CHAPTER XXIXQUESADA AGAIN"I must apologise for your brother's taste, senorita, in compelling me to allow you to find me in such a—palace," I said, with a wave of the hand about the filthy cell. "This is the hospitality he considers is my due."The disgusting stench of the place turned her sick and faint, and anger flashed from her eyes. I was not at all sorry for her to see for herself the hole in which I had been caged."You must leave it at once, senor. It is horrible," she cried."I am but one of hundreds honoured with the same treatment, and the courtesy of my host is so pressing as to render it difficult for me to leave.""I have brought the order for your release, senor. It is abominable—abominable! I wish to speak to Senor Carbonnell; take us to some place where we can breathe," she said to the warder."I told the prisoner to come before, but he refused, senorita," said the man in a surly tone; and then we followed him along the corridor to a square, bare room near the entrance to the gaol."I am ashamed at what you have suffered, Senor Carbonnell. My brother has deceived me, and broken his pledged word.""I shall ever remember your former efforts for me, senorita, but you will see that the subject of Senor Quesada's conduct is one I can scarcely discuss with his sister," I answered."But it is just that which I want to discuss. I have obtained your release——""Pardon me," I broke in, "but I cannot accept my release on any conditions whatever. I am profoundly indebted to you for this act of yours, deeply impressed by the motives which underlie it, and can never cease to think kindly of you for it; but, though you found me a prisoner in such vile surroundings, I am not without great influence even here in Madrid—far greater than your brother deems—and my liberation was at most but a matter of hours. I can therefore make no conditions even with one so gracious and so friendly as yourself.""You have maddened Sebastian against you by threatening him, but you will not think of such things.""I would do much to please you, I am sure you know that; but you ask me what is impossible," I answered, firmly."There is no man in the world for whom I would have done this," she cried, impetuously. "And I had to strain to the utmost my influence with Sebastian to do it. The very fact that he ordered your arrest in defiance of his pledge to me shows how bitterly he feels. I was at the station this evening by the merest chance when you were brought there, and I could scarcely believe my own eyes when I saw you were under arrest. I went at once to Sebastian——""Pray forgive me if I interrupt you, but I cannot discuss his conduct with you. If you saw the arrest, however, you will have seen that I was not alone in being arrested; and if you wish to do me a kindness you will use this great influence of yours to secure the liberation of Senorita Castelar."But at the mention of Sarita she drew herself up, and both anger and surprise, but chiefly anger, were in the look she gave me."You ask me that?" she cried, and then as suddenly changed. "You do not think she is in any danger, surely?" she added."I know that she was arrested, and you yourself saw the place where I was imprisoned, and can judge of the fitness of such a hole for a girl.""And you don't know? She has never told you?" she cried, scornfully."I am not sure I understand you," I replied."She is to be my brother's wife, senor. Do you think he would suffer her to be treated as—as you have been?""Senorita, there is a great misunderstanding somewhere; but if anything is certain, it is that she will never be his wife.""Will you come and see Sebastian?" she asked, suddenly. "I am so anxious to have peace between you.""It could do no good.""I ask you to come. If you value what I have done here, you will consent.""It can do no good; but if you ask it I will go;" and the instant I had consented she led the way to her carriage, which was waiting outside the gate."Where is Senorita Castelar?" I asked, as we drove rapidly along."I don't know, but she is sure to be well cared for," she answered, as though the subject was no concern of hers; and no more was said until we were close to the house. Then, with some hesitation, she said: "I know nearly everything of my brother's plans, and shall be present at the interview. There must be a full understanding."I made no reply, for I did not quite know what she meant; but I was certain that if there was to be anything like a full understanding the interview promised to be interesting; and I began to feel glad I had come.Quesada was at home, and in the room where I had had my last conversation with him and my introduction to Rubio, and I found him looking much more concerned and anxious than I had ever seen him."What is the meaning of this visit?" was his blunt greeting."I have brought Senor Carbonnell," said Dolores, "that these things may be explained and talked over. I wished it, Sebastian.""Very well; what does he want to explain?""You told me to-night, for the second time, that he could and would ruin you if he was set at liberty. I wish to have peace between you. I told you so, when I insisted on his being liberated; and I have told him so, too. Now that you are face to face, say plainly what this means, and how it is to be avoided.""When women interfere in matters they don't understand, they always do something foolish. This is mere foolishness. Senor Carbonnell—or, to give him his proper title, Lord Glisfoyle—is bent upon doing his utmost to ruin me, and you have given him the opportunity. Why, then, seek to delay him in his purpose? Let him go and begin his task." He spoke quite firmly, and with great deliberateness."This is hopeless, Sebastian," cried his sister, wringing her hands."What would you have me do, Dolores? Assume a fear of him which I do not feel? Throw myself at his feet and beg his mercy, when I stand in no need of it? Play at theatricals? You are a woman, we are men; and you don't understand us or our methods. Lord Glisfoyle and I have been engaged in a duel to the death. I had him at my advantage when you interfered—for the second time. You have given him the advantage now, and the cue is with him. He holds, or thinks he holds, weapons which he can use to secure my ruin; and you seem to think you can induce him not to use them by bringing him here to talk over, as you call it, the position. I am sure he did not come willingly, and am surprised he came at all; but here or anywhere else—except, of course, in safe keeping—it is all one to me. We shall continue the duel under the circumstances which you have changed in this way to my disadvantage.""I was leaving Spain when your men stopped me and brought me to Madrid," I said."But not alone," he rapped out, sharply."No, with the lady who is to be my wife," I retorted.For a second his hands clenched involuntarily, and he winced, but instantly recovered himself, and spoke calmly."That remains to be seen. But why this interview?""I have not sought it," I answered curtly, and got up to leave."You must not go," cried Dolores."My dear Dolores, do not meddle any more.""Yes, Sebastian, I will. I must speak. Senor Carbonnell—Lord Glisfoyle, I mean—knows your secret plotting in regard to the King; he holds, as you told me, documents which must compromise you, and may ruin you if he can prove they are genuine. These are what you call his weapons. There must be some inducement that can prevail upon him not to use them. Is that not so, Lord Glisfoyle?" she cried, turning to me in deep distress."You are forgetting yourself, Dolores. We are not children or women," said the Minister, sternly. "I will have no more of this child's play. You should not have brought Lord Glisfoyle here. Every word you utter but makes your blunder worse; and God knows you have done enough mischief already to satisfy even a woman.""I asked you a question, Lord Glisfoyle," said Dolores, paying no regard to his protests."A question I find most difficult, I may say impossible, to answer. Your brother knows how he has treated me, and knows also how he would act were our positions reversed. I can say no more.""But do you mean to use these letters?" she persisted."Since obtaining them I have obtained others, and much information. I know the part you have played throughout this business, Senor Quesada,"—I felt it easier to speak to him—"and I shall not rest until I have done my utmost to bring this home to you. In one thing you have wronged your sister. I should not have remained in what you term safe keeping more than a few hours at the utmost; for already there are forces at work for my liberation which even you would find it hopeless to resist. What you term your sister's blunder, therefore—procuring my liberation from the prison—is no more than an anticipation by those few hours of what must have followed.""That may be. At any rate, you are free, and you owe it to her." This reminder of my obligation to Dolores was the first slight rift in his firmness."If it were possible, it would influence my attitude. But nothing can do that—nothing, at least, that you can do.""I knew there was something. What is it? Tell us that, Lord Glisfoyle. I beg and pray of you, say what it is," cried Dolores, in a tone of fervent entreaty."It is useless even to name it. It is nothing less than the undoing of all this wilful and unholy persecution of the Carlists—wilful and unholy because undertaken for the sake of furthering, not the welfare of Spain, but your brother's ambition.""It is not impossible. I am sure it is not," she exclaimed. "You can do anything, Sebastian; while your influence is what it is, you can do anything. Say that this shall be done, and Lord Glisfoyle will leave Spain—I know he will—and give up these documents you fear so much."They were the mere wild, idle words of a distracted woman, the cry of a true heart torn asunder by the vehemence of emotion.To my surprise, her brother did not instantly repudiate them, however, but sat with pent, frowning brows in deep thought for a moment."Would you go alone?" he asked then, without relaxing the stern, set expression of face."Do you mean would anything ever make me consent to see Sarita Castelar your wife?""Would you go alone?" he repeated, in the same tone."Nothing would make me consent to that," I replied, answering my own question. "And nothing will ever induce me not to hold you responsible for her safety."He heard me without a sign, and again buried himself in his thoughts. Then he pushed his chair back, rose, and went to the door."Leave us a few minutes, Dolores," he said, still in the same set, even tone. "It is possible that we may yet arrive at an understanding."She looked at him in fear, then at me, doubtingly, and again back at him."No, I cannot leave you. I—I dare not.""Leave us, Dolores. I shall not murder Lord Glisfoyle."She still hesitated and lingered, but at length yielded, saying as she passed me—"I shall see you again?"I bowed, but said nothing; I was too full of surprise at the turn things were taking, and too thoughtful, wondering what was to come next.Quesada held the door while his sister passed out, and closed and locked it after her, and turned back to his table."We are now quite alone, Lord Glisfoyle, and can speak plainly. You love Sarita Castelar, and hope to make her your wife?""I decline to discuss her with you, Senor Quesada.""Well, then, I tell you she is pledged to marry me, and I will suffer no man on earth to take her from me.""You did not speak so to your tool, Colonel Juan Livenza. I am aware of the infamous bargain you made with him.""I will not allow anyone to take her from me," he said again, between his teeth, the increased tenseness of the tone being his only notice of my words. "You are an English nobleman, and presumably a man of courage. When you were here last time in my house, you struck me. You are now bent on ruining me, and have set everything on that venture. Owing to my sister's interference, you are free; and because she loves you, she is mad enough to stay my hands in dealing with you, knowing, what you also know, things that must be kept secret. And as a crowning stroke you threaten to rob me of the woman I love. Under those circumstances, what think you is the fitting course for two men—two enemies, if you will—placed as you and I are, to pursue?""If I understand you, I decline to discuss such a proposal.""If you are a gentleman and a man of honour, and not a coward, you will find only one answer to my question," he said, his rage deepening in its quiet intensity with every sentence, till each word he uttered was a deliberate insult—an added knot on the lash of his bitter tongue. But I had my temper too well in hand to take fire."There are matters you forget. You set your bully, Livenza, upon me first; you used your power as Minister to destroy me; you ordered your police spies to dog me; and you had me gaoled in one of your filthy prisons. In this way you exhausted every means in your power to deal with me officially; and having schemed and tricked and bullied thus in vain, you find yourself at bay, and as a last resource you remember your honour with suspicious tardiness, and think of the means which the gentleman and the man of honour you speak of would have thought of first. I will not fight with you, Senor Quesada.""You are a coward, then.""I don't accept your standards in that matter.""I will make you fight me," he cried; and, his rage breaking beyond all control, he rushed at me, and raised his arm to strike me with the back of the hand across the mouth; but I caught his arm, and thrust him staggering back against his chair, over which he nearly fell. Thinking he might have firearms, and that in his mad fury he would use them, I unlocked the door, and was leaving the room when he called to me; but I paid no heed, and went out.Dolores was in waiting, and came when she heard me leaving. She was paler even than before, like one distraught with fear and anxiety. I pitied her from the bottom of my heart, and her brother's