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Had it not been for her great wealth the whole matter would have passed unnoticed; for wealth is still a burden upon its owners, and there are many who must perforce go away sorrowful on account of their great possessions. Half the world guessed, however, at the truth, and every man judged the Sarrions from his own political standpoint, praising or blaming according to preconceived convictions.
The Sarrions were not looked upon with a kindly eye within the walls of the Northern fortress and it is much too small a town for any to pass unobserved in its streets. There was work to do in Saragossa. In Pampeluna there were only suspicions to arouse. Juanita was in Sor Teresa's care and could scarcely come to harm, holding in her hand as she did a strong card to be played on emergency.
Here there is a village crouched on either side of the river-bed, and above it on a plateau surrounded by chestnut trees and pines, stands the house of the Sarrions. In winter the wholesome smell of wood smoke rising from the chimneys pervades the air. In summer the warm breath of the pines creeps down the mountains to mingle with the cooler air that stirs the bracken.
He sat back and looked at the Sarrions with his little, cunning eyes twinkling beneath his gold laced cap. The expansiveness would not last much longer. Sarrion's dark glance was diagnosing the man with a deadly skill. "The thing," he said slowly, "is to strike while the iron is hot." He spoke in the symbolic way of a people much given to proverbial wisdom and the dark uses of allegory.
In the Plaza de la Constitucion, the centre of the town, troops of hopeful dogs followed each other from dust heap to dust heap, but seemed to find little of succulence, whilst what they did find appeared to bring on a sudden and violent indisposition. Perro gazed at them sadly from the carriage window remembering perhaps his own dust heap days. The Sarrions had no house in Pampeluna.
And all the valley of the Wolf, from the grim Pyrenees standing sentinel at its head to the sunny plain almost in sight of Pampeluna, where the Wolf merges into other streams, was held quiescent in the grip of the Sarrions. "We will fight," said the men of this valley, "for the king, when we have a king worth fighting for. And we will always fight for ourselves."
This, the last of the Sarrions, was a patient looking man, with the quiet eyes of one who deals with Nature, and the slow movements of the far-sighted. For Nature is always consistent, and never hurries those who watch her closely to obey the laws she writes so large in the instincts of man and beast.
Before receiving the living he visited the dead man who may be assumed to have been honest in his intention, as he undoubtedly proved himself to be brave in action; the best man that Spain produced in her time of trouble. Among the first to bow before the King were the two Sarrions, and as they returned into an anteroom they came face to face with Evasio Mon, waiting his turn there.
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