“He seems, then, to have a mania for improving his fellow-men; for,” said my guide, still pausing with the candle aloft and twinkling on his spectacles, “I assure you he has been trying to make a Lutheran of me!”

Wholly incredulous as I was, this took me fairly between wind and water.  “Did he,” I stammered, “did he happen to mention the Scarlet Woman?”

“Several times:  though (in justice to his delicacy, I must say it) only in his delirium.”

“His delirium?”

“He has been ill; almost desperately ill.  A case of sunstroke, I believe.  Do I understand that you believe sufficiently to follow me?”

“I cannot say that I believe.  Yet if it be not Captain Alan McNeill, and if for some purpose which—­to be frank with you—­I cannot guess, I am being walked into a trap, you may take credit to yourself that it has been well, nay excellently, invented.  I pay you that compliment beforehand, and for my kinsman’s sake, or for the sake of his memory, I accept the risk.”

“There is no risk,” answered the reverend father, at once leading the way:  “none, that is to say, with me to guide you.”

“There is risk, then, in some degree?”

“We skirt a labyrinth,” he answered quietly.  “You will have observed, of course, that no one has passed us or disturbed our talk.  To be sure, the archway under which you found me is one of the ‘false entrances,’ as they are called, of Rueda cellars.  There are a dozen between this and the summit, and perhaps half a dozen below, which give easy access to the wine-vaults, and in any of which a crowd of goers and comers would have incommoded us.  For the soldiers would seem—­and very wisely, I must allow—­to follow a chart and confine themselves to the easier outskirts of these caves.  Wisely, because the few cellars they visit contain Val de Penas enough to keep two armies drunk until either Wellington enters Madrid or Marmont recaptures Salamanca.  But they are not adventurous:  and the few who dare, though no doubt they penetrate to better wine, are not in the end to be envied. . . .  Now this passage of ours is popularly, but quite erroneously, supposed to lead nowhere, and is therefore by consent avoided.”

“Excuse me,” said I, “but it was precisely by this exit that I saw emerge three men as honestly drunk as any three I have met in my life.”

For the moment he seemed to pay no heed, but stooped and held the candle low before his feet.

“The path, you perceive, here shelves downwards.  By following it we should find ourselves, after ten minutes or so, at the end of a cul de sac.  But see this narrow ledge to the right—­pay particular heed to your footsteps here, I pray you:  it curves to the right, broadening ever so little before it disappears around the corner:  yet here lies the true path, and you shall presently own it an excellent one.”  He sprang forward like a goat, and turning, again held the candle low that I might plant my feet wisely.  Sure enough, just around the corner the ledge widened at once, and we passed into a new gallery.