XXXIII

[pg 275]XXXIIIThe Seven Men of EcijaClose in front of us was drawn up a large automobile, its front wheels mounted on a barrier of rough stones built across the highway. Rolled in the dust lay a leather-clad chauffeur, limp in unconsciousness or death; and with their backs to the car, two young men stood bravely defending themselves against seven.So suddenly did we burst upon the scene, and so furiously had I to put on the brake, that I saw only a wild picture of determined faces pale above flashing blades, fierce faces under red peasant caps, and carbines used as clubs. Then Dick and I were out of the Gloria; and instead of two there were four against seven.Where were the revolvers we had bought by Don Cipriano's advice at Madrid, for just such an emergency as this?—In our suit-cases at the Cortijo de Santa Rufina, forgotten from the moment of purchase until this moment of need. But, as by one accord, each seized a jagged stone which had rolled from the barricade, and before we had had time for two consecutive thoughts we had joined the strangers, and all four were fighting like demons.Oddly enough, the seven red caps did not fire their carbines, and had apparently directed all their efforts to disarming or stunning the automobilists. But at sight of us their tactics changed. Surprised at first, their astonishment was burnt up by rage. Four of the seven turned upon us, and drew knives, but quick as light I had wrenched one of them out of a brown[pg 276]hand, giving its owner a smashing blow between the eyes with my stone.Down he dropped like an ox, and I was ready for another; but the blade of a third would have slid between my ribs had not one of the seven cried out sharply,“Stop! A red car—a red car. These are the men we want.”“Disable them,”yelled another voice; but it was easier said than done. The second's pause which followed the warning shout saved my skin. The brigand's knife flew; and he got a side blow on the temple which sent him spinning.We were now four against five; but already the right arm of another red cap spouted crimson from the blade in a sword-stick which was flashing blue lightning, and another wore a dark spot on his shirt—a spot which spread and changed its shape.There was no time to look at faces. I scarcely saw the features of friend or foe, and could not have sworn to the identity of one man had my life depended on it. But I knew that two beside whom we fought were brave beyond the common, that they were worth fighting for and with. We were all four shoulder to shoulder now, our backs against the car, though how we had won through to that position I could not have told.Another red cap had gone down on one knee, cursing, and there was a fresh blot of crimson on a dark-stained shirt. We four had the advantage now, for we had come to no harm but a few bruises and an aching head or two, when suddenly there was a howl from the fellow last down,“El guardia civile!”It was true. Out of the distance rode two men, dashing towards us from the direction of Jerez. Far away still, their white, black, and red uniforms caught the sun; and guessing from the knot of forms swaying round a motor-car that something was wrong, the pair spurred their horses to a gallop.“It's too hot for us!”panted the brigand I took for the leader. He growled an order; and supporting two of their fallen comrades who were able to help themselves, the uninjured pair made off towards a small wood where I now saw horses tethered.[pg 277]After them we went; but they promptly left their half-disabled friends to shift for themselves, and loaded their carbines—so lately clubs—with quickness almost incredible.An instant later two black muzzles covered us; and the tide of battle might after all have turned disastrously, had not the shrill ping of a bullet warned the enemy that there was no time to waste upon reprisals.One of the civil guard had fired from a distance, but with precise aim, as a yell of pain announced. A man already wounded got another souvenir of the encounter; and out of the seven only four could get to their saddles. One limped in the rear, but he had lost his carbine; one sat where his comrades had flung him in their flight, and the last of the seven—stunned by my stone—lay breathing stertorously on the road.“After them—after them!”one of the young men who had fought so brilliantly shouted now to the civil guards.“Don't let them get away.”For the first time I looked at him with seeing eyes. Then, I could hardly stifle an exclamation. It was the King.He gave me back look for look, smiling that brave and charming smile which has magic in it to transform an enemy into a loyal servant.I had my cap off now, and so had Dick, who wore the jaunty air I had seen him wear in more than one battle.“I have to thank you both,”said the King.“And—not for the first time. Our cars, as well as ourselves, have met before. Wasn't it—near Biarritz?”I felt the blood stream up to the roots of my hair.“Your Majesty has a King's memory for faces,”I stammered.“There are faces one doesn't forget,”said he.“But we'll talk of that presently. Now we have work here.”The King's companion was already down on one knee by the side of the chauffeur, pouringaguardientefrom a flask into the man's half-open mouth. As for the fellow I had hit, I was sure that he would presently come round, but little the worse for wear;[pg 278]and I suggested that Dick and I find a rope in the car, which would bind him and the two other half-disabled ones. But the King would not let us work alone. He did as much as we, and more, before we were joined by the young officer who was his friend.Discouraged and weak from loss of blood, as well as the loss of their carbines and their comrades, the wounded brigands made no further fight. But they were silent, save for a muttered oath or two, and I made up my mind that the true secret of this morning's work would never be torn from them.For there was, of course, a secret. The King, who had not the clue which I held, saw that, and wondered why the brigands had not wished at first to shoot us. Plainly, their plan had been to make captives.The obvious idea was that they would have conveyed their prisoners to some brigands' nest in the mountains, in the hope of obtaining a rich ransom. But they had evidently expected an automobile, or they would not have raised a barricade, just round a sharp corner on a particularly lonely piece of road.Could they have been lying in wait for the King? This seemed impossible, as he had told no one that he was going out, and the expedition had indeed been made on the impulse, in the company of but one companion beside the chauffeur. He had intended to have a spin, and discover the state of the roads as far as practicable on the way to Jerez before turning back for the procession in the afternoon. And that evening he must return to Madrid. No, it was not the King for whom the seven men had prepared.Who, then, was to have been their prey?I believed that I could have answered this question, but I kept silent; and there was no reason why the King should guess that I had a suspicion.“At all events,”he said,“we have you and your friend to thank that the affair was not more serious. I hope we should have been able to give a good account of ourselves; but seven[pg 279]against two are long odds. And there seems a fate in it that you should have come to me in the nick of time to-day as well as at Biarritz. I should like to know your names.”I had dreaded this. Foolishly, perhaps, I felt that I could not bear to see the cordial light in his eyes fade to proud coldness, as it must when he knew me for a son of the man who had tried to place another on his throne. Besides, that I should at such a moment announce myself a Casa Triana would seem like bidding for pardon as a reward for what I had done. The confession stuck in my throat; and while I hesitated, Dick spoke.