Of a sudden the ancient bells of Santa Gadea, the old incense-laden, Gothic church above the town, clanged forth again, as they had done so many times a day through centuries, summoning the good people of Fonterrabia to kneel before the high dark altar, with those long candles and the wonderful brass chandelier above. Now as the bells jangled forth an observer might, perhaps, have noticed two men meet, as though entirely by accident, close to that obscure little cafe "The Concha," which faces the sea. On the pavement before the little place sat several men in their blue _berets_, drinking wine and gossiping as all Spaniards must do. The pair who had met were of quite different stamp. One, who was about forty, of a refined but rather parvenu type, was dressed in a well-cut suit of thin, dark grey material, and wore a straw hat much ripened by the sun. He was idly smoking a long _valenciano_, and betrayed surprise, though feigned, at the meeting. The other was a typical fisherman in the blue blouse and blue _beret_, the national headdress of all the Basque people. He still wore his heavy sea-boots, in which, however, he walked jauntily, for his age was not more than thirty, and his dark, handsome countenance was bright, enthusiastic, and well bronzed. On meeting, the man in the sun-ripened straw hat, and of much superior class, turned quickly and walked beside him. As he did so a tall Jesuit priest, a man with a swarthy, sinister face and a long, rather shabby cassock--Father Gonzalo by name--chanced to pass. Carlos Somoza, the fisherman, saluted him reverently, but beneath his breath he exclaimed in Spanish: "May the Holy Madonna curse him for ever!" "Why?" inquired the man in grey, whose name was Garcia Zorrilta, a native of Toledo, who had come in secret from Madrid in order to meet his fisherman friend. "Because he may recognise you. There may be a hitch." "Bah! There will be no hitch. There cannot be. You people here in the country are so often faint-hearted. We in the capital are not. All goes well, and success must be ours. It is but a simple matter of waiting--waiting in patience." "Yes--but Father Gonzalo is a man whom I do not like." "Why? He looks really quite harmless. Who is he?" "Nobody exactly knows," was the fisherman's reply, as they turned up the narrow Calle Mayor, that old-world street of high, handsome houses, mostly adorned with the crumbling coats-of-arms of the ancient proprietors, and with balconies of wrought iron, and wide, projecting roofs across the narrow footway. "He has been here for about four months, yet he is not attached to Santa Gadea. Sometimes he visits the sick, and all speak well of him. But both Cardona and Cienfuegos agree with my suspicions that he is a Government agent, and that he is here to find out all he can." His companion grunted.