blunt statement that she loved me, and had been led by that love to insist on my freedom even at the cost of ruin to him, touched me very closely."Is there any hope of an arrangement, senor?" she asked, searching my face with haggard eyes."None whatever," I replied, shaking my head."Can nothing bring you two together again?""It is absolutely impossible, senorita."I spoke as gently as I could, but it was useless to flinch from the truth."Can I do nothing to prevail with you? I have tried so hard to serve you," she said, in a tone of despairing wistfulness."For you, personally, I would do anything in my power. I am not unmindful of what it must have cost you, and you shall not find me ungrateful.""I do not ask for thanks; I do not want them. I should have done the same had the ruin been mine instead of Sebastian's," and she smiled. "I am glad to have done it;" but the smile ended in a sigh at the thought of the price to be paid.I took her hands and pressed them."I am very troubled for you," I murmured.She returned the pressure, her own hands trembling very much."If it had not been for Sarita Castelar, you two would never have quarrelled, and—and all would have been so different." Her lips quivered as she spoke, and her eyes were full of sadness. Her look pained me inexpressibly. I said nothing, and after a pause she added:"You do not think he will let you take her from him? You know him too well for that; although you do not know him yet. What was it he would not let me hear?""I would rather you heard it from him. And I must go." She had roused my fears for Sarita."I thought he meditated some act of violence against you, and he is headstrong enough to do anything—even against her.""You can surely prevent that," I cried, quickly, in alarm. "You were strong to save me."The look with which she answered me lives in my memory to this hour. Then she drew her hands from mine, and said coldly—"I can do nothing. You have made him desperate." And with a change of tone, after a slight pause, as though excusing her own hardness of thought and resolve, she added: "Besides, I do not know where she is; so Icando nothing, even if I would."With that I left her, and hurried from the house a prey to innumerable harassing fears, the stings and darts of which sent me plunging headlong through the streets to go I did not think where, and to do I did not know what.Sarita was in imminent peril from that reckless, desperate man, and I alone had to save her. More than once I halted undecided whether to return and take up the challenge he had thrown down, and trust to my own strength and skill to render him powerless to harm her. And in this bewildered state of mind I found myself at the door of my old dwelling, half crazed by the thought that hours at least must elapse before I could use hand or tongue for her protection, and that for all those hours she would be absolutely at his mercy.CHAPTER XXXSUSPENSEThe moment I entered my rooms I perceived that they had been ransacked. The trail of the police searchers lay over everything. In his eagerness to regain possession of that compromising document which he feared so acutely, Quesada had turned his agents loose in my rooms; and they had done their work so thoroughly that the condition of the place was a silent but most impressive tribute to their skill and his alarm. The rooms had been searched from wall to wall; my trunks had been broken and overhauled; drawers and cupboards had been forced, and the contents diligently scrutinised; not a thing had been left in its proper place; and I smiled with a feeling of grim pleasure that I had had the forethought to put the papers in the safe hands of my friend Mayhew.For the action of the police I cared nothing, and I stayed in the place only long enough to get such clothes as I might need; and I threw them into a Gladstone bag, and carried them over to Mayhew's rooms.I had too stern a task before me in procuring Sarita's release to give serious thought to much else. My friend was out, and I guessed I should find him at the Hotel de l'Opera; but, having changed my clothes, I sat down to think over matters before going in search of him.Affairs were in all truth in an inextricable tangle, and very little reflection convinced me that instead of unravelling them I had made them worse by the course I had adopted with Sebastian Quesada. I had committed the fatal blunder of driving him into a corner, and rendering him desperate enough to resort to any of those violent methods which Dolores had said he would certainly adopt when once his back was to the wall.It was easy to see now what I ought to have done. Belated wisdom is the curse of a fool, I thought bitterly, as I realised what my clumsy shortsighted tactlessness had achieved. What I ought to have done was to have convinced him of my power to ruin him; have told him even of my influence at the Palace; and have driven in upon him with irresistible force that it was in my power to thwart the ambition and ruin the career that were as the very breath of his nostrils to him. Having done that, I ought to have opened the door of escape by a pledge to do nothing if he would but give up Sarita.Instead of this I had driven him to desperation. I had left him under the conviction that not only could I ruin him, but that I most assuredly should do so; and had thus given him no alternative but to set his vigorous energies to work to retrieve so much of his position as was possible, and to keep for himself what he prized scarcely less than his position, and what it was already in his power to secure—the woman he loved.That he could keep Sarita from me, I could not doubt. He needed but to lift a finger to have her conveyed where I might search for her in vain; and a slight knowledge of his resourceful and implacable character was enough to convince anyone that he would act both promptly and resolutely. And I shuddered at the thought of the probable consequences to her.There was yet another distracting reflection. It was by no means certain that, even if I could wrest her from his grip, I could obtain clemency for Sarita herself. Her actions in this infernal Carlist business had been those of vigorous, bitter, and dangerous intrigue against the King; treason as subtle as it was active. She was an acknowledged leader of the Carlists; and I might be sure that Quesada for his own purposes had accumulated more than sufficient proofs of her intrigues. Great as was the obligation of the King and the Queen Regent to me, I could scarcely dare to hope they would pardon her; and hence, if I succeeded in pulling down the strong pillars at the house of Quesada's reputation, there was too much reason to fear that when the building fell Sarita would be crushed in the ruins.Moreover, there was the problem of Sarita's own sentiments. In the revulsion of feeling which had followed Livenza's disclosures, she had been willing to leave the country; and while I was with her, and the influence of our mutual love could work upon her, that willingness might have remained. But in the solitude of her imprisonment, wherever the prison might be, she would have long hours of cold thought; and I had seen too much of her infatuated belief that her duty demanded she should stay and share the fate of those who had been misled by her ill-fated plans, not to fear that that infatuation would again assert itself.Thus, ponder and stew and plan as I would, I could see no clear course. All things contributed to make it a personal struggle between Quesada and myself, in which, while I held the weapons that might ruin him, he had the means of making that ruin fatal to me so far as the only object I cared for, Sarita's safety and well-being, was concerned.As my head cleared from the whirl of mazing thoughts, the conclusion that I had blundered so badly in my interview with him became plainer and plainer, gradually hardening into the new purpose to return to him in the possible hope of retrieving the mistake. Such a reopening of matters would look like an admission of weakness; and so in truth it was; but I had only one object—Sarita's safety; and that must override all other and lesser considerations.Going down into the street, I drove back to his house, my distaste for the interview increasing with every yard that brought it nearer, and the difficulties of the task looming ever greater, until I am not sure that I was not rather glad when I was told he had left his house, and that the hour of his return was uncertain. I did not ask for Dolores, but, getting back into the carriage that had brought me, told the man to drive me to the Hotel de l'Opera.My arrival there was hailed with delight. Madame Chansette and Mayhew were with Mrs. Curwen and Mercy, and, having heard of my arrest, all were deep in anxious discussion of my affairs when I entered.I gave them a very general and brief account of my doings, and instantly a whole battery of questions was opened upon me."You look sadly in need of a good square meal," said Mrs. Curwen, always practical; and she promptly ordered some supper for me. "At the present rate of running, about another week of this will finish you," she added."But how did you get away?" asked Mayhew. "You were arrested, and the whole Embassy has been hard at work expostulating, protesting, protocolling, and Heaven knows what. There never was such a pother raised in Madrid before.""An order came for my release, and I walked out.""Do you mean you were actually in prison?" asked Mercy."And a very filthy prison, too, I assure you. But, so far as I am concerned, that danger is over.""Well, thank Heaven for that. Another period of suspense of the kind would about kill Mercy, and finish off the family," cried Mrs. Curwen. "I'm off Spanish investments altogether. And what's going to happen next? Of course it'll be something unusual. There's no musty conventionality about your doings just now.""And where is Sarita?" asked Madame Chansette."I wish I knew, my dear madame. She was arrested at the same time as I; and if I knew, I could do something to help her. But that's just the pith and kernel of my trouble. As to what will come next I have not a much clearer idea than you, Mrs. Curwen. But something will probably happen to-morrow.""We may be sure of that," she returned quickly. "And when can we all go away to some safe un-dynamity country?""I think I shall be able to answer that better to-morrow.""It's all to-morrow, it seems to me. And in the meantime don't you think you'd better go to bed somewhere? You're about fagged out.""I am too anxious to sleep.""And when was anxiety relieved by sitting up all night and worrying with it? There, I've rung the bell, and you can tell the waiter to have a room got ready instantly for you. We shall all feel easier if we know you're in the place. I'm sure you can't do anything to-night, and by the morning you'll have a clear head, some more plans, and enough energy for another burst of this kind of thing."When the waiter came I yielded, under protest, and ordered a room."I must have a long chat with Mayhew first," I said."Not to-night, if Mercy and I have any influence with Mr. Mayhew," she returned, and Mercy agreed. Then, to my surprise, Mayhew, in a half-shamefaced but very serious manner, said: "I think Mrs. Curwen is right, Ferdinand.""What, you as well, Silas?" and as I looked at him he smiled and shrugged his shoulders."No one thinks of questioning Mrs. Curwen's commands," he answered."Oh, already? Then I'd better give in, too," and with that I went, feeling indeed the truth of what she said—that I could do nothing that night.She was right, also, that I was in sore need of rest, and, despite my anxieties and my declaration that sleep would be impossible, my head was no sooner on the pillow than I fell into deep slumber, which lasted until a sluggard's hour on the following morning. It was ten o'clock before I awoke.I found Mrs. Curwen alone, and my vexation at having been allowed to lie so late must have shown in my face, for she said directly: "There's no one to blame but me, Lord Glisfoyle. I would not allow you to be called. I don't believe in my prescriptions being half taken.""I have a great deal to do," I answered, somewhat ungraciously."That's no reason why you should try to do it with half your energies sapped for want of sleep. Mr. Mayhew has been here for you and tried to get to you; but I wouldn't let him," she said assertively."He is learning obedience diligently, it seems," I observed."He is a very good fellow, and I strained my influence with him, I can tell you," she retorted, with a smile of some occult meaning."He is the prince of good fellows, and the staunchest of friends, and I congratulate you on having such influence to strain.""Oh, men are not difficult to manage, if properly handled.""Some of us, that is; but I hope he has been duly attentive in my absence," I said, casually, and with a glance."What was the poor man to do? He couldn't very well leave us in the lurch, I suppose? You were away, and we'd positively no one else.""To say nothing of his own inclinations," I added."To say nothing of his own inclinations," she repeated. "Mercy is not exactly the kind of girl to scare a man away from her, I should hope.""A supposition that might be extended to include——""What do you mean?" she asked quickly, as I stopped."Whom should I mean but"—looking at her pointedly—"Madame Chansette, shall I say?" She laughed."Yes, we'll say Madame Chansette.""And yet—well, it doesn't much matter whom we say; but at any rate he's a thoroughly genuine fellow, and—you can fill in the rest. But, by the way, where is Mercy?""She is having a French or Spanish lesson, I think; I'll tell you all about it when you've finished your breakfast, and not a minute before. But about Mr. Mayhew, tell me, what is he at the Embassy here? He seems to speak as though he was a kind of mill-horse. Are there no prospects for him? Has he no influence to push him on?""Yes, he has one, I think I may say two friends now who will see