“My friend didn't mean you to know, sir,”said he, gabbling so fast that I could not stop him;“but this isn't thesecondtime he's happened to be around when there was a little thing to be done for your Majesty,—it's the third. Yesterday it was he who snatched that bomb away from the man under thepaso, collared the other fellow, and stuck the bomb in a smashed water-jar, although he gave the credit to the chauffeur—who, by the way, is‘shover’to this car. My friend here is travelling, as you might say, incog. for important private reasons, which he'll want you to know some day, sir, if he doesn't now; and that's why, when Ropes the chauffeur happened along, he made him a present of all the praise.”The King flushed, looking me straight in the eyes with an expression so noble and at the same time so kind that, had we lived a century or two ago, when men were not ashamed to show their true feelings, I should have thrown myself at his feet.“I thank you again,”he said,“foreverything. I'm glad to know you are Spanish, even if I am to know no more. But am I to know no more?”“Will your Majesty pardon me,”I asked,“if I beg to remain nameless for the present?”“I could pardon you far graver crimes,”the King said smiling;“and I'm sure your reason, whatever it is, reflects nothing but honour on yourself. I owe you a debt. Claim it's payment in my gratitude whenever you will; the sooner the[pg 280]better. And if you want a friend, you'll know where to find one.”He held out his hand, and when I took it, shook mine warmly in English fashion. Something else he was about to say on a second thought, when his friend—who had now restored the chauffeur to dazed consciousness—drew his attention.“Sir,”he said,“the guardia civile are coming back without prisoners.”A minute or two later the two men had galloped up to us, one wounded in the cheek. They had chased the brigands, exchanging shots, until suddenly, having passed beyond a clump of trees and a few lumpy hummocks of sand, the band had vanished as if by magic. The civil guards had explored the spot for some cleverly concealed hiding-place, which they knew must exist within the space of two hundred metres, but they had found nothing. And as they had had no time to ascertain the condition of the men left for us to deal with, they had thought it best to return lest the wounded enemy prove not to behors de combatafter all.Fortunately the distance from this lonely spot to Jerez was not more than thirty kilometres, and within three miles there was a farm. Here a cart could be got to take the wounded brigands into the town; and from Jerez a posse of men would be immediately sent out to scour the country for the escaped brigands.The King, whom the guardia civile recognized with respectful surprise, was now anxious to get back to Seville, where he was due in the royal box for the Good Friday procession, and must appear by five o'clock at latest. He delayed only long enough to be sure that his chauffeur was not hurt beyond a slight concussion of the brain, to speak a few kind words to the civil guard, and to say a significantly emphasized“Au revoir”to Dick and me. Then, taking the wheel himself, whilst the half-dazed chauffeur lay in the tonneau, he backed the big, reddish-brown car off the barricade, and darted away in a cloud of dust at a good forty miles an hour.It was left for us to do what we could to advance the civil guard with their task; and though we had already lost too much[pg 281]time for my peace of mind, it was our plain duty to help those who had helped us. When we had levelled the rough barricade we reluctantly bundled the wounded men into our tonneau, and going at a pace which enabled the civil guards to gallop close behind us, we steered for the farm of which they had spoken. There, in a buzz of excitement, the brigands were piled into a cart; and leaving them to follow, presided over by one mounted guard leading his comrade's horse, we took the other on to Jerez in our car, so that the search party might be organized the sooner.Sometimes virtue brings its own reward, and mine came when I learned that our new companion had met an automobile going at a great pace towards Jerez. It had gone so fast that, in the dust, he was not sure of the colour or number of persons inside, but he thought that he had seen several ladies.If he could he would have compelled us to stop in Jerez and give evidence of the attack by brigands; but laughingly we told him that, rather than be delayed again, we would spill him out by the roadside and vanish into space before he could set the telegraph to work. As for the brigands, the leader with three others had escaped, and the faces of those captured were not known to the guard. But the fact that they had been seven was significant in his opinion; and he believed that they would prove to be men of Ecija, forming a band officially supposed to be defunct.Should we give a hint of our suspicions, we knew well that every effort would be made to detain us at Jerez, and such a catastrophe I would have avoided at almost any price, unless there had been a hope of handicapping Carmona. But that there was no such hope I was as sure as that the abortive plan had been organized by him.How he had communicated so quickly with his friends the Seven, I did not pretend to say, unless he had known where to find their leader, and visited him this morning in his car. Whatever he had done, however, he would not have been fool enough to jeopardize his reputation for the sake of laying me by the heels.[pg 282]The fact that he had claimed the aid of bandits proved that he wished to dispose of me without implicating himself, though why he had not adopted the far simpler plan of denouncing me as Casa Triana to the police, I could not conceive. Still, there was ingenuity in this idea. If a young man—or two young men—were captured in a lonely place known to be infected with brigands; if such young men were held for ransom, and kept out of the way for weeks or months, what was all that to a Duke of Carmona?What if, when one of those young men appeared in the world again (minus an ear or a finger, perhaps), he told a fairy story about the enmity of the Duke, and reminded the public of an old nurse's tale concerning a bond between the house of Carmona and the leader of the seven famous brigands? Who would believe him? Who would not think it a silly and spiteful attempt on the part of an embittered man to injure a grandee of Spain?Carmona would not have taken the whole Seven into his confidence, that was certain. He would have appealed to the leader alone. That leader had escaped; and even if he were captured he would not betray the Duke. Why should he, since it would not help himself; whereas, if he wereloyal, Carmona would secretly use influence to lighten his lot?Dick and I discussed these matters in English, under the nose of the civil guard, as I drove on to Jerez; and shrewd Yankee as he was, for once he accepted the Spanish point of view. If we were to“get even with Carmona and pay him out for this,”it must be in some less clumsy way, Dick agreed.