with a quietly grim, but unmoved countenance, without rising from his recumbent posture; "are there any more of you under these bushes?" "No--I am alone." "_Por mi vida_, but you chose a strange hiding-place!" said the other, with a glance of distrust. "A strange sleeping-place, you should say rather, senor--yet not a bad one," said Quentin, laughing, and willing to conciliate the stranger, who closed his book after quietly turning down a leaf to mark his place; "I crept in over night, and have slept there until now." "Signs of a good digestion or a clear conscience." "Of both, I hope, thank Heaven." "I am indifferently provided with either; yet I can breakfast on this poor crust, and be thankful to God and our Blessed Lady for it." "I can give you something better, Senor Portuguese," said Quentin, unbuttoning his havresack. "_Muchos gracias_," replied the other; "but remember, senor, that I am a Castilian, and in Spain we have a belief that a bad Spaniard makes a tolerably good Portuguese." "I beg pardon, senor, but your dress----" "My dress!" interrupted the other, with a sardonic grin; "_oh, por el vida del Satanos_, the less you say about that the better. I was not wont to sport such a costume when rendering Virgil into Castilian, and Las Comedias de Calderon into Latin, in the Arzobispo College at old Salamanca." "A student?" "Perhaps--it was as might be," replied the other, with sudden reserve; "and you are----" "What you see me." Quentin gave a portion of his ration-beef and biscuit to the Spaniard, who took them with many thanks, and with an air that showed he was a man of breeding far above what his present paisano costume seemed to indicate. His hands were strong, white, and muscular, yet seemed never to have been used to work, and a valuable diamond sparkled in a ring on one of his fingers. In the course of conversation, Quentin could gather that he was remarkably well informed of the strength, number, position, and divisions of the British Army, together with the probable movements towards Castile, thus he felt the necessity of acting with the greatest reserve, and getting rid of him as soon as possible; for the most subtle, wily, and dangerous Spaniards were those in the French interest, which, at first, he feared his new friend to be. "By my life, Senor Inglese," said the Spaniard, laughing, "with all this victual in your wallet, 'tis a miracle of our Lady's Cross that the wolves did not come snuffing about you in the night." "You are a traveller?" observed Quentin, after a pause, during which they had been observing each other furtively. "I hinted that I had been a student among Salamanquinos," replied the Spaniard, coldly. "And you are now----" "What the Fiend and the French have made me!" said he, with a lurid gleam in his fine dark eyes. "And that is----"