to that. I'm one of the two—and I think I'm speaking to the other," I said, quietly. "And between us we ought to do something. But he's as proud as Lucifer, and a mere hint that we were at the back of anything of the kind would make him kick.""If poor A.B.C. were alive——""Then, my dear Mrs. Curwen, you would never have been in Madrid, and would never have known Mayhew." She shrugged her shapely shoulders, smiled, and then said with unusual earnestness: "And will you really let me help you in trying to get him a step or two up the ladder?""I mean to have him in London, and to make the people at home understand that he has a head on his shoulders fit for better things. Why, if Silas only had money to back his brains, there's nothing he might not do or be. But there, I've finished my breakfast!" I exclaimed, getting up from the table, thinking I had said enough. "And now, where is Mercy?""Will you shake hands on that bargain, Lord Glisfoyle?" she asked, her eyes bright with the thoughts I knew I had started. We shook hands gravely, as became such a compact, and I looked straight into her eyes, as I said in as earnest a tone as hers: "The woman who marries Silas Mayhew will have a husband in a hundred thousand, true, honest-hearted, straight and good right through. And now, whereisMercy?" She returned my look, coloured slightly, and some reply sprang to her lips, but she checked it, and turning away, said: "Sebastian Quesada's sister came here, and the two girls are closeted together, waiting for you.""And you have kept me here all this time!" I cried."I was bound to see to your health.""You are as anxious for my health, I believe, as I am for your happiness," and with that I hurried away, leaving her blushing very prettily.I found Dolores looking very white and worn, and in a mood of deep dejection. She and Mercy had been weeping together in the sympathetic exchange of such confidence and consolation as their ignorance of each other's tongue and mutual indifferent knowledge of the French language would allow."She is in terrible trouble, Ferdinand, do try and relieve her. Her heart is almost broken by the fearful strain of her sorrow," said Mercy, getting up to leave as I entered."You do not understand things, Mercy, but I will do what I can.""Your sister is an angel, Lord Glisfoyle," said Dolores, as the door closed behind Mercy. "I am almost ashamed to come to you, but I could not keep away. She has told me what I knew, of course, how good and generous and noble you are. Cannot you do what I asked you yesterday? I heard of your second visit to us last night, and all through the night—such a night of agony for me—I have been feeding my soul with the hope that you came to make some agreement.""Where is your brother? I am truly pained to see you like this.""It does not matter about me; nothing of that kind can matter now," she answered in a tone deadened by sorrow. "I should not come to you for such a paltry object as my own troubles. It is for Sebastian I am thinking. But you don't seem to understand how I feel, how this fearful thing has shut upon me like the closing walls of an Inquisition prison cell, until whichever way I stretch out my hands I find ruin crushing in upon me," and she moved her hands like one distraught with terror and trouble."What can I do?" I asked, gently."Can't you try and see what all this has meant to me?" she asked wildly, ignoring my question. "What I suffered when I knew that Sebastian meant to ruin you, to involve you in this terrible Carlist business, to have you proclaimed as Ferdinand Carbonnell, the desperate Carlist leader, imprisoned and sent Heaven alone knew where, to suffer the fate and the punishment which such a man would rightly suffer? What could I do but step in to save you? You know his reluctance, the struggle we had, the wild words he spoke of your ruining him, and then how he broke his pledged word to me? And yet to save you meant to ruin him! Holy Mother of God, what was I to do?" and she wrung her hands. "I could not see you wronged in this way; and yet as my reward am I to see him dragged down, his reputation destroyed, his position degraded, his very name a foulness in the mouths of the populace? Is this your English sense of honour and recompense? No, no, I don't mean that. I know you are just and honourable. I am crazed with my trouble to speak such words to you.""Where is your brother?""I do not know. You drove him to desperation last night. He left this house almost directly you had gone; and returned late, and was gone again this morning before I could get word with him. He is like a mad-man; and what he will do in his madness, who can tell?" The fears that lay beneath her wild words were the same as had been pressing so keenly on me, yet what to do to avert them was more than I could see."If you do not know where he is, what can we do?" I asked."Give me those compromising papers, and let me find him and prove that the danger he fears is at an end? He will then do anything you ask. You do not know him. He is stern, hard, implacable when opposed, but he is not dead to feelings of generosity. An act like that would touch him to the core, and he would do anything you asked—nay, let me know what it is you wish, and I would pledge myself that he would do it." She pleaded urgently and almost imploringly, but I could not yield."I cannot do that. Only last night he likened this struggle between us to a duel, and you would ask me to disarm myself and throw away the only means by which I can hope to win my way. I am sorry, deeply and sincerely sorry, but this is impossible.""You would see him dragged into the dirt for the rabble to spit upon!" Her changing mood, as she was swayed first by thoughts for me and then by those for her brother, was painful to witness."He did not hesitate to have me treated as a criminal, senorita; he has set me at defiance and refused everything I asked; and I cannot put myself and others at his mercy. But I will do this. Let him set Sarita Castelar free, and stay this Carlist persecution, and I will give up the documents he fears, and say nothing of what I know. More than that I cannot offer you; and even that must depend upon the senorita being free before I am placed in a position which compels me to take action against him.""What does that mean? How long will you give me? I must have time to find him. I cannot do anything without time. You are iron to me in your madness for this girl.""Unfortunately I am not free to name any time." I was not. I did not yet know what measures Mayhew had taken, and whether he had communicated with the Palace. My summons to the King might come at any hour, and I was compelled to hold myself free to speak all I knew with regard to Quesada in my interview there. At the same time Dolores' acute distress of mind, and the knowledge of what she had done for me, filled me with a desire to help her; while personally, I was anxious to get Sarita from Quesada's grip at the earliest possible moment, and to leave Spain. Under pressure of these thoughts, I added: "This I can assure you, I would far rather the matter ended as you wish, and will give you every possible moment of time.""I will go," she answered promptly. "I depend on you. You have given me some hope, if not much. If I fail with Sebastian"—and she closed her eyes and sighed in the agony of the thought—"I will let you know at once.""And I will do nothing without first sending word to you," I promised in reply.We parted then, and when she left the room I found Mayhew waiting for me in the corridor.CHAPTER XXXIAT THE PALACE"Your lady visitors call early, Ferdinand," said Mayhew, rather drily."Yes, rather embarrassing, isn't it? But what news have you for me? What happened yesterday?""More than enough to prove that you are a person of considerable importance, I can tell you. When I got your message by that exceedingly sharp lad, Juan, that you were arrested, I went straight to the chief, and within an hour a protest was in the hands of the Spanish Government, couched in terms calculated to make them sit up, I promise you, and very soon the whole machinery was at work to get you out. They denied all knowledge of you, however; but I expect a good deal would have happened to-day if you hadn't been set at liberty. I told the chief this morning, however, that you were here, and he wants to see you. And that's about all—unless you want the details.""Did you send any word to the Palace?""No, I kept that in reserve for to-day as a broadside, and, of course, I said nothing to anyone about the papers you left with me.""Good; just as I should have expected from you. And now, I'm going to tell you the whole mess, and just see what's best to be done;" and I gave him a pretty full account of everything that had happened."You're right, it is a devil of a mess," was his comment when I finished. "What do you suppose Quesada's sister can do?""I haven't a notion. I'm just at the end of my wits, and can't for the life of me see what's to be done.""There's one thing you may safely reckon on, and it isn't a pleasant thing anyway—that that beggar is sure to have a trump card up his sleeve that will most likely outplay your best. He's the most cunning beggar in all Spain. He's been in heaps of tight corners before, and wriggled out just when it seemed impossible. And he won't give in now, you bet. I tell you what he's likely to do—he knows just as well as lots of others, that he's the pivot of the whole Government; the one man for instance, who, in the popular view, can wage this threatened war with the States with some chance of success; and I wouldn't be one little bit surprised if he trumps you with a change of front and declares for war. You don't know as much as I do of Spanish politics, and can't, therefore, understand the holy mess that would follow here if the war came. He'd be the only man able to guide things; and in such a case you might hammer at him in vain.""But these documents, Livenza's statement, my own knowledge, Sarita Castelar's evidence!" I cried, in protest."Strong enough in England, perhaps; but he'd deny everything; and do you think anyone's going to care two pence about them if the nation is in danger. He'd say the letters were forgeries; pop Livenza into prison, or bribe or threaten him to change face; the lady is already safe in his charge, and as a Carlist wouldn't be believed even if she were at liberty; and your statement would be listened to politely, and then disregarded as that of an enemy of Spain and a friend of America. I'm sorry to discourage you, but you asked my advice and that is—don't count on your weapons as he called them, and don't believe for a moment that you can really do him any harm. He sits too firm in the saddle.""But he told his sister that I could ruin him, and he showed the fear by wanting to make me fight him.""Mere play-acting, Ferdinand, nothing more. He wanted to get the papers back quietly if he could, and the quietest and safest way would have been to have you arrested as Carbonnell, the Carlist, and sent somewhere into the far provinces, and probably knocked on the head by the way or shot in mistake—the kind of mistake that does happen at times. His sister appears to have cut that plan short, and naturally he tells her she must get the papers back, if she could. But if she couldn't, it didn't follow that he wasn't quite prepared to face you. Don't make the mistake of thinking he will give up a jot or tittle of any plan he has, whether public or private; he never has been known to yet, and even you will never make him, strong as your case would be in any other country and against any other man. It's part of his constitution, my dear fellow. He's got all the energy and resource of a present day American with all the confounded pride and stiff-necked doggedness of an Old Castile noble. A rummy combination, but the devil to fight.""I shan't give in," I said, firmly. "And that I take it your advice is that I should."Mayhew shrugged his shoulders significantly."I'd make it different if I could. I'm very sorry, for I can guess what it means to you; but you've no chance;" and he shook his head, hopelessly. "Shall we go and see the chief?""I shan't give in," I said again; but I am free to confess that his counsel of despair had great effect upon me, and I went to the Embassy in a very despondent mood.I was closeted with the chief a considerable time, while I gave such account of my experiences as I deemed advisable, and was questioned and cross-questioned, and advised and congratulated in the customary official manner, and finally counselled to return to England. A pointed question from me drew the reply that this last advice was the result of a request from the Spanish Government, and I did not fail to see in it the hand of Quesada.My answer was an evasive one, to the effect that I would go so soon as I had wound up such private affairs as I had to conclude in Madrid.I rejoined Mayhew, feeling both ill at ease and out of temper. A half-day had passed, and I had done nothing toward effecting Sarita's release; while the hours were flying, and no word came from Dolores. My apparent helplessness in other respects increased my anxiety to hear that she had been successful with her brother; for I was fast coming round to Mayhew's gloomy view of the position.Then came another complication. When we went to the Hotel de l'Opera, I found there an urgent summons from the Palace. News of my arrest and liberation had reached the young King, and he desired me to go to the Palace that afternoon. I scribbled a note to Dolores Quesada, telling her I could not wait for news from her after three o'clock—the hour appointed for the interview, and sent Mercy with it, Mayhew accompanying her.The reply to this put the climax to my anxiety. It ran thus:"Alas, my friend, I can do nothing. I have just seen Sebastian, who is now in a quite different mood. He laughs at the thought of your doing him any harm. 