[pg 283]XXXIVThe RaceIt was lucky for us that the guard had met an automobile between the brigands' barricade and Jerez, otherwise we should have been at sea. The road-mender near Utrera had seen but one car, and that might have been the King's; but now we had something to hope for still; and Dick and I resolved to get out of Jerez as soon as possible, provided we could learn that the car we followed had gone on. If we lingered, the civil guard might, after all, think it his duty to have us detained, and we did not wish to give him time to change his mind.“It's a pity, though,”said Dick, with a thirsty sigh.“I've always had a sneaking fancy that if I ever came to Spain I'd stop at Jerez—‘the place where the sherry comes from’—and potter about in huge, cool bodegas, sampling golden wine from giant casks with queer names on them. Only think what it would feel like to-day to have a stream of mellow‘Methusalem’trickling over our dusty lips and down our dry throats? Great Scott! I daren't dwell on it, since it can't be. But it's a grand chance missed.”Almost as he spoke we flashed into a neat white town, with green glimpses ofpatios; and groaning, Dick shut his eyes upon a great bodega where the famous names of Gonzalez and Byass loomed black on white.We dumped our civil guard at the entrance to a side street which was, we hinted, rather narrow for automobiles, and, not waiting for his grateful adieux, we darted on, asking a bootblack the way to the best hotel. At the“Sign of the Swan”we paused[pg 284]just long enough to give the Gloria water, and to find out that a motor-car had stopped for a few moments about two hours ago. There were ladies inside, but they had not got out. A gentleman, covered with dust, had ordered sherry and biscuits, which he and the chauffeur had themselves carried to the other passengers, appearing rather impatient with the waiters. This gentleman had spoken Spanish in the hotel, but had been heard conversing in English with his friends. They had remained about fifteen minutes, and had then gone on. A waiter remembered seeing the chauffeur and his master consulting a road-map, and had heard the word“Cadiz”spoken.This gave us an apparently unbroken clue, and half expecting to be caught in a police-trap, we slipped stealthily out of Jerez, with a spurt of speed as streets were left behind.Still we were watched by purple-robed, guardian mountains, sitting in conclave. A running fire of poppies swept the fields between which we travelled, while distant meadows were paved with gold, or with forget-me-not blue like squares of the sky's mosaic fallen out. The air grew luminous as the crystal bell which hangs over the lagoons of Venice; and with the subtle change of atmosphere we had in our nostrils the first tang of the sea.Here and there a strip of lush green was belted with cactus, but we were driving through salt marshes, and round us spread a plain piled with strange, shining pyramids of salt, white and bright as hills of diamond dust. Then, suddenly, a broken line of turrets and domes and spires was cut in gleaming pearl against the sky; and it was not the opal clearness of the air alone which took the memory to Venice. Here was the same ebb and flow of salt water in glittering lagoons, the same dark, waving lines of seaweed, the same wide stretch of sapphire beyond the alabaster domes.For Spain, the road was good, and we glided smoothly through the pretty old town of Puerta de Santa Maria, with its big bodegas and Byronic associations. Across the Guadalquivir, where it tumbles into the Atlantic, dashing through an aromatic forest of[pg 285]umbrella pines we came out at Queen Isabel's white, Moorish looking Puerto Real. Thence, distant Cadiz on its rock appeared to change position bewilderingly, like a group of fairy castles, as we swept round the rim of that semicircular bay where once the Phœnicians traded in metals of England, and amber of the Baltic; where the ships of the Great Armada lay; and where Essex wrought destruction.At San Fernando, I was assailed by doubt. What if, after all, the car we sought had not gone to Cadiz, but had here taken the coast road to Algeciras? The great conference was only just over, there; tourists of all nations were flocking to the town, attracted by curiosity; and as the place boasts the most beautiful hotel in Spain, it seemed likely that in flying from Seville the Duke should choose Algeciras instead of Cadiz. But some fishermen, on that rope of sand which binds Cadiz to the mainland, had seen a car pass a few hours before. Yes, only one; and they thought it was grey. It had four or five passengers, and was going to Cadiz.Thither we spurted, Dick studying a plan of the city as we flew along the straight road embanked above the sand. By the time we arrived in silver Cadiz he was able to say in which direction I must drive to find the chief hotel; and in an openplacenot far from the crowded port we stopped.Dick stayed to guard the car from the crowd which quickly collected, while I went to question the landlord.No travellers with an automobile were stopping with him at present; but one had arrived a couple of hours ago, perhaps, and its passengers had wished to remain overnight. Unfortunately, however, as a big ship had just come in from America every room was taken.There was no other hotel at which persons of taste could stop in comfort; and after some discussion, the owner of the car had decided to run on to Algeciras by way of Tarifa. The party, consisting of three ladies, one gentleman, and the chauffeur, had taken a hasty meal, and had got away about an hour and a half before our arrival.[pg 286]“Those beastlybandidos!”I exclaimed to Dick in a rage of disappointment.“If it hadn't been for them we should have been on the heels of the grey car, and caught it up here at the hotel. I should have been able to snatch Monica away from under their noses—for I know she wouldn't have failed me.”“Those beastlybandidosintroduced you to the King,—don't forget that,”said Dick consolingly.“And the day may come before long when you'll be glad of that introduction. You can never tell, in a life like yours. And once Carmona's at Algeciras, why, you've got him in a kind ofcul-de-sacfrom which he can't escape, any more than a mouse can jump out of a basin half full of water. If he takes rooms at the Reina Cristina, you'll come plump upon him. If he tries to return by road, he'll run into your arms; and one or the other must happen unless he puts his auto on a train or steamer, neither of which is likely.”Somewhat comforted, I proposed to follow at once, but Dick wistfully reminded me that the afternoon was wearing on, and he was wearing with it. Soon he would be worn out, unless I gave him something to eat. It seemed years since that cup of coffee and roll of the early morning.If we needed nourishment, the car needed water. Both needs were supplied somewhat grudgingly by me, though the physical part of me did appreciate the coolness of the restaurant, and the strange dishes for which Cadiz is famous; the mushroom-flavoured cuttle-fish, the golden dorado in sherry.Then off we started again, to take a road which the landlord warned us was none too good. People who travelled by carriage or diligence had evil things to say of the fourteen to eighteen hours of journey, though the scenery was fine. This did not sound enlivening; but what good horses could do in fourteen hours, the Gloria could do in three or four.Through ramifications of narrow streets I steered the car out of Cadiz. In all directions they branched off from one another, interlacing, overlapping with the intricacy of a puzzle. The houses were high, too, and there was not a window with glittering balcony[pg 287]of glass and iron, where dark-eyed women did not lean between