It was she who served him the food, of which he was glad; though with those big slanting black eyes examining him at close range, as if he had something curious written on his face, she gave him an uncomfortable sensation.  But anything was better than being approached by these blear-eyed nightmarish witches.  His apprehensions somehow had been soothed; perhaps by the sensation of warmth after severe exposure and the ease of resting after the exertion of fighting the gale inch by inch all the way.  He had no doubt of Tom’s safety.  He was now sleeping in the mountain camp having been met by Gonzales’ men.

Byrne rose, filled a tin goblet with wine out of a skin hanging on the wall, and sat down again.  The witch with the mummy face began to talk to him, ramblingly of old times; she boasted of the inn’s fame in those better days.  Great people in their own coaches stopped there.  An archbishop slept once in the casa, a long, long time ago.

The witch with the puffy face seemed to be listening from her stool, motionless, except for the trembling of her head.  The girl (Byrne was certain she was a casual gipsy admitted there for some reason or other) sat on the hearth stone in the glow of the embers.  She hummed a tune to herself, rattling a pair of castanets slightly now and then.  At the mention of the archbishop she chuckled impiously and turned her head to look at Byrne, so that the red glow of the fire flashed in her black eyes and on her white teeth under the dark cowl of the enormous overmantel.  And he smiled at her.

He rested now in the ease of security.  His advent not having been expected there could be no plot against him in existence.  Drowsiness stole upon his senses.  He enjoyed it, but keeping a hold, so he thought at least, on his wits; but he must have been gone further than he thought because he was startled beyond measure by a fiendish uproar.  He had never heard anything so pitilessly strident in his life.  The witches had started a fierce quarrel about something or other.  Whatever its origin they were now only abusing each other violently, without arguments; their senile screams expressed nothing but wicked anger and ferocious dismay.  The gipsy girl’s black eyes flew from one to the other.  Never before had Byrne felt himself so removed from fellowship with human beings.  Before he had really time to understand the subject of the quarrel, the girl jumped up rattling her castanets loudly.  A silence fell.  She came up to the table and bending over, her eyes in his —

“Senor,” she said with decision, “You shall sleep in the archbishop’s room.”

Neither of the witches objected.  The dried-up one bent double was propped on a stick.  The puffy faced one had now a crutch.

Byrne got up, walked to the door, and turning the key in the enormous lock put it coolly in his pocket.  This was clearly the only entrance, and he did not mean to be taken unawares by whatever danger there might have been lurking outside.