'Let him do his worst. He can but break himself on the wheel of his own efforts;' were his words. I am distracted with misery."I showed it to Mayhew, who read it thoughtfully."It could not be worse," he said. "He has put the senorita in a safe place, and is going to play the trump card that I was sure he had in reserve somewhere. You should have accepted his challenge and shot him. Only one thing can beat Quesada—and that's death.""I will do my best all the same," I answered; and in this mood I set out for my interview at the Palace, revolving on the way all the possible expedients that I could adopt to win even part of my purpose against the powerful enemy who held his way with such grim tenacity and inflexible resolve.My reception at the Palace might have flattered even Royalty itself. When I was ushered into the presence, the young King came running to me, laying aside all attempt at dignity, and smiling with pleasure as he held out his hands liked a pleased child."My Englishman of Podrida, at last!" he exclaimed, and he led me to the Queen Mother, who was graciousness itself."You have kept the words of gratitude too long prisoners in my heart, my lord. The Queen would chide you, but the mother's heart is too full for anything but welcome for the man who saved her son.""I trust your Majesties will pardon me. The delay has been due to causes as full of trouble as of urgency.""My son has told me of your daring rescue, but I wish to hear it again from you. I am so anxious to know all, that I would have the tale even before your own anxieties which, if we can, you must let us help you to dispel.""I have the mask here, my lord," cried the King, with all a boy's eagerness, bringing it out of a pocket."The story is a very simple one, your Majesty," I said, and then in as few words as I could, I told it. She listened with the closest attention, questioning me now and again on such points as interested her most, or where she wished greater detail; and when I described how the King was seized and carried into the carriage, and again how I had found him fastened down and disguised, she clasped the boy to her, and her changing colour and quickened breath gave evidence of her concern and emotion."And you were alone through it all?" she exclaimed, when I finished."Fortune favoured me or I could not have succeeded, Madame. Had not the two men following the carriage met with an accident, I could have done nothing. As it was, the surprise of my attack did what no strength of arm or skill or wit could have accomplished.""Do not call it fortune? It was rather the hand of Heaven guarding my dear son's safety, and you were the chosen instrument. And should you know those miscreants again?" Her tone hardened and her eyes flashed, as she put the question; and I thought then I could discern the feeling which had had as much to do with her impatience at my delay in coming to the Palace as her desire to thank me. She was burning with all a Spaniard's hot eagerness for revenge. But it was not my cue to strike at the agents, and my reply was guarded."It is possible that if they were face to face with me, I could identify them; but the thing was hurried, the work of no more than a few moments, and my English eyes are not sufficiently accustomed to distinguish between Spanish faces.""Ah, I am disappointed," cried the Queen, frowning."But I can do more than identify the men who actually did the ill-work, Madame; I know by whose hidden hand the wires of the plot were pulled.""Tell us that, and you will add a thousand times to the obligation that Spain and we owe you, my lord," she exclaimed, strenuously. "Who is the arch-traitor?""I shall have need of your Majesty's patient indulgence.""And you will not ask it in vain, Lord Glisfoyle, if you do not seek it for these villainous Carlists, who would have robbed me of my son and dealt this foul blow at Spain." Then with a quick thought, she asked: "But how comes it that you, an English nobleman, here in Madrid no longer than a few weeks, can have learnt these things?" I believe I could detect a touch of suspicion in her manner; and the King looked up sharply into her face and then across at me."By a coincidence in regard to my name, your Majesty. I came to Madrid but a short time ago to join the staff of the British Embassy; I was not then Lord Glisfoyle; and by a chain of coincidences some of the plans of the misguided Carlists became known to me.""Do you mean you knew of this intended plot against my son?""There are always rumours and reports, Madame, and such gossip was, of course, current in your capital—and equally, of course, well known to your Government and officials. But this was different; and the definite tidings came to me at a time and in a form which made it impossible for me to act otherwise than as I did.""What was your name then, if not Lord Glisfoyle?" she broke in."Ferdinand Carbonnell, the younger son of my late father.""Ferdinand Carbonnell! Ah, then——" the sentence remained unfinished, and I stood in silence watching her and waiting for the conclusion. I could guess her thought."Ferdinand Carbonnell is a well-known Carlist leader, Lord Glisfoyle," and she spoke in a tone that augured but ill for my success."And for that Carlist leader I was mistaken, your Majesty, and working through that strange mistake, Providence enabled me to rescue your son from a far worse fate than that which any Carlist ever designed. In following this strange double career I carried my life in my hands, risking misunderstanding at the hands of your Majesty's agents, and putting my life to the hazard of any Carlist discovery of my real character.""You cannot doubt him, mother," cried the King, protestingly."You have said too much or too little, my lord. I beg you to speak frankly.""I would ask your Majesty by whose advice it was that your son came to be in such a case as made this attempt possible?" I said; and the question went home, for she started quickly."By the advice of my Ministers, who felt that our confidence in the people should be shown in a way which all could see for themselves. Do you propose to arraign my Government on a charge of treason?""I do not arraign your Government as a whole, your Majesty; but what if it were proved to you that one of them, discontented with his present power and influence, great though they be, had aimed to make them greater; had thought that under the Republican form of Government there were wider scope for his ambition; and had planned, therefore, a double stroke of policy—say, for instance, the removal of your son from the Throne, using the Carlists for his purpose, and at the same time preparing to crush their power when he had used them, employing the very pretext of the plot as the cause of his drastic measures of repression? What if there be a man in your confidence who designed to overthrow the Monarchy, and climb on the ruins of the Throne to the place of supreme power in the country as President of a Republic to be proclaimed? What if these plans were all laid and settled in every detail; and yet made with such consummate skill and shrewdness, that even the crumbling of the corner-stone—this attempt on His Majesty—still left him higher, firmer, and stronger in position and influence than ever? What if the subtle organisation by which this Carlist rising has been crushed almost in a day was the outcome, not of a desire to save His Majesty's throne from attack, but of an intention to break down what—should the Monarchy be no longer in existence—would have been the one remaining possible obstacle to this man's success? Would your Majesty say that these Carlists or the arch-plotter were the more to be feared, the more culpable, the more dangerous?"I spoke with rising vehemence, and my daring words frightened both my hearers. The Queen was almost pale when I ended."You cannot make this good, my lord. I cannot believe it.""Yet every word is true and can be made good. The man I mean is your most powerful Minister—Senor Sebastian Quesada.""It cannot be. It is impossible," cried the Queen. "You frighten me, my lord. What proofs have you?"The intense impression created by my charge, emboldened me to go a step farther and place all on the cast. The Queen was so agitated, and the young King so deeply and keenly moved by my words, that I could not fail to see what weight would attach to any request I put while they were in that mood; and taking my fortune boldly in both hands, I resolved to risk everything on the chance of my being able to prove my charge against Quesada. Mayhew's words of despondent caution recurred to me, but my ears were deaf to everything save the one absorbing purpose that swayed me."His Majesty was good enough on the day, when under Providence I was able to snatch him from the hands of his enemies, to promise to grant me such request as I might prefer. You, Madame, to-day, with gracious sympathy at the mention of my cares and anxieties, expressed the generous desire to help me. May I entreat you then, remembering what I have done, to grant me a favour should I make good my words, and bring home to the real traitor this treachery against your august family and your throne?""You would make conditions, my lord?""Your Majesty, I am but a suppliant.""What is this favour?""That your Majesties will be graciously disposed to pardon the unfortunate dupes who have been misled by the man who has used them for his own purpose?""It is impossible, Lord Glisfoyle, utterly impossible. You cannot mean this. Stay, I have heard a possible reason for this strange request. I have heard your name coupled with one of the most daring of these Carlists—a Senorita Castelar—by whose influence we are told Ferdinand Carbonnell, the Englishman, took up the role of Ferdinand Carbonnell, the Spanish Carlist. Has this anything to do with this favour you ask?""Your Majesty, the dearest wish of my life is to make the Senorita Castelar my wife; as the farthest thought of hers would be to make me a Carlist. I trust that my acts have shown this for me, rendering mere protests needless.""Mother!" cried the young King, eagerly, like the staunch little champion of my cause that he was."These are matters of deep state importance, and we cannot follow only our inclinations," said his mother in rebuke; and the tone was hard and unpromising. "We cannot make any such promise as a condition; but if you prove your charge—and put to the proof it must be—the double claim you will have upon us will make it hard to resist whatever you ask. I can say no more.""I leave the appeal to your Majesty's heart," I answered, with a deep obeisance. "And I will make good my words now and here." I drew out then the compromising letters in Quesada's handwriting, and placing them in the Queen's hands, I told her at great length and with all possible detail the story of the Minister's treachery.To this narrative she listened with even more engrossed attention than to my former one of her son's rescue; and as I drove home point after point and saw them tell, I felt that I was winning her to my side all reluctantly and dead against her prejudice in her Minister's favour, until she herself admitted that the route of the young King's drive and the lack of guards on that eventful afternoon had been suggested by Quesada himself.At the close she was so overcome that, feeling embarrassed, I asked leave to withdraw; but she detained me and gradually put aside her weakness."I still cannot believe it, Lord Glisfoyle; but it shall be tested to the uttermost and every means of investigation shall be exhausted. On that you have my word. And now——" she had got as far as that when there came an interruption, and a message was brought that an immediate audience was craved by one of the Secretaries of State on a matter of the deepest urgency."You will not leave the Palace, my lord. I wish to see you again," and I withdrew to an ante-room to await her pleasure. I was satisfied with what I had done; and as I sat thinking over the interview, I noticed signs of much excitement and commotion; messengers kept coming and going quickly; high dignitaries and officials were hurrying this way and that, and the number of people in the great chamber increased largely, all talking together in clusters, scared in looks and excited in manner, although subdued in tone.Presently the infection of the general excitement spread to me, and looking about me I caught sight of one of the two officers who had come to me at the Hotel de l'Opera on the night of the King's rescue, Colonel Vasca, and I went up to him."Is there any special news to cause this commotion?" I asked, when we had exchanged greetings."Is it possible you have not heard it? The Minister of the Interior, Senor Quesada, has been assassinated within the last hour in his own house.""Quesada dead!" I exclaimed in profound astonishment. And then by a freak of memory Mayhew's words recurred to me—"Only one thing will ever beat Quesada—and that's death." "How did it happen? Who was the assassin?" I asked."Some villain of a Carlist, it is believed, in revenge for the blow which the Government have just struck at them. But they will pay a heavy price for so foul a deed."My heart sank within me at the news. I realised in an instant what it must mean to my poor Sarita and everyone leagued with her, and I went back to my seat overwrought and half-distracted. She had indeed sown the wind to reap the whirlwind, and I could not hope to save her.When at length the summons came for me to return to the Queen Regent, I followed the messenger almost like a man in a dream.
CHAPTER XXIX
QUESADA AGAIN
"I must apologise for your brother's taste, senorita, in compelling me to allow you to find me in such a—palace," I said, with a wave of the hand about the filthy cell. "This is the hospitality he considers is my due."
The disgusting stench of the place turned her sick and faint, and anger flashed from her eyes. I was not at all sorry for her to see for herself the hole in which I had been caged.
"You must leave it at once, senor. It is horrible," she cried.