heaven and earth, to smile down upon our humming motor. It was all very quaint and gay, in spite of ancient, tragic memories; and though few cities of Spain are older than Cadiz—which claims Hercules for founder—the white houses looked as clean as if they had been built yesterday or some mediæval model.We tore back to San Fernando; and soon came upon the bad surface which had been prophesied. The Gloria bumped over ruts and grooves, and scattered stones, and perforce I had to slacken speed lest she should break some blood-vessel. Nevertheless we did not waste time in covering the six miles to Chiclana de la Frontera; and when we had crashed through this ancient stronghold of the Phœnicians we jolted out into an open, sandy solitude, with only the knoll of Barosa to break its blank monotony.Even a mind preoccupied must spare a few thoughts for Graham and the“Faugh-a-ballaghs,”on this ground where Spanish men and British men fought shoulder to shoulder against the French invader. But when we passed the road branching away to Conil, and held straight on across the little river Salado, I heard a thing more instructive than history, more exciting than romance.A man we met—who looked almost old enough to remember the brave days of the great tunny fishing—had seen a large automobile, not more than an hour ago. Evidently, then, we were gaining on the quarry. The news gave me courage.The sea and the Straits of Gibraltar were near now, and though they were not in sight yet, nor the sandy headland of Trafalgar, the smell of salt came to us with the wind.At the old Moorish town of Vejer de la Frontera (scarcely a town in this storied corner of the world but tells, with its“de la Frontera,”of days when the Moors were crushed back, ever farther and farther) we had travelled full thirty miles from Cadiz. Childish voices screaming round the car cried that another automobile was not far ahead; and like a racehorse nearing the finish, we put on speed, dashing at a rush to the Laguna de Janda,[pg 288]over the ground where Tarik the Conquerer began his great running fight with Rodrigo. So through little Venta de Tabilla, leaving the lake to plunge into an imposing gorge which was a doorway to the sea. There, spread out before, were the straits and the burning African coast; Europe and Africa face to face; white Tarifa jutting into the green waves; Trafalgar in the distance, smothered in clouds like clinging memories; Tangier opposite, a crescent of pearls, tossed seaward by towering blue waves which were the Atlas Mountains. Taking the wild beauty of the scene with all that it meant, it was one of the great sights of the world—the world once supposed to end here, with Hercules' pillars.As the Gloria sprang on towards Tarifa, a fierce wind which had been lying in wait leapt at the car and sent her staggering. Gust after gust darted from ambush, half blinding our ungoggled eyes with the sand they flung by handfuls into our faces. But we jammed on our hats; and the Gloria bore the onslaughts bravely, her voice drowned in the screaming of the wind, which might have been the war cries of those Moorish armies whose battleground this land had been for seven centuries.As the good white road mounted the shoulder of a down on its way to Tarifa, that most Moorish of all Spanish towns stood up like a model cut out of alabaster in a frame of jade. Clear against the sky rose the crumbling tower of Guzman el Bueno, the Abraham of mediæval history; but our way, instead of leading through the strange old city, passed the horseshoe gate of entrance, and bore us up into the mountains.Not a soul did we meet, once we turned our backs upon Tarifa. Only the wild wind would not desert us, but roared in strange voices along the hollows of the land, in a country where all was wild. The rough mountain sides were peppered with stunted oaks; and as our way ascended more thrilling grew the views, with the smoke of great steamers streaming black pennons over the sea, and the Atlas Mountains squatting Sphinx-like to guard the African shore.[pg 289]Then, we lost the hard blue line of water, screened behind mountains; and slipping down over the summit we hid from the bellowing wind. The car flew like a circling bird round the wide curves, and dropped us in peaceful vales sheltered by cork forests, and rocky walls inlaid with the silver of trickling streams.Thus, back to the wide sea view and downs whose flowery carpet was torn by jagged nail-heads of rock. Cork trees, sombre as giant olives clad in mourning, strong in their corselets and shields of half-stripped bark as knights in armour, covered the hills like a vast army. At the foot of the hoary warriors, waved bracken and yellow iris in tangled masses; high above their heads sailed here and there a golden eagle of a vulture, looking like paper birds or Japanese kites.Far below us the white houses of Algeciras lay scattered, a broken necklace of white beads; and from across the water that dark lion, Gibraltar, crouched as if waiting to spring.Whether Dick or I saw it first I can't tell, but we exclaimed together,“There's the other car!”And there it was, a moving speck upon the road in a white cloud of dust.After it we went with a bound of increased speed. No need now to stop and ask the way to the hotel; all we had to do was to follow and catch up with the Lecomte at the steps of the Hotel Reina Cristina. A wild idea flashed into my head, that I would snatch Monica as she alighted from Carmona's car, fling her to Dick in mine, jump in after her myself, and be off before the others had time to recover from their surprise.The more I thought of this the more feasible did it seem. No slowing up for sharp turnings now; trust to luck that the road was clear ahead! I was thrilling with hope and excitement as we dashed after the disappearing dust-covered automobile into a wide open gateway. The scent of heliotrope and rose geranium, hot under the April sun, intoxicated me as we swept along the white avenue, and came in sight of the other car just drawing up before an arcaded loggia.[pg 290]XXXVThe Moon in the WildernessTwo ladies and their maid were getting out. An American young man was helping them down. The grey car was not a Lecomte. The owner, his chauffeur, and the three women were of types entirely different from those we sought.The discovery, coming after such exaltation of hope, was like a blow over the heart.“Hard luck,”exclaimed Dick.“But Carmona's car must be somewhere.”“If it ever started,”I said.“I begin to think now that Carmona rallied his brigands, and sent me out to meet them, knowing I'd surely follow if I believed he had gone that way.”“Oh come, there's hope still,”Dick consoled me. And turning to the owner of the car, he asked if he had seen another grey automobile. He had not; and, on further questioning, he went on to tell us that he had started from Seville meaning to stop at Cadiz and come on here to-morrow; but the hotel had been full, so he had“rushed it”to Algeciras. These details proved that his was the motor we had been chasing from the first; and the excellent Spanish which the Californian spoke to the porters accounted for one misleading bit of information.While the party of care-free tourists went indoors, Dick and I stood in our coats of dust to discuss the situation. We soon agreed that there was but one thing to do. Wire Colonel O'Donnel for news of Carmona's movements, and wait where we were for an answer.