Presently the moon rose, and the brilliant, streaming light flooded the whole landscape until it was as bright as day. The road was fast getting rougher and more hilly; the country wilder and more rugged; and the mountains lay to our left, the peaks towering up to great heights, majestic and grand in the bathing moonlight. The air was solemnly still; only the sounds of our horses' feet, the creaking of the saddle leather, and the musical jingle jangle of the bits breaking the silence.
"We have covered many more than old Tomaso's ten miles, and should be safe," I said once, as we were walking our horses up one of the steep, short hills which now checked our progress constantly; but the words were scarcely out of my lips when Cabrera laid his hand on my bridle arm and checked his horse.
"Halt, senor. I hear Garcia coming back;" and a moment later his figure and that of another horseman were silhouetted on the top of the hill, and they came down to us at a sharp trot.
"There is danger ahead, senor," cried Garcia, as he rode up. "Andreas has come back to meet and warn us. The soldiers are out in some force between here and Daroca. Young Juan has taken the senorita to a hiding-place until the road is clearer, and Andreas here will guide us by another way."
"Tell me all you know, Andreas," I said to the lad, a sharp, bright-looking fellow of about eighteen or twenty.
"All went well till we were some five miles from Daroca, senor. I was keeping to the main road, not expecting any interruption, when I heard from a friend, who had driven out from the town, that he had passed a number of mounted soldiers, on patrol work, and he believed that all the ways into the town were guarded."
"Not then, but soon afterwards, senor. I climbed a tree on one of the hillsides, and could make out several parties of them. Perhaps eight or ten soldiers, or a dozen may be, in each."
"Were any riding this way, or were they merely stationary?"
"Riding this way, senor, not fast, just patrol pace; and I saw them stop one or two peasant folk and question them."
"I saw I could not bring the senorita into the town, senor, and thought the best thing to do was to take her to a safe hiding-place and then ride back, as my grandfather told me."