'Who is this?' said Conyngham. 'Some friend of yours? Tell him to keep his distance, for I don't care for his appearance.'
'He is no friend of mine, Excellency. But the man is, I dare say, honest enough. In these mountains it is only of the Guardia Civil that one must beware. They have ever the finger on the trigger and shoot without warning.'
'Nevertheless,' said the Englishman, now thoroughly on the alert, 'let him state his business at a respectable distance. Ah! he has a comrade and two mules.'
And indeed a second man of equally unprepossessing exterior now appeared from behind a great rock leading a couple of heavily laden mules.
Concepcion and the first traveller, who was now within a dozen yards, were already exchanging words in a patois not unlike the Limousin dialect, of which
