"A sweet fine night," he muttered to himself, "for a fight. Oh! 'twould make a shark sob" (he had been a sailor, amongst other things, as I have said) "to think we should not come to loggerheads with some one on such a night as this."
"Be still," I said; "we draw near to the house, to----"
"My lady's bower!" he murmured, regarding me with his fish-like eyes, so that I knew not whether he meant to be impertinent--which I did not think he did--or was quoting from some of the sheets of love-ballads I had more than once caught him poring over. "Oh, love! love! love!"
"Peace, fool!" I said, "and hold your silly tongue. We are there."
And so we were; we being now outside a small oak door let into the side of the Carbajal mansion, which stood up grey and solemn in the moonlight.
"Ay, my lord," said Giles; "and to get out again afterwards. Do I enter with you?"
"You shall know later. Meanwhile, stand back in the shadow. And take my cloak; 'twill but encumber me if there should be any sword-play inside."
"And serve as guard for my arm if twisted round it," said Giles, as he took the cloak, "if there should be any outside. 'Tis four years since I fleshed a Spaniard. 'Twas by the Puerta del Sol, and he was attacking a Northumbrian Jacobite gentleman, who, alas! was lurching about like the _Royal Sovereign_ in a gale----"
"Silence," I said. "See, the wicket opens;" as in truth it did, and through the bars I saw a moment or so later a pair of soft roguish eyes glistening in the moonlight--eyes that I knew well and loved to see, they making then, as always they have made, a summer in my heart by their glances.
"Are you alone, Adrian?" a gentle voice, equally dear to me as the eyes, whispered.
"Alone," I whispered back, "except for a fool mastiff creature, who is, however, faithful, and can fight as well as be trusted."
"Ay, he can," I heard my follower mutter to himself, "and will not be contented if he fight not to-night."
"Come in," Damaris said, opening now the door (in which the wicket was) about half a foot, so that I might squeeze in, "and leave your watchdog there. He may be attacked----"
"So much the better," growled Giles, he hearing all.
"You understand?" I said to him; "you understand? You may be attacked."
