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Concha, however, with that lean strength that comes from a life of abstemiousness and low-living, crept along in the shadow of the houses and reached his destination unhurt. The tall house in the alley leading from the Calle Preciados to the Plazuela Santa Maria was dark, as indeed were most of the streets of Madrid this night.
The lamp at the corner of the Calle Preciados had been shattered against the wall by a gust of wind, and both men clattered through a slough of broken glass.
The Calle Preciados again! and a momentary confusion among the tables of a cafe that stood upon the pavement, amid upturned chairs and a fallen, flapping awning. The pace was less killing now, but Larralde still held his own one hand clutched over the precious letter regained at last and Conyngham was conscious of a sharp pain where the Spaniard's knife had touched his lung.
There are many living still who remember the great gale of wind which was now raging, and through which Father Concha struggled back to the Calle Preciados as the city clocks struck ten. Old men and women still tell how the theatres were deserted that night and the great cafes wrapt in darkness. For none dare venture abroad amid such whirl and confusion.
An hour later he was afoot again in a quarter of the city which was less known to him namely, in the Calle Preciados, where he sought a venta more or less suspected by the police. The wind had risen, and was now blowing with the force of a hurricane. It came from the north-west with a chill whistle which bespoke its birthplace among the peaks of the Gaudarramas.
In the Calle Preciados he sat down on a door-step, and there waited until he had gained mastery over his limbs, which shook still. Presently he made his way back to the house where he had left Concha.
Larralde turned sharply to the right as soon as he gained the Calle Preciados. It was a mere alley running the whole way round a church and here again was solitude, but not silence, for the wind roared among the chimneys overhead as it roars through a ship's rigging at sea.
Larralde and Conyngham had the Calle Preciados to themselves and Larralde cursed his spurs, which rang out at each footfall, and betrayed his whereabouts. A dozen times the Spaniard fell, but before his pursuer could reach him, the same obstacle threw Conyngham to the ground.
Down the whole length of the Preciados but one lamp was left alight, and the narrow street was littered with tiles and fallen bricks, for many chimneys had been blown down, and more than one shutter lay in the roadway, torn from its hinges by the hurricane. It was at the risk of life that any ventured abroad at this hour and amid the whirl of falling masonry.
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