His horse sprang violently aside, then stood trembling.  Forms, some ragged, some attired with a violent picturesqueness, had started from without a fissure in the wood and from behind a huge wayside rock.  Ian knew them at a glance for those brigands of whom he had heard mention and warning enough.  Don Fernando had once described their practices.

Resistance was idle.  He chose instead a genial patience for his tower, and within it keen wits to keep watch.  With his horse he was taken by the fierce, bedizened dozen up a gorge to so complete and secure a robber hold that Nature, when she made it, must have been in robber mood.  Here were found yet others of the band, with a bedecked and mustached chief.  He was aware that property, not life, answered to their desires.  His horse, his fine cloak, his weapons, the small mail and its contents, with any article of his actual wearing they might fancy, and the little, little, little money within his purse—­all would be taken.  All in the luck!  To-day to thee, to-morrow to me.  What puzzled him was that evidently more was expected.

When they condescended to direct speech he could understand their language well enough.  Nor did they indulge in over-brutal handling; they kept a measure and reminded him sufficiently of old England’s own highwaymen.  Of course, like old England’s own, they would become atrocious if they thought that circumstances indicated it.  But they did not seem inclined to go out of their way to be murderous or tormenting.  The only sensible course was to take things good-naturedly and as all in the song!  The worst that might happen would be that he must proceed to France afoot, without a penny, lacking weapons, Don Fernando’s cloak—­all things, in short, but the bare clothing he stood in.  To make loss as small as possible there were in order suavity, coolness, even gaiety!

And still appeared the perplexing something he could not resolve.  The over-fine cloak, the horse now in good condition, might have something to do with it, contrasting as they certainly did with the purse in the last stages of emaciation.  And there seemed a studying of his general appearance, of his features, even.  Two men in especial appeared detailed to do this.  At last his ear caught the word “ransom.”

Now there was nobody in Spain knowing enough or caring enough of or for Ian Rullock to entertain the idea of parting with gold pieces in order to save his life.  Don Fernando might be glad to see him live, but certainly had not the gold pieces!  Moreover, it presently leaked fantastically out that the bandits expected a large ransom.  He began to suspect a mistake in identity.  That assumption, increasing in weight, became certainty.  They looked him all around, they compared notes, they regarded the fine cloak, the refreshed steed.  “English, senor, English?”

“Scots.  You do not understand that?  Cousin to English.”

“English.  We had word of your traveling—­with plenty of gold.”