"I am but one of hundreds honoured with the same treatment, and the courtesy of my host is so pressing as to render it difficult for me to leave."
"I have brought the order for your release, senor. It is abominable—abominable! I wish to speak to Senor Carbonnell; take us to some place where we can breathe," she said to the warder.
"I told the prisoner to come before, but he refused, senorita," said the man in a surly tone; and then we followed him along the corridor to a square, bare room near the entrance to the gaol.
"I am ashamed at what you have suffered, Senor Carbonnell. My brother has deceived me, and broken his pledged word."
"I shall ever remember your former efforts for me, senorita, but you will see that the subject of Senor Quesada's conduct is one I can scarcely discuss with his sister," I answered.
"But it is just that which I want to discuss. I have obtained your release——"
"Pardon me," I broke in, "but I cannot accept my release on any conditions whatever. I am profoundly indebted to you for this act of yours, deeply impressed by the motives which underlie it, and can never cease to think kindly of you for it; but, though you found me a prisoner in such vile surroundings, I am not without great influence even here in Madrid—far greater than your brother deems—and my liberation was at most but a matter of hours. I can therefore make no conditions even with one so gracious and so friendly as yourself."
"You have maddened Sebastian against you by threatening him, but you will not think of such things."
"I would do much to please you, I am sure you know that; but you ask me what is impossible," I answered, firmly.
"There is no man in the world for whom I would have done this," she cried, impetuously. "And I had to strain to the utmost my influence with Sebastian to do it. The very fact that he ordered your arrest in defiance of his pledge to me shows how bitterly he feels. I was at the station this evening by the merest chance when you were brought there, and I could scarcely believe my own eyes when I saw you were under arrest. I went at once to Sebastian——"
"Pray forgive me if I interrupt you, but I cannot discuss his conduct with you. If you saw the arrest, however, you will have seen that I was not alone in being arrested; and if you wish to do me a kindness you will use this great influence of yours to secure the liberation of Senorita Castelar."
But at the mention of Sarita she drew herself up, and both anger and surprise, but chiefly anger, were in the look she gave me.
"You ask me that?" she cried, and then as suddenly changed. "You do not think she is in any danger, surely?" she added.
"I know that she was arrested, and you yourself saw the place where I was imprisoned, and can judge of the fitness of such a hole for a girl."
"And you don't know? She has never told you?" she cried, scornfully.
"I am not sure I understand you," I replied.
"She is to be my brother's wife, senor. Do you think he would suffer her to be treated as—as you have been?"
"Senorita, there is a great misunderstanding somewhere; but if anything is certain, it is that she will never be his wife."
"Will you come and see Sebastian?" she asked, suddenly. "I am so anxious to have peace between you."
"It could do no good."
"I ask you to come. If you value what I have done here, you will consent."
"It can do no good; but if you ask it I will go;" and the instant I had consented she led the way to her carriage, which was waiting outside the gate.
"Where is Senorita Castelar?" I asked, as we drove rapidly along.
"I don't know, but she is sure to be well cared for," she answered, as though the subject was no concern of hers; and no more was said until we were close to the house. Then, with some hesitation, she said: "I know nearly everything of my brother's plans, and shall be present at the interview. There must be a full understanding."
I made no reply, for I did not quite know what she meant; but I was certain that if there was to be anything like a full understanding the interview promised to be interesting; and I began to feel glad I had come.
Quesada was at home, and in the room where I had had my last conversation with him and my introduction to Rubio, and I found him looking much more concerned and anxious than I had ever seen him.
"What is the meaning of this visit?" was his blunt greeting.
"I have brought Senor Carbonnell," said Dolores, "that these things may be explained and talked over. I wished it, Sebastian."
"Very well; what does he want to explain?"
"You told me to-night, for the second time, that he could and would ruin you if he was set at liberty. I wish to have peace between you. I told you so, when I insisted on his being liberated; and I have told him so, too. Now that you are face to face, say plainly what this means, and how it is to be avoided."
"When women interfere in matters they don't understand, they always do something foolish. This is mere foolishness. Senor Carbonnell—or, to give him his proper title, Lord Glisfoyle—is bent upon doing his utmost to ruin me, and you have given him the opportunity. Why, then, seek to delay him in his purpose? Let him go and begin his task." He spoke quite firmly, and with great deliberateness.
"This is hopeless, Sebastian," cried his sister, wringing her hands.
"What would you have me do, Dolores? Assume a fear of him which I do not feel? Throw myself at his feet and beg his mercy, when I stand in no need of it? Play at theatricals? You are a woman, we are men; and you don't understand us or our methods. Lord Glisfoyle and I have been engaged in a duel to the death. I had him at my advantage when you interfered—for the second time. You have given him the advantage now, and the cue is with him. He holds, or thinks he holds, weapons which he can use to secure my ruin; and you seem to think you can induce him not to use them by bringing him here to talk over, as you call it, the position. I am sure he did not come willingly, and am surprised he came at all; but here or anywhere else—except, of course, in safe keeping—it is all one to me. We shall continue the duel under the circumstances which you have changed in this way to my disadvantage."
"I was leaving Spain when your men stopped me and brought me to Madrid," I said.
"But not alone," he rapped out, sharply.
"No, with the lady who is to be my wife," I retorted.
For a second his hands clenched involuntarily, and he winced, but instantly recovered himself, and spoke calmly.
"That remains to be seen. But why this interview?"
"I have not sought it," I answered curtly, and got up to leave.
"You must not go," cried Dolores.
"My dear Dolores, do not meddle any more."
"Yes, Sebastian, I will. I must speak. Senor Carbonnell—Lord Glisfoyle, I mean—knows your secret plotting in regard to the King; he holds, as you told me, documents which must compromise you, and may ruin you if he can prove they are genuine. These are what you call his weapons. There must be some inducement that can prevail upon him not to use them. Is that not so, Lord Glisfoyle?" she cried, turning to me in deep distress.
"You are forgetting yourself, Dolores. We are not children or women," said the Minister, sternly. "I will have no more of this child's play. You should not have brought Lord Glisfoyle here. Every word you utter but makes your blunder worse; and God knows you have done enough mischief already to satisfy even a woman."
"I asked you a question, Lord Glisfoyle," said Dolores, paying no regard to his protests.
"A question I find most difficult, I may say impossible, to answer. Your brother knows how he has treated me, and knows also how he would act were our positions reversed. I can say no more."
"But do you mean to use these letters?" she persisted.
"Since obtaining them I have obtained others, and much information. I know the part you have played throughout this business, Senor Quesada,"—I felt it easier to speak to him—"and I shall not rest until I have done my utmost to bring this home to you. In one thing you have wronged your sister. I should not have remained in what you term safe keeping more than a few hours at the utmost; for already there are forces at work for my liberation which even you would find it hopeless to resist. What you term your sister's blunder, therefore—procuring my liberation from the prison—is no more than an anticipation by those few hours of what must have followed."
"That may be. At any rate, you are free, and you owe it to her." This reminder of my obligation to Dolores was the first slight rift in his firmness.
"If it were possible, it would influence my attitude. But nothing can do that—nothing, at least, that you can do."
"I knew there was something. What is it? Tell us that, Lord Glisfoyle. I beg and pray of you, say what it is," cried Dolores, in a tone of fervent entreaty.
"It is useless even to name it. It is nothing less than the undoing of all this wilful and unholy persecution of the Carlists—wilful and unholy because undertaken for the sake of furthering, not the welfare of Spain, but your brother's ambition."
"It is not impossible. I am sure it is not," she exclaimed. "You can do anything, Sebastian; while your influence is what it is, you can do anything. Say that this shall be done, and Lord Glisfoyle will leave Spain—I know he will—and give up these documents you fear so much."
They were the mere wild, idle words of a distracted woman, the cry of a true heart torn asunder by the vehemence of emotion.
To my surprise, her brother did not instantly repudiate them, however, but sat with pent, frowning brows in deep thought for a moment.
"Would you go alone?" he asked then, without relaxing the stern, set expression of face.
"Do you mean would anything ever make me consent to see Sarita Castelar your wife?"
"Would you go alone?" he repeated, in the same tone.
"Nothing would make me consent to that," I replied, answering my own question. "And nothing will ever induce me not to hold you responsible for her safety."
He heard me without a sign, and again buried himself in his thoughts. Then he pushed his chair back, rose, and went to the door.
"Leave us a few minutes, Dolores," he said, still in the same set, even tone. "It is possible that we may yet arrive at an understanding."
She looked at him in fear, then at me, doubtingly, and again back at him.
"No, I cannot leave you. I—I dare not."
"Leave us, Dolores. I shall not murder Lord Glisfoyle."
She still hesitated and lingered, but at length yielded, saying as she passed me—
"I shall see you again?"
I bowed, but said nothing; I was too full of surprise at the turn things were taking, and too thoughtful, wondering what was to come next.
Quesada held the door while his sister passed out, and closed and locked it after her, and turned back to his table.
"We are now quite alone, Lord Glisfoyle, and can speak plainly. You love Sarita Castelar, and hope to make her your wife?"
"I decline to discuss her with you, Senor Quesada."
"Well, then, I tell you she is pledged to marry me, and I will suffer no man on earth to take her from me."
"You did not speak so to your tool, Colonel Juan Livenza. I am aware of the infamous bargain you made with him."
"I will not allow anyone to take her from me," he said again, between his teeth, the increased tenseness of the tone being his only notice of my words. "You are an English nobleman, and presumably a man of courage. When you were here last time in my house, you struck me. You are now bent on ruining me, and have set everything on that venture. Owing to my sister's interference, you are free; and because she loves you, she is mad enough to stay my hands in dealing with you, knowing, what you also know, things that must be kept secret. And as a crowning stroke you threaten to rob me of the woman I love. Under those circumstances, what think you is the fitting course for two men—two enemies, if you will—placed as you and I are, to pursue?"
"If I understand you, I decline to discuss such a proposal."
"If you are a gentleman and a man of honour, and not a coward, you will find only one answer to my question," he said, his rage deepening in its quiet intensity with every sentence, till each word he uttered was a deliberate insult—an added knot on the lash of his bitter tongue. But I had my temper too well in hand to take fire.
"There are matters you forget. You set your bully, Livenza, upon me first; you used your power as Minister to destroy me; you ordered your police spies to dog me; and you had me gaoled in one of your filthy prisons. In this way you exhausted every means in your power to deal with me officially; and having schemed and tricked and bullied thus in vain, you find yourself at bay, and as a last resource you remember your honour with suspicious tardiness, and think of the means which the gentleman and the man of honour you speak of would have thought of first. I will not fight with you, Senor Quesada."
"You are a coward, then."
"I don't accept your standards in that matter."
"I will make you fight me," he cried; and, his rage breaking beyond all control, he rushed at me, and raised his arm to strike me with the back of the hand across the mouth; but I caught his arm, and thrust him staggering back against his chair, over which he nearly fell. Thinking he might have firearms, and that in his mad fury he would use them, I unlocked the door, and was leaving the room when he called to me; but I paid no heed, and went out.
Dolores was in waiting, and came when she heard me leaving. She was paler even than before, like one distraught with fear and anxiety. I pitied her from the bottom of my heart, and her brother's blunt statement that she loved me, and had been led by that love to insist on my freedom even at the cost of ruin to him, touched me very closely.