[pg 291]To none save those who count every moment precious could such a delay have been irksome. The place was a paradise, the garden a corner of Eden, and the Reina Cristina more like the country house of some Spanish millionaire than a hotel.Leaving the Gloria, we went in to write a telegram; and in a court, charming as thepatioof a Moorish palace, we sat to plan out a message. The people of the hotel confirmed our fears that no answer could come from Seville till morning; so Dick busied himself in choosing rooms, while, to save time, I took the car by the sea road to the telegraph-office in town.How many miles up and down those flower-bordered paths Dick and I walked next morning waiting for news, neither could have told. Eleven o'clock had struck when Colonel O'Donnel's answer was brought to me in the garden.“On receipt of wire, interviewed verger,”I read.“Made him confess to accepting large sum from agent of C—— to send you on wrong track. Making inquiries and hope let you know in few hours whether C—— really gone; if so, which direction. Advise you stop Algeciras till hear from me again. Am sending on luggage there.”“A few hours!”I was beginning to know too well what a few hours could mean in Spain where, to a population of philosophers it mattered nothing if a thing happened to-morrow or the day after.Gibraltar was empurpled with night and sequined with ten thousand lights when the next telegram arrived—a message which covered two telegraph forms.“Just learned C—— left to-day for Granada with same party. Took train, and whether shipped automobile not found out. C—— believed to be ill. Friend at club says C—— been heard say knows at Granada man worth twenty physicians, natural bone-setter, herb doctor. Perhaps wishes consult this person. Illness seems mysterious. House of C—— well known at Granada. Inquire at Washington Irving, where suppose you will stay. Will wire or write to that address.”[pg 292]I should have been off within the hour, but the quickest way of reaching Granada was by Ronda, and there was no road for automobiles. One could walk, one could ride, along a bridle path through gorges unsurpassed for grandeur; but it was an expedition of two days, whereas if we could curb our impatience until early morning, we would reach Ronda by train in about four hours.Not being quite mad, we waited, rose at five, and before seven were steaming out of Algeciras, while the great cloud-cataract of the Levanter churned and boiled over Gibraltar. On a truck, travelling by the same train, was my brave Gloria, none the worse for yesterday's wild flight, and ready for another when she could take the road beyond Ronda. I had not ceased yet to wonder at the expedition with which she had been shipped. Dick discovered, however, that the manager of the line was a Scotsman, a kind of fairy godfather for all the region round, which explained the mystery; and his road was wonderful. In a glass coach, which was an“observation car,”we tore through scenery so diversified that it might have been chosen from the finest bits of a whole continent. There were wooded ravines tapestried with pink sweetbrier; there were far hill-towns like flocks of gulls resting on the edge of giddy precipices; there were strange old fortresses; ruined Moorish castles; velvet-green fields with aloe hedges grey as lines of broken slate; dark, noble gorges sprinkled with mother-o'-pearl flakes of white wild roses, that drifted down the red rock into water green as onyx. There were blossomy bits of Holland and long tracts of Switzerland. Glacier-mills in narrow gorges were like empty niches for colossal statues of saints; pink and white orchards foamed at the feet of ancient look-out towers; black rocks, like huge watch-dogs, seemed to crouch on cushions of wild flowers; and weeping willows fringed the river with silver before it dashed away to do battle among the mountains; acacias showered perfume, and orange groves pushed so near to the train that a hand reached out could have plucked their golden globes.[pg 293]There were caves and underground rivers, haunted by enchanted Moors; and at last, a brief glimpse of Ronda hanging high against the sky, vanishing like the fabled Garden of Iram, and not to be seen again until the train mounted the cliff by many loops.Just as we arrived at the end of the journey a thought in my brain seemed to snap like the trigger of a carbine. In my haste to get off by the first morning train I had forgotten to try and find more petrol at Algeciras, although I had not enough left to get the car to Granada.There was just time to telegraph back to the Reina Cristina and beg some of the young Californian, who had fallen so deeply in love with the place that he intended to stay a week. We had become friendly and he would certainly grant the favour, therefore we might count on travelling that night by acetylene and moonlight. Meanwhile, there was a long day to wait, but I tramped off my restlessness as best I could in exploring every foot of Ronda.After that one look upward from the train, when Ronda hung before our eyes over a thousand foot gorge, we had at last sneaked in, so to speak, by a back door. If it had not been for that first glimpse, and if we had not read“Miranda of the Balcony”we should not have guessed, in walking from the station to the Alameda, that Ronda differed from other Moorish towns. But far away was a barrier of iron railing, and a curious effect as if beyond it everything ended except the sky. We walked on, reached that railing, and leaned over.No picture, no book had been able to give us a real idea of Ronda. It was stupendous—wonderful. We stared down at the world beneath as if we hung in a balloon, for the rock fell away from our feet, a sheer precipice; and men working in the valley below were like tiny crabs. The Moorish mills were white, broken hour-glasses, shaking out a stream of silver; geese on the river were floating bread-crumbs; a string of donkeys crawling up the steep Moorish road were invisible under their packs, which looked like mushrooms with moving stems.[pg 294]The noise of the river floated up to us with a muffled roar, and across the deep valley its water had cut, tumbled a wild mountain-land, crossed here and there by white threads of road which clung to the sky-line and disappeared.“Great Scott, if this eagle's nest doesn't take the cake!”exclaimed Dick, always modern.“If there were any more to take, it could have that, too. Hurrah for you, rock and river. You're sublime.”But we had not seen all, by hanging over that iron railing, nor nearly all. There was the palace of the Moorish King, and the terrible steps cut by Christian captives. There was the bridge swung over the gorge; and the far-famed“window”of rock, one of the wonders of the world. There was the old Roman amphitheatre, turned into a bull-ring; the town wall, which Hercules helped to build; the Roman gate, and the Moorish gate, and the house where Miranda lived; and a hundred other things to be found by mounting steep hills or sliding down wild precipices.The splendid mountain air had given Dick a ferocious appetite; nevertheless he could hardly be torn from the cliff above the“window,”and vowed that it would be worth while coming all the way from New York to Ronda next year when the grand new hotel should be finished.Rain fell while we lunched, but we wandered out again, in a thin mist like a sieve, through which sifted turquoises and silver spangles; nor did we cease wandering until it was time for the train to arrive with the expected petrol. The Californian had not failed us; and with a good supply of food for the Gloria, and enough for ourselves to last until morning, we set off, against the advice of everyone.The