Then he went back to the wall and noticed the dim figure of one of the sentinels going toward the convent yard and the church.
Ned took only a single glance at the man, but he rather envied him.

The man was going off duty early, and he would soon be asleep in a warm place under a roof.

He did not think of him again until a full hour later, when he, too, going off duty, saw a figure hidden in serape and sombrero passing along the inner edge of the plaza.

The walk and figure reminded him of the man whom he had seen an hour before, and he wondered why any one who could have been asleep under shelter should have returned to the cold and rain.
He decided to follow, but the figure flitted away before him down the plaza and toward the lowest part of the wall.

This was doubly curious.
Moreover, it was ground for great suspicion.