"Is there any hope of an arrangement, senor?" she asked, searching my face with haggard eyes.
"None whatever," I replied, shaking my head.
"Can nothing bring you two together again?"
"It is absolutely impossible, senorita."
I spoke as gently as I could, but it was useless to flinch from the truth.
"Can I do nothing to prevail with you? I have tried so hard to serve you," she said, in a tone of despairing wistfulness.
"For you, personally, I would do anything in my power. I am not unmindful of what it must have cost you, and you shall not find me ungrateful."
"I do not ask for thanks; I do not want them. I should have done the same had the ruin been mine instead of Sebastian's," and she smiled. "I am glad to have done it;" but the smile ended in a sigh at the thought of the price to be paid.
I took her hands and pressed them.
"I am very troubled for you," I murmured.
She returned the pressure, her own hands trembling very much.
"If it had not been for Sarita Castelar, you two would never have quarrelled, and—and all would have been so different." Her lips quivered as she spoke, and her eyes were full of sadness. Her look pained me inexpressibly. I said nothing, and after a pause she added:
"You do not think he will let you take her from him? You know him too well for that; although you do not know him yet. What was it he would not let me hear?"
"I would rather you heard it from him. And I must go." She had roused my fears for Sarita.
"I thought he meditated some act of violence against you, and he is headstrong enough to do anything—even against her."
"You can surely prevent that," I cried, quickly, in alarm. "You were strong to save me."
The look with which she answered me lives in my memory to this hour. Then she drew her hands from mine, and said coldly—
"I can do nothing. You have made him desperate." And with a change of tone, after a slight pause, as though excusing her own hardness of thought and resolve, she added: "Besides, I do not know where she is; so Icando nothing, even if I would."
With that I left her, and hurried from the house a prey to innumerable harassing fears, the stings and darts of which sent me plunging headlong through the streets to go I did not think where, and to do I did not know what.
Sarita was in imminent peril from that reckless, desperate man, and I alone had to save her. More than once I halted undecided whether to return and take up the challenge he had thrown down, and trust to my own strength and skill to render him powerless to harm her. And in this bewildered state of mind I found myself at the door of my old dwelling, half crazed by the thought that hours at least must elapse before I could use hand or tongue for her protection, and that for all those hours she would be absolutely at his mercy.
CHAPTER XXX
SUSPENSE
The moment I entered my rooms I perceived that they had been ransacked. The trail of the police searchers lay over everything. In his eagerness to regain possession of that compromising document which he feared so acutely, Quesada had turned his agents loose in my rooms; and they had done their work so thoroughly that the condition of the place was a silent but most impressive tribute to their skill and his alarm. The rooms had been searched from wall to wall; my trunks had been broken and overhauled; drawers and cupboards had been forced, and the contents diligently scrutinised; not a thing had been left in its proper place; and I smiled with a feeling of grim pleasure that I had had the forethought to put the papers in the safe hands of my friend Mayhew.
For the action of the police I cared nothing, and I stayed in the place only long enough to get such clothes as I might need; and I threw them into a Gladstone bag, and carried them over to Mayhew's rooms.
I had too stern a task before me in procuring Sarita's release to give serious thought to much else. My friend was out, and I guessed I should find him at the Hotel de l'Opera; but, having changed my clothes, I sat down to think over matters before going in search of him.
Affairs were in all truth in an inextricable tangle, and very little reflection convinced me that instead of unravelling them I had made them worse by the course I had adopted with Sebastian Quesada. I had committed the fatal blunder of driving him into a corner, and rendering him desperate enough to resort to any of those violent methods which Dolores had said he would certainly adopt when once his back was to the wall.
It was easy to see now what I ought to have done. Belated wisdom is the curse of a fool, I thought bitterly, as I realised what my clumsy shortsighted tactlessness had achieved. What I ought to have done was to have convinced him of my power to ruin him; have told him even of my influence at the Palace; and have driven in upon him with irresistible force that it was in my power to thwart the ambition and ruin the career that were as the very breath of his nostrils to him. Having done that, I ought to have opened the door of escape by a pledge to do nothing if he would but give up Sarita.
Instead of this I had driven him to desperation. I had left him under the conviction that not only could I ruin him, but that I most assuredly should do so; and had thus given him no alternative but to set his vigorous energies to work to retrieve so much of his position as was possible, and to keep for himself what he prized scarcely less than his position, and what it was already in his power to secure—the woman he loved.
That he could keep Sarita from me, I could not doubt. He needed but to lift a finger to have her conveyed where I might search for her in vain; and a slight knowledge of his resourceful and implacable character was enough to convince anyone that he would act both promptly and resolutely. And I shuddered at the thought of the probable consequences to her.
There was yet another distracting reflection. It was by no means certain that, even if I could wrest her from his grip, I could obtain clemency for Sarita herself. Her actions in this infernal Carlist business had been those of vigorous, bitter, and dangerous intrigue against the King; treason as subtle as it was active. She was an acknowledged leader of the Carlists; and I might be sure that Quesada for his own purposes had accumulated more than sufficient proofs of her intrigues. Great as was the obligation of the King and the Queen Regent to me, I could scarcely dare to hope they would pardon her; and hence, if I succeeded in pulling down the strong pillars at the house of Quesada's reputation, there was too much reason to fear that when the building fell Sarita would be crushed in the ruins.
Moreover, there was the problem of Sarita's own sentiments. In the revulsion of feeling which had followed Livenza's disclosures, she had been willing to leave the country; and while I was with her, and the influence of our mutual love could work upon her, that willingness might have remained. But in the solitude of her imprisonment, wherever the prison might be, she would have long hours of cold thought; and I had seen too much of her infatuated belief that her duty demanded she should stay and share the fate of those who had been misled by her ill-fated plans, not to fear that that infatuation would again assert itself.
Thus, ponder and stew and plan as I would, I could see no clear course. All things contributed to make it a personal struggle between Quesada and myself, in which, while I held the weapons that might ruin him, he had the means of making that ruin fatal to me so far as the only object I cared for, Sarita's safety and well-being, was concerned.
As my head cleared from the whirl of mazing thoughts, the conclusion that I had blundered so badly in my interview with him became plainer and plainer, gradually hardening into the new purpose to return to him in the possible hope of retrieving the mistake. Such a reopening of matters would look like an admission of weakness; and so in truth it was; but I had only one object—Sarita's safety; and that must override all other and lesser considerations.
Going down into the street, I drove back to his house, my distaste for the interview increasing with every yard that brought it nearer, and the difficulties of the task looming ever greater, until I am not sure that I was not rather glad when I was told he had left his house, and that the hour of his return was uncertain. I did not ask for Dolores, but, getting back into the carriage that had brought me, told the man to drive me to the Hotel de l'Opera.
My arrival there was hailed with delight. Madame Chansette and Mayhew were with Mrs. Curwen and Mercy, and, having heard of my arrest, all were deep in anxious discussion of my affairs when I entered.
I gave them a very general and brief account of my doings, and instantly a whole battery of questions was opened upon me.
"You look sadly in need of a good square meal," said Mrs. Curwen, always practical; and she promptly ordered some supper for me. "At the present rate of running, about another week of this will finish you," she added.
"But how did you get away?" asked Mayhew. "You were arrested, and the whole Embassy has been hard at work expostulating, protesting, protocolling, and Heaven knows what. There never was such a pother raised in Madrid before."
"An order came for my release, and I walked out."
"Do you mean you were actually in prison?" asked Mercy.
"And a very filthy prison, too, I assure you. But, so far as I am concerned, that danger is over."
"Well, thank Heaven for that. Another period of suspense of the kind would about kill Mercy, and finish off the family," cried Mrs. Curwen. "I'm off Spanish investments altogether. And what's going to happen next? Of course it'll be something unusual. There's no musty conventionality about your doings just now."
"And where is Sarita?" asked Madame Chansette.
"I wish I knew, my dear madame. She was arrested at the same time as I; and if I knew, I could do something to help her. But that's just the pith and kernel of my trouble. As to what will come next I have not a much clearer idea than you, Mrs. Curwen. But something will probably happen to-morrow."
"We may be sure of that," she returned quickly. "And when can we all go away to some safe un-dynamity country?"
"I think I shall be able to answer that better to-morrow."
"It's all to-morrow, it seems to me. And in the meantime don't you think you'd better go to bed somewhere? You're about fagged out."
"I am too anxious to sleep."
"And when was anxiety relieved by sitting up all night and worrying with it? There, I've rung the bell, and you can tell the waiter to have a room got ready instantly for you. We shall all feel easier if we know you're in the place. I'm sure you can't do anything to-night, and by the morning you'll have a clear head, some more plans, and enough energy for another burst of this kind of thing."
When the waiter came I yielded, under protest, and ordered a room.
"I must have a long chat with Mayhew first," I said.
"Not to-night, if Mercy and I have any influence with Mr. Mayhew," she returned, and Mercy agreed. Then, to my surprise, Mayhew, in a half-shamefaced but very serious manner, said: "I think Mrs. Curwen is right, Ferdinand."
"What, you as well, Silas?" and as I looked at him he smiled and shrugged his shoulders.
"No one thinks of questioning Mrs. Curwen's commands," he answered.
"Oh, already? Then I'd better give in, too," and with that I went, feeling indeed the truth of what she said—that I could do nothing that night.
She was right, also, that I was in sore need of rest, and, despite my anxieties and my declaration that sleep would be impossible, my head was no sooner on the pillow than I fell into deep slumber, which lasted until a sluggard's hour on the following morning. It was ten o'clock before I awoke.
I found Mrs. Curwen alone, and my vexation at having been allowed to lie so late must have shown in my face, for she said directly: "There's no one to blame but me, Lord Glisfoyle. I would not allow you to be called. I don't believe in my prescriptions being half taken."
"I have a great deal to do," I answered, somewhat ungraciously.
"That's no reason why you should try to do it with half your energies sapped for want of sleep. Mr. Mayhew has been here for you and tried to get to you; but I wouldn't let him," she said assertively.
"He is learning obedience diligently, it seems," I observed.
"He is a very good fellow, and I strained my influence with him, I can tell you," she retorted, with a smile of some occult meaning.
"He is the prince of good fellows, and the staunchest of friends, and I congratulate you on having such influence to strain."
"Oh, men are not difficult to manage, if properly handled."
"Some of us, that is; but I hope he has been duly attentive in my absence," I said, casually, and with a glance.
"What was the poor man to do? He couldn't very well leave us in the lurch, I suppose? You were away, and we'd positively no one else."
"To say nothing of his own inclinations," I added.
"To say nothing of his own inclinations," she repeated. "Mercy is not exactly the kind of girl to scare a man away from her, I should hope."
"A supposition that might be extended to include——"
"What do you mean?" she asked quickly, as I stopped.
"Whom should I mean but"—looking at her pointedly—"Madame Chansette, shall I say?" She laughed.
"Yes, we'll say Madame Chansette."
"And yet—well, it doesn't much matter whom we say; but at any rate he's a thoroughly genuine fellow, and—you can fill in the rest. But, by the way, where is Mercy?"
"She is having a French or Spanish lesson, I think; I'll tell you all about it when you've finished your breakfast, and not a minute before. But about Mr. Mayhew, tell me, what is he at the Embassy here? He seems to speak as though he was a kind of mill-horse. Are there no prospects for him? Has he no influence to push him on?"