sky had cleared, and twilight would soon merge into moonlight; but we would need the moon and stars as well on the road we had to travel. In more than one place it was marked on my map by an ominous, thin black line which meant“Motorists, beware.”The country was sparsely populated; people whispered[pg 295]ofbandidos; and if anything happened to the car in the middle of the night, there would be no means of getting help.Still, if we won through without serious mishap, we should save a day; for there was no train to Granada until morning, and Dick was as keen on the adventure, for the adventure's sake, as I was for another reason.After all, we reminded each other, it was a journey of only a hundred and twenty miles. With no traffic to interfere, the Gloria ought to fly over the distance in four hours; and what if everyone did try to discourage us? We had experienced that sort of thing in Biarritz, and the dangers had resolved themselves into chimeras. Nothing in Spain was as troublesome nowadays as the busybodies would have one believe—not even the beggars.My big searchlights cast a flashing ring on the road, which the car seemed to push swiftly before it as it ran.Dick peered through the uncertain light for the hill town of Teba, from which the Empress Eugenie took her title, but my eyes were glued to the road.To think, if we had known at Jerez that Granada was the lodestar, we could have reached Ronda in a run of four hours day before yesterday! But it was useless to repine, and fate had given us Ronda.By the time we had passed through the straggling village of Campillos the moon was up, a great white, incandescent globe of light, so brilliant that instead of draining colour from rock, and grass, and flower, it gave new and almost supernatural values to all.We had the world to ourselves, a wonderful world like a vast silver bowl half full of jewels. Over the tops of mountains cut jaggedly of steel, strange figures seemed to run along the horizon. Bathed in unearthly radiance lay fields of poppies like deep lakes of blood filling the valleys between little rolling hills, and here and there a miniature mountain of pink or glittering grey, rose out of the plain like a fairy palace which would be invisible in daylight. Olive trees stretching away in straight lines on[pg 296]either side of endless avenues, fountained silver under the moon, each avenue swept by a wave of poppies. It was an Aladdin's Cave landscape made out of rare metals and precious stones that imitated trees and flowers.Antiquera on its wild crags, was a ragged black hole in the silver sky, until we shot into the town under the dominating castle of crimson memories.There, was life and music still; guitars tinkled, children who should have been in bed frolicked in the streets with lambs that followed them like dogs, while everyone, old and young, laughed and hooted at the Gloria as she shot by without stopping, on her way to Loja and Granada.A sharp turn to the left swept us out of Antiquera, and so good was the road that Dick and I began to laugh at the gloomy prognostications which thus far had not been fulfilled.My spirits rose to such a height that as we passed under the Lovers' Rock, still haunted by the Moorish maiden and her Christian lover, I quoted Southey, verse after verse of the old-fashioned poetry coming back to my mind. The Peña de los Enamorados stood up like a small model of Gibraltar, rising out of the plain; and as we wound on among other pinnacles almost as majestic, we could see the bleached skeleton of Archidona hanging on its mountain. Once the place had been a famous nest of brigands; and when after climbing a tremendous hill, we had come into its long white street, Dick was of opinion that Archidona of to-day was still an ideal summer resort for the fraternity in case they should crave a town life. Each low-browed house in the interminable avenue looked a fit nursery for mysteries and secrets. Here and there a dark face framed in a knotted red handkerchief peered from a lighted doorway, staring after the Gloria until she had slipped over the brow of the hill to coast smoothly down another as steep.There, had we but known, the peaceful olive grove through which we passed and hushed the song of nightingales was to be our last glimpse of peace. Beyond that silver barrier lay chaos,[pg 297]a chaos of wild mountains, deep chasms, and grim steppes, solitary, unpeopled, forbidding under the moon!If we broke an axle here, with leagues to walk to the nearest farm, there was no hope of Granada to-morrow. And now the road was equally well fitted for breaking axles, necks, and hearts.It was made of rock in petrified waves, among which the Gloria floundered and buck-jumped as long ago Dick had expected her to do when she crossed the Spanish border. Every part of her shivered as though she were a horse in the bull-ring, and I pitied her as if she had a nerve in every spring and chain.“This is no road; it's a nightmare,”groaned Dick. But if it were, it was a nightmare which ran with us glaring, showing frightful fangs, for mile after mile of horror. Just as the steep slope of a descent offered a softer cushion for the suffering tyres, and hope stirred within us, we broke into such a region as imagination pictures in the streets of Lisbon after the great earthquake. Gullies and vertical rifts scored the highway serpentining hither and thither, the chasms gaping to swallow the Gloria or at least bite off a wheel.Now the earthy lip of a cleft would crumble and fall in as our driving-wheels skimmed along the edge; now, steer with all the nerve and nicety I might, the Gloria would rock as she hung half over a gully. Somehow I coaxed her down the hill, and driving out from the labyrinth of crevasses, I breathed a sigh of relief. But the next instant, I had only time to jam on the brakes to save the car from vaulting into a small river which ran across the road. Carefully embanked on either side, the stream flowed swiftly, cutting the descent at right angles.Whatever the depth might prove, I had to risk it. Mounting the nearer embankment, I drove down into the running water, where the moon laughed up at me as I broke her glittering reflection.“Good old San Cristóbal!”cried Dick as we came through without damage and climbed the opposite bank, to plump down a breakneck descent on the other side.[pg 298]But it was early still to praise the saint. We had only to look ahead to see how much more he had to do for us, if we were to win through to Granada at all. Where a little clump of houses had assembled at the bottom of the hill, as if to watch our struggle, another and far broader river flowed.It also raced across the highway, as if roads were made for river-beds; and this time the situation was so serious that I stopped the Gloria to reflect.There was no doubt about it; this river was deep. Though a cart might ford it safely, and have the flood of rippling silver no higher than the axles, it was different with an automobile. I wondered bleakly what would happen to the silencer if its mass of heated metal were suddenly plunged into cold water, and what would happen to the commutator.“When in doubt, play a trump,”said Dick.