"Yes, he has one, I think I may say two friends now who will see to that. I'm one of the two—and I think I'm speaking to the other," I said, quietly. "And between us we ought to do something. But he's as proud as Lucifer, and a mere hint that we were at the back of anything of the kind would make him kick."
"If poor A.B.C. were alive——"
"Then, my dear Mrs. Curwen, you would never have been in Madrid, and would never have known Mayhew." She shrugged her shapely shoulders, smiled, and then said with unusual earnestness: "And will you really let me help you in trying to get him a step or two up the ladder?"
"I mean to have him in London, and to make the people at home understand that he has a head on his shoulders fit for better things. Why, if Silas only had money to back his brains, there's nothing he might not do or be. But there, I've finished my breakfast!" I exclaimed, getting up from the table, thinking I had said enough. "And now, where is Mercy?"
"Will you shake hands on that bargain, Lord Glisfoyle?" she asked, her eyes bright with the thoughts I knew I had started. We shook hands gravely, as became such a compact, and I looked straight into her eyes, as I said in as earnest a tone as hers: "The woman who marries Silas Mayhew will have a husband in a hundred thousand, true, honest-hearted, straight and good right through. And now, whereisMercy?" She returned my look, coloured slightly, and some reply sprang to her lips, but she checked it, and turning away, said: "Sebastian Quesada's sister came here, and the two girls are closeted together, waiting for you."
"And you have kept me here all this time!" I cried.
"I was bound to see to your health."
"You are as anxious for my health, I believe, as I am for your happiness," and with that I hurried away, leaving her blushing very prettily.
I found Dolores looking very white and worn, and in a mood of deep dejection. She and Mercy had been weeping together in the sympathetic exchange of such confidence and consolation as their ignorance of each other's tongue and mutual indifferent knowledge of the French language would allow.
"She is in terrible trouble, Ferdinand, do try and relieve her. Her heart is almost broken by the fearful strain of her sorrow," said Mercy, getting up to leave as I entered.
"You do not understand things, Mercy, but I will do what I can."
"Your sister is an angel, Lord Glisfoyle," said Dolores, as the door closed behind Mercy. "I am almost ashamed to come to you, but I could not keep away. She has told me what I knew, of course, how good and generous and noble you are. Cannot you do what I asked you yesterday? I heard of your second visit to us last night, and all through the night—such a night of agony for me—I have been feeding my soul with the hope that you came to make some agreement."
"Where is your brother? I am truly pained to see you like this."
"It does not matter about me; nothing of that kind can matter now," she answered in a tone deadened by sorrow. "I should not come to you for such a paltry object as my own troubles. It is for Sebastian I am thinking. But you don't seem to understand how I feel, how this fearful thing has shut upon me like the closing walls of an Inquisition prison cell, until whichever way I stretch out my hands I find ruin crushing in upon me," and she moved her hands like one distraught with terror and trouble.
"What can I do?" I asked, gently.
"Can't you try and see what all this has meant to me?" she asked wildly, ignoring my question. "What I suffered when I knew that Sebastian meant to ruin you, to involve you in this terrible Carlist business, to have you proclaimed as Ferdinand Carbonnell, the desperate Carlist leader, imprisoned and sent Heaven alone knew where, to suffer the fate and the punishment which such a man would rightly suffer? What could I do but step in to save you? You know his reluctance, the struggle we had, the wild words he spoke of your ruining him, and then how he broke his pledged word to me? And yet to save you meant to ruin him! Holy Mother of God, what was I to do?" and she wrung her hands. "I could not see you wronged in this way; and yet as my reward am I to see him dragged down, his reputation destroyed, his position degraded, his very name a foulness in the mouths of the populace? Is this your English sense of honour and recompense? No, no, I don't mean that. I know you are just and honourable. I am crazed with my trouble to speak such words to you."
"Where is your brother?"
"I do not know. You drove him to desperation last night. He left this house almost directly you had gone; and returned late, and was gone again this morning before I could get word with him. He is like a mad-man; and what he will do in his madness, who can tell?" The fears that lay beneath her wild words were the same as had been pressing so keenly on me, yet what to do to avert them was more than I could see.
"If you do not know where he is, what can we do?" I asked.
"Give me those compromising papers, and let me find him and prove that the danger he fears is at an end? He will then do anything you ask. You do not know him. He is stern, hard, implacable when opposed, but he is not dead to feelings of generosity. An act like that would touch him to the core, and he would do anything you asked—nay, let me know what it is you wish, and I would pledge myself that he would do it." She pleaded urgently and almost imploringly, but I could not yield.
"I cannot do that. Only last night he likened this struggle between us to a duel, and you would ask me to disarm myself and throw away the only means by which I can hope to win my way. I am sorry, deeply and sincerely sorry, but this is impossible."
"You would see him dragged into the dirt for the rabble to spit upon!" Her changing mood, as she was swayed first by thoughts for me and then by those for her brother, was painful to witness.
"He did not hesitate to have me treated as a criminal, senorita; he has set me at defiance and refused everything I asked; and I cannot put myself and others at his mercy. But I will do this. Let him set Sarita Castelar free, and stay this Carlist persecution, and I will give up the documents he fears, and say nothing of what I know. More than that I cannot offer you; and even that must depend upon the senorita being free before I am placed in a position which compels me to take action against him."
"What does that mean? How long will you give me? I must have time to find him. I cannot do anything without time. You are iron to me in your madness for this girl."
"Unfortunately I am not free to name any time." I was not. I did not yet know what measures Mayhew had taken, and whether he had communicated with the Palace. My summons to the King might come at any hour, and I was compelled to hold myself free to speak all I knew with regard to Quesada in my interview there. At the same time Dolores' acute distress of mind, and the knowledge of what she had done for me, filled me with a desire to help her; while personally, I was anxious to get Sarita from Quesada's grip at the earliest possible moment, and to leave Spain. Under pressure of these thoughts, I added: "This I can assure you, I would far rather the matter ended as you wish, and will give you every possible moment of time."
"I will go," she answered promptly. "I depend on you. You have given me some hope, if not much. If I fail with Sebastian"—and she closed her eyes and sighed in the agony of the thought—"I will let you know at once."
"And I will do nothing without first sending word to you," I promised in reply.
We parted then, and when she left the room I found Mayhew waiting for me in the corridor.
CHAPTER XXXI
AT THE PALACE
"Your lady visitors call early, Ferdinand," said Mayhew, rather drily.
"Yes, rather embarrassing, isn't it? But what news have you for me? What happened yesterday?"
"More than enough to prove that you are a person of considerable importance, I can tell you. When I got your message by that exceedingly sharp lad, Juan, that you were arrested, I went straight to the chief, and within an hour a protest was in the hands of the Spanish Government, couched in terms calculated to make them sit up, I promise you, and very soon the whole machinery was at work to get you out. They denied all knowledge of you, however; but I expect a good deal would have happened to-day if you hadn't been set at liberty. I told the chief this morning, however, that you were here, and he wants to see you. And that's about all—unless you want the details."
"Did you send any word to the Palace?"
"No, I kept that in reserve for to-day as a broadside, and, of course, I said nothing to anyone about the papers you left with me."
"Good; just as I should have expected from you. And now, I'm going to tell you the whole mess, and just see what's best to be done;" and I gave him a pretty full account of everything that had happened.
"You're right, it is a devil of a mess," was his comment when I finished. "What do you suppose Quesada's sister can do?"
"I haven't a notion. I'm just at the end of my wits, and can't for the life of me see what's to be done."
"There's one thing you may safely reckon on, and it isn't a pleasant thing anyway—that that beggar is sure to have a trump card up his sleeve that will most likely outplay your best. He's the most cunning beggar in all Spain. He's been in heaps of tight corners before, and wriggled out just when it seemed impossible. And he won't give in now, you bet. I tell you what he's likely to do—he knows just as well as lots of others, that he's the pivot of the whole Government; the one man for instance, who, in the popular view, can wage this threatened war with the States with some chance of success; and I wouldn't be one little bit surprised if he trumps you with a change of front and declares for war. You don't know as much as I do of Spanish politics, and can't, therefore, understand the holy mess that would follow here if the war came. He'd be the only man able to guide things; and in such a case you might hammer at him in vain."
"But these documents, Livenza's statement, my own knowledge, Sarita Castelar's evidence!" I cried, in protest.
"Strong enough in England, perhaps; but he'd deny everything; and do you think anyone's going to care two pence about them if the nation is in danger. He'd say the letters were forgeries; pop Livenza into prison, or bribe or threaten him to change face; the lady is already safe in his charge, and as a Carlist wouldn't be believed even if she were at liberty; and your statement would be listened to politely, and then disregarded as that of an enemy of Spain and a friend of America. I'm sorry to discourage you, but you asked my advice and that is—don't count on your weapons as he called them, and don't believe for a moment that you can really do him any harm. He sits too firm in the saddle."
"But he told his sister that I could ruin him, and he showed the fear by wanting to make me fight him."
"Mere play-acting, Ferdinand, nothing more. He wanted to get the papers back quietly if he could, and the quietest and safest way would have been to have you arrested as Carbonnell, the Carlist, and sent somewhere into the far provinces, and probably knocked on the head by the way or shot in mistake—the kind of mistake that does happen at times. His sister appears to have cut that plan short, and naturally he tells her she must get the papers back, if she could. But if she couldn't, it didn't follow that he wasn't quite prepared to face you. Don't make the mistake of thinking he will give up a jot or tittle of any plan he has, whether public or private; he never has been known to yet, and even you will never make him, strong as your case would be in any other country and against any other man. It's part of his constitution, my dear fellow. He's got all the energy and resource of a present day American with all the confounded pride and stiff-necked doggedness of an Old Castile noble. A rummy combination, but the devil to fight."
"I shan't give in," I said, firmly. "And that I take it your advice is that I should."
Mayhew shrugged his shoulders significantly.
"I'd make it different if I could. I'm very sorry, for I can guess what it means to you; but you've no chance;" and he shook his head, hopelessly. "Shall we go and see the chief?"
"I shan't give in," I said again; but I am free to confess that his counsel of despair had great effect upon me, and I went to the Embassy in a very despondent mood.
I was closeted with the chief a considerable time, while I gave such account of my experiences as I deemed advisable, and was questioned and cross-questioned, and advised and congratulated in the customary official manner, and finally counselled to return to England. A pointed question from me drew the reply that this last advice was the result of a request from the Spanish Government, and I did not fail to see in it the hand of Quesada.
My answer was an evasive one, to the effect that I would go so soon as I had wound up such private affairs as I had to conclude in Madrid.
I rejoined Mayhew, feeling both ill at ease and out of temper. A half-day had passed, and I had done nothing toward effecting Sarita's release; while the hours were flying, and no word came from Dolores. My apparent helplessness in other respects increased my anxiety to hear that she had been successful with her brother; for I was fast coming round to Mayhew's gloomy view of the position.
Then came another complication. When we went to the Hotel de l'Opera, I found there an urgent summons from the Palace. News of my arrest and liberation had reached the young King, and he desired me to go to the Palace that afternoon. I scribbled a note to Dolores Quesada, telling her I could not wait for news from her after three o'clock—the hour appointed for the interview, and sent Mercy with it, Mayhew accompanying her.