“And I guess that camel-backed bridge is a trump, if it's only a knave—or the deuce.”It was true, there was a narrow erection which might pass as a bridge, if one wished to pay a compliment. It was of stone, and came to a steep point at the apex, like a“card tent”when two cards receive support from one another. It was the question of a fraction of an inch, if the Gloria were to squeeze over; but between the danger of a jam and the danger of a burst cylinder, I decided to risk playing Dick's trump.First I got out and unscrewed the wheel-caps to give more clearance, then in again for the trial, while Dick walked, ready to offer aid if it were needed. I had rasped through to the top, and the Gloria had actually started on the down grade, when she gave a grinding scream, and stuck between the parapets.I tried to move, and could not. The car was hopelessly jammed.“Nice fix,”said Dick.“If I was writing a book, I'd say,‘this route only suitable for hundred horse-power cars, built in small sections, and carrying cheerful passengers.’Now, we were cheerful once—and may be again. Chuck me over the key of the tool-box, will you?”[pg 299]I did so without a word, lest if I uttered any they should be too strong. But curiosity overcame me when I heard a metallic chinking, then the blows of a hammer.“Only knocking down a bit of this old parapet,”was the calm answer to my question.“Some of it's gone already; why not more? I bet future generations will thank me—as it's certain never to be mended.”As he spoke, there was a great splash, when a piece of the parapet, already weakened by years of storm and stress, plumped over into the river. The car was released, and slid down the other slope of the camel's back.Now it did seem that we might safely thank San Cristóbal, since nothing could well be worse than the pass from which he had just delivered us, scratched, bruised, yet unbroken. We had but to scramble out of the rough river-bed, bump over the level crossing of a railway, to come out upon a broad, smooth highway like a road to paradise. Ready to shout with joy, I put on speed, and the Gloria sprinted over the white and silent way as if she were happy to turn her back upon Inferno.Yesterday's study of the map assured me that at length we had struck the main road from Malaga, and there seemed every reason to believe that the ordeal just over would be our last. Flying along at a good fifty miles an hour, under a tired moon that sought the west, presently a town rose grandly up before us, throned on rocks in a wide valley, and pallid in the strange light as some sad queen.Loja, tragically lost key of Granada, sister of famed Alhama, stronghold of that fierce alcayde who called Boabdil's sultana daughter! Loja, and only thirty miles more to Granada.We rushed towards that wide valley, and on to the mountain town which dared to repulse Ferdinand. In the deserted streets the only sound was the singing of many springs, the same musical voices, the same strains that Lord Rivers heard close upon five hundred years ago, when he came with his English archers to help conquer the wild place.El GranCapitán, too, had come[pg 300]here, a lonely exile, after all his splendid services to an ungrateful king. He, too, had heard the singing of Loja's springs, not in triumph, but in sorrow.Down in the valley beyond, the river cried a warning to us; but we did not heed, even when the road surface changed again to gluey mud; squelching on, mile after mile, at the best pace we could, and saying always that soon we should be on the Vega. So the dawn stole up and quivered on the snows of the Sierra Nevada.The moon was gone, and it must still be long before the sun would shine over the mountains, when a black shadow like a great coffin deserted on the road, gave me pause. I pulled up in haste, only just in time, and could hardly believe I saw aright. But there was no illusion. We were on the highway from the port of Malaga to Granada, yet here was a broken bridge, a noble structure which should have outworn centuries, tumbling into ruin.The fall of the great central arch was no new thing, for moss and lichen enamelled its jagged edges with green and gold. Some branches loosely strewn across the road were the only signposts indicating this tragedy, though perhaps it was a story as old as the great earthquake of two-and-twenty years ago.A yard or so more and we should have been over; but San Cristóbal had not forgotten us; and the next thing was, how to cross the river without a bridge. I turned and went back, discovering wheel-tracks which showed an obscure bye-path dipping over the edge of theembankment. I followed, and beheld the ford, a little farther on in a baby forest, where a broad stream lay in flood between low banks.“We'll have to get through,”I said, and drove the Gloria into the water. If there should be mud—but there were stones instead; and with tiny waves swishing among the spokes of her wheels she set out to rumble over.“I believe she'll do it—”I had begun, when she gave a great hiss, as when a blacksmith plunges a red-hot horseshoe[pg 301]into water; and a cloud of steam gushed up. Still I forced her on, expecting each instant to hear some fatal crash, while we plunged deeper into the stream. Now the little waves splashed coldly across my feet. Would they mount to the carburetor, spoil the ignition, or, still worse, would they crack the cylinders?Neither of us spoke, and the car stormed on, sobbing. For a moment she clawed in vain at something, and then stumbled, as if on her knees, up the farther bank. Dripping water and puffing steam she climbed to the high-road again, and, with a bound, started on through spouting mud, as if nothing had happened. One would have thought her fired by some incentive as powerful as mine, which forced her on in the face of all difficulties; and perhaps it was a song of gladness which the motor hummed, as she came out upon the Vega.Suddenly the first beams of the sun streamed down the white slopes of the far Sierra Nevada, touched the vast fertile plain, and wrought magic with a castled hill which floated up, dreamlike, from a purple haze where a great city lay asleep. Clustering vermilion towers blazed with the gold of dawn, and dazzled our eyes with the glamour of romance. For the sleeping city was Granada, and the red towers and gardens on the castled hill were the towers and gardens of the Alhambra.The adventure was over. And under one of those roofs, dove-grey in the dawn, I hoped that Monica was sleeping.

[pg 275]XXXIIIThe Seven Men of EcijaClose in front of us was drawn up a large automobile, its front wheels mounted on a barrier of rough stones built across the highway. Rolled in the dust lay a leather-clad chauffeur, limp in unconsciousness or death; and with their backs to the car, two young men stood bravely defending themselves against seven.So suddenly did we burst upon the scene, and so furiously had I to put on the brake, that I saw only a wild picture of determined faces pale above flashing blades, fierce faces under red peasant caps, and carbines used as clubs. Then Dick and I were out of the Gloria; and instead of two there were four against seven.Where were the revolvers we had bought by Don Cipriano's advice at Madrid, for just such an emergency as this?—In our suit-cases at the Cortijo de Santa Rufina, forgotten from the moment of purchase until this moment of need. But, as by one accord, each seized a jagged stone which had rolled from the barricade, and before we had had time for two consecutive thoughts we had joined the strangers, and all four were fighting like demons.Oddly enough, the seven red caps did not fire their carbines, and had apparently directed all their efforts to disarming or stunning the automobilists. But at sight of us their tactics changed. Surprised at first, their astonishment was burnt up by rage. Four of the seven turned upon us, and drew knives, but quick as light I had wrenched one of them out of a brown[pg 276]hand, giving its owner a smashing blow between the eyes with my stone.Down he dropped like an ox, and I was ready for another; but the blade of a third would have slid between my ribs had not one of the seven cried out sharply,“Stop! A red car—a red car. These are the men we want.”