The reply to this put the climax to my anxiety. It ran thus:
"Alas, my friend, I can do nothing. I have just seen Sebastian, who is now in a quite different mood. He laughs at the thought of your doing him any harm. 'Let him do his worst. He can but break himself on the wheel of his own efforts;' were his words. I am distracted with misery."
I showed it to Mayhew, who read it thoughtfully.
"It could not be worse," he said. "He has put the senorita in a safe place, and is going to play the trump card that I was sure he had in reserve somewhere. You should have accepted his challenge and shot him. Only one thing can beat Quesada—and that's death."
"I will do my best all the same," I answered; and in this mood I set out for my interview at the Palace, revolving on the way all the possible expedients that I could adopt to win even part of my purpose against the powerful enemy who held his way with such grim tenacity and inflexible resolve.
My reception at the Palace might have flattered even Royalty itself. When I was ushered into the presence, the young King came running to me, laying aside all attempt at dignity, and smiling with pleasure as he held out his hands liked a pleased child.
"My Englishman of Podrida, at last!" he exclaimed, and he led me to the Queen Mother, who was graciousness itself.
"You have kept the words of gratitude too long prisoners in my heart, my lord. The Queen would chide you, but the mother's heart is too full for anything but welcome for the man who saved her son."
"I trust your Majesties will pardon me. The delay has been due to causes as full of trouble as of urgency."
"My son has told me of your daring rescue, but I wish to hear it again from you. I am so anxious to know all, that I would have the tale even before your own anxieties which, if we can, you must let us help you to dispel."
"I have the mask here, my lord," cried the King, with all a boy's eagerness, bringing it out of a pocket.
"The story is a very simple one, your Majesty," I said, and then in as few words as I could, I told it. She listened with the closest attention, questioning me now and again on such points as interested her most, or where she wished greater detail; and when I described how the King was seized and carried into the carriage, and again how I had found him fastened down and disguised, she clasped the boy to her, and her changing colour and quickened breath gave evidence of her concern and emotion.
"And you were alone through it all?" she exclaimed, when I finished.
"Fortune favoured me or I could not have succeeded, Madame. Had not the two men following the carriage met with an accident, I could have done nothing. As it was, the surprise of my attack did what no strength of arm or skill or wit could have accomplished."
"Do not call it fortune? It was rather the hand of Heaven guarding my dear son's safety, and you were the chosen instrument. And should you know those miscreants again?" Her tone hardened and her eyes flashed, as she put the question; and I thought then I could discern the feeling which had had as much to do with her impatience at my delay in coming to the Palace as her desire to thank me. She was burning with all a Spaniard's hot eagerness for revenge. But it was not my cue to strike at the agents, and my reply was guarded.
"It is possible that if they were face to face with me, I could identify them; but the thing was hurried, the work of no more than a few moments, and my English eyes are not sufficiently accustomed to distinguish between Spanish faces."
"Ah, I am disappointed," cried the Queen, frowning.
"But I can do more than identify the men who actually did the ill-work, Madame; I know by whose hidden hand the wires of the plot were pulled."
"Tell us that, and you will add a thousand times to the obligation that Spain and we owe you, my lord," she exclaimed, strenuously. "Who is the arch-traitor?"
"I shall have need of your Majesty's patient indulgence."
"And you will not ask it in vain, Lord Glisfoyle, if you do not seek it for these villainous Carlists, who would have robbed me of my son and dealt this foul blow at Spain." Then with a quick thought, she asked: "But how comes it that you, an English nobleman, here in Madrid no longer than a few weeks, can have learnt these things?" I believe I could detect a touch of suspicion in her manner; and the King looked up sharply into her face and then across at me.
"By a coincidence in regard to my name, your Majesty. I came to Madrid but a short time ago to join the staff of the British Embassy; I was not then Lord Glisfoyle; and by a chain of coincidences some of the plans of the misguided Carlists became known to me."
"Do you mean you knew of this intended plot against my son?"
"There are always rumours and reports, Madame, and such gossip was, of course, current in your capital—and equally, of course, well known to your Government and officials. But this was different; and the definite tidings came to me at a time and in a form which made it impossible for me to act otherwise than as I did."
"What was your name then, if not Lord Glisfoyle?" she broke in.
"Ferdinand Carbonnell, the younger son of my late father."
"Ferdinand Carbonnell! Ah, then——" the sentence remained unfinished, and I stood in silence watching her and waiting for the conclusion. I could guess her thought.
"Ferdinand Carbonnell is a well-known Carlist leader, Lord Glisfoyle," and she spoke in a tone that augured but ill for my success.
"And for that Carlist leader I was mistaken, your Majesty, and working through that strange mistake, Providence enabled me to rescue your son from a far worse fate than that which any Carlist ever designed. In following this strange double career I carried my life in my hands, risking misunderstanding at the hands of your Majesty's agents, and putting my life to the hazard of any Carlist discovery of my real character."
"You cannot doubt him, mother," cried the King, protestingly.
"You have said too much or too little, my lord. I beg you to speak frankly."
"I would ask your Majesty by whose advice it was that your son came to be in such a case as made this attempt possible?" I said; and the question went home, for she started quickly.
"By the advice of my Ministers, who felt that our confidence in the people should be shown in a way which all could see for themselves. Do you propose to arraign my Government on a charge of treason?"
"I do not arraign your Government as a whole, your Majesty; but what if it were proved to you that one of them, discontented with his present power and influence, great though they be, had aimed to make them greater; had thought that under the Republican form of Government there were wider scope for his ambition; and had planned, therefore, a double stroke of policy—say, for instance, the removal of your son from the Throne, using the Carlists for his purpose, and at the same time preparing to crush their power when he had used them, employing the very pretext of the plot as the cause of his drastic measures of repression? What if there be a man in your confidence who designed to overthrow the Monarchy, and climb on the ruins of the Throne to the place of supreme power in the country as President of a Republic to be proclaimed? What if these plans were all laid and settled in every detail; and yet made with such consummate skill and shrewdness, that even the crumbling of the corner-stone—this attempt on His Majesty—still left him higher, firmer, and stronger in position and influence than ever? What if the subtle organisation by which this Carlist rising has been crushed almost in a day was the outcome, not of a desire to save His Majesty's throne from attack, but of an intention to break down what—should the Monarchy be no longer in existence—would have been the one remaining possible obstacle to this man's success? Would your Majesty say that these Carlists or the arch-plotter were the more to be feared, the more culpable, the more dangerous?"
I spoke with rising vehemence, and my daring words frightened both my hearers. The Queen was almost pale when I ended.
"You cannot make this good, my lord. I cannot believe it."
"Yet every word is true and can be made good. The man I mean is your most powerful Minister—Senor Sebastian Quesada."
"It cannot be. It is impossible," cried the Queen. "You frighten me, my lord. What proofs have you?"
The intense impression created by my charge, emboldened me to go a step farther and place all on the cast. The Queen was so agitated, and the young King so deeply and keenly moved by my words, that I could not fail to see what weight would attach to any request I put while they were in that mood; and taking my fortune boldly in both hands, I resolved to risk everything on the chance of my being able to prove my charge against Quesada. Mayhew's words of despondent caution recurred to me, but my ears were deaf to everything save the one absorbing purpose that swayed me.
"His Majesty was good enough on the day, when under Providence I was able to snatch him from the hands of his enemies, to promise to grant me such request as I might prefer. You, Madame, to-day, with gracious sympathy at the mention of my cares and anxieties, expressed the generous desire to help me. May I entreat you then, remembering what I have done, to grant me a favour should I make good my words, and bring home to the real traitor this treachery against your august family and your throne?"
"You would make conditions, my lord?"
"Your Majesty, I am but a suppliant."
"What is this favour?"
"That your Majesties will be graciously disposed to pardon the unfortunate dupes who have been misled by the man who has used them for his own purpose?"
"It is impossible, Lord Glisfoyle, utterly impossible. You cannot mean this. Stay, I have heard a possible reason for this strange request. I have heard your name coupled with one of the most daring of these Carlists—a Senorita Castelar—by whose influence we are told Ferdinand Carbonnell, the Englishman, took up the role of Ferdinand Carbonnell, the Spanish Carlist. Has this anything to do with this favour you ask?"
"Your Majesty, the dearest wish of my life is to make the Senorita Castelar my wife; as the farthest thought of hers would be to make me a Carlist. I trust that my acts have shown this for me, rendering mere protests needless."
"Mother!" cried the young King, eagerly, like the staunch little champion of my cause that he was.
"These are matters of deep state importance, and we cannot follow only our inclinations," said his mother in rebuke; and the tone was hard and unpromising. "We cannot make any such promise as a condition; but if you prove your charge—and put to the proof it must be—the double claim you will have upon us will make it hard to resist whatever you ask. I can say no more."
"I leave the appeal to your Majesty's heart," I answered, with a deep obeisance. "And I will make good my words now and here." I drew out then the compromising letters in Quesada's handwriting, and placing them in the Queen's hands, I told her at great length and with all possible detail the story of the Minister's treachery.
To this narrative she listened with even more engrossed attention than to my former one of her son's rescue; and as I drove home point after point and saw them tell, I felt that I was winning her to my side all reluctantly and dead against her prejudice in her Minister's favour, until she herself admitted that the route of the young King's drive and the lack of guards on that eventful afternoon had been suggested by Quesada himself.
At the close she was so overcome that, feeling embarrassed, I asked leave to withdraw; but she detained me and gradually put aside her weakness.
"I still cannot believe it, Lord Glisfoyle; but it shall be tested to the uttermost and every means of investigation shall be exhausted. On that you have my word. And now——" she had got as far as that when there came an interruption, and a message was brought that an immediate audience was craved by one of the Secretaries of State on a matter of the deepest urgency.
"You will not leave the Palace, my lord. I wish to see you again," and I withdrew to an ante-room to await her pleasure. I was satisfied with what I had done; and as I sat thinking over the interview, I noticed signs of much excitement and commotion; messengers kept coming and going quickly; high dignitaries and officials were hurrying this way and that, and the number of people in the great chamber increased largely, all talking together in clusters, scared in looks and excited in manner, although subdued in tone.
Presently the infection of the general excitement spread to me, and looking about me I caught sight of one of the two officers who had come to me at the Hotel de l'Opera on the night of the King's rescue, Colonel Vasca, and I went up to him.
"Is there any special news to cause this commotion?" I asked, when we had exchanged greetings.
"Is it possible you have not heard it? The Minister of the Interior, Senor Quesada, has been assassinated within the last hour in his own house."
"Quesada dead!" I exclaimed in profound astonishment. And then by a freak of memory Mayhew's words recurred to me—"Only one thing will ever beat Quesada—and that's death." "How did it happen? Who was the assassin?" I asked.
"Some villain of a Carlist, it is believed, in revenge for the blow which the Government have just struck at them. But they will pay a heavy price for so foul a deed."
My heart sank within me at the news. I realised in an instant what it must mean to my poor Sarita and everyone leagued with her, and I went back to my seat overwrought and half-distracted. She had indeed sown the wind to reap the whirlwind, and I could not hope to save her.
When at length the summons came for me to return to the Queen Regent, I followed the messenger almost like a man in a dream.