“Disable them,”yelled another voice; but it was easier said than done. The second's pause which followed the warning shout saved my skin. The brigand's knife flew; and he got a side blow on the temple which sent him spinning.We were now four against five; but already the right arm of another red cap spouted crimson from the blade in a sword-stick which was flashing blue lightning, and another wore a dark spot on his shirt—a spot which spread and changed its shape.There was no time to look at faces. I scarcely saw the features of friend or foe, and could not have sworn to the identity of one man had my life depended on it. But I knew that two beside whom we fought were brave beyond the common, that they were worth fighting for and with. We were all four shoulder to shoulder now, our backs against the car, though how we had won through to that position I could not have told.Another red cap had gone down on one knee, cursing, and there was a fresh blot of crimson on a dark-stained shirt. We four had the advantage now, for we had come to no harm but a few bruises and an aching head or two, when suddenly there was a howl from the fellow last down,“El guardia civile!”It was true. Out of the distance rode two men, dashing towards us from the direction of Jerez. Far away still, their white, black, and red uniforms caught the sun; and guessing from the knot of forms swaying round a motor-car that something was wrong, the pair spurred their horses to a gallop.“It's too hot for us!”panted the brigand I took for the leader. He growled an order; and supporting two of their fallen comrades who were able to help themselves, the uninjured pair made off towards a small wood where I now saw horses tethered.[pg 277]After them we went; but they promptly left their half-disabled friends to shift for themselves, and loaded their carbines—so lately clubs—with quickness almost incredible.An instant later two black muzzles covered us; and the tide of battle might after all have turned disastrously, had not the shrill ping of a bullet warned the enemy that there was no time to waste upon reprisals.One of the civil guard had fired from a distance, but with precise aim, as a yell of pain announced. A man already wounded got another souvenir of the encounter; and out of the seven only four could get to their saddles. One limped in the rear, but he had lost his carbine; one sat where his comrades had flung him in their flight, and the last of the seven—stunned by my stone—lay breathing stertorously on the road.“After them—after them!”one of the young men who had fought so brilliantly shouted now to the civil guards.“Don't let them get away.”For the first time I looked at him with seeing eyes. Then, I could hardly stifle an exclamation. It was the King.He gave me back look for look, smiling that brave and charming smile which has magic in it to transform an enemy into a loyal servant.I had my cap off now, and so had Dick, who wore the jaunty air I had seen him wear in more than one battle.“I have to thank you both,”said the King.“And—not for the first time. Our cars, as well as ourselves, have met before. Wasn't it—near Biarritz?”I felt the blood stream up to the roots of my hair.“Your Majesty has a King's memory for faces,”I stammered.“There are faces one doesn't forget,”said he.“But we'll talk of that presently. Now we have work here.”The King's companion was already down on one knee by the side of the chauffeur, pouringaguardientefrom a flask into the man's half-open mouth. As for the fellow I had hit, I was sure that he would presently come round, but little the worse for wear;[pg 278]and I suggested that Dick and I find a rope in the car, which would bind him and the two other half-disabled ones. But the King would not let us work alone. He did as much as we, and more, before we were joined by the young officer who was his friend.Discouraged and weak from loss of blood, as well as the loss of their carbines and their comrades, the wounded brigands made no further fight. But they were silent, save for a muttered oath or two, and I made up my mind that the true secret of this morning's work would never be torn from them.For there was, of course, a secret. The King, who had not the clue which I held, saw that, and wondered why the brigands had not wished at first to shoot us. Plainly, their plan had been to make captives.The obvious idea was that they would have conveyed their prisoners to some brigands' nest in the mountains, in the hope of obtaining a rich ransom. But they had evidently expected an automobile, or they would not have raised a barricade, just round a sharp corner on a particularly lonely piece of road.Could they have been lying in wait for the King? This seemed impossible, as he had told no one that he was going out, and the expedition had indeed been made on the impulse, in the company of but one companion beside the chauffeur. He had intended to have a spin, and discover the state of the roads as far as practicable on the way to Jerez before turning back for the procession in the afternoon. And that evening he must return to Madrid. No, it was not the King for whom the seven men had prepared.Who, then, was to have been their prey?I believed that I could have answered this question, but I kept silent; and there was no reason why the King should guess that I had a suspicion.“At all events,”he said,“we have you and your friend to thank that the affair was not more serious. I hope we should have been able to give a good account of ourselves; but seven[pg 279]against two are long odds. And there seems a fate in it that you should have come to me in the nick of time to-day as well as at Biarritz. I should like to know your names.”I had dreaded this. Foolishly, perhaps, I felt that I could not bear to see the cordial light in his eyes fade to proud coldness, as it must when he knew me for a son of the man who had tried to place another on his throne. Besides, that I should at such a moment announce myself a Casa Triana would seem like bidding for pardon as a reward for what I had done. The confession stuck in my throat; and while I hesitated, Dick spoke.“My friend didn't mean you to know, sir,”said he, gabbling so fast that I could not stop him;“but this isn't thesecondtime he's happened to be around when there was a little thing to be done for your Majesty,—it's the third. Yesterday it was he who snatched that bomb away from the man under thepaso, collared the other fellow, and stuck the bomb in a smashed water-jar, although he gave the credit to the chauffeur—who, by the way, is‘shover’to this car. My friend here is travelling, as you might say, incog. for important private reasons, which he'll want you to know some day, sir, if he doesn't now; and that's why, when Ropes the chauffeur happened along, he made him a present of all the praise.”The King flushed, looking me straight in the eyes with an expression so noble and at the same time so kind that, had we lived a century or two ago, when men were not ashamed to show their true feelings, I should have thrown myself at his feet.“I thank you again,”he said,“foreverything. I'm glad to know you are Spanish, even if I am to know no more. But am I to know no more?”“Will your Majesty pardon me,”I asked,“if I beg to remain nameless for the present?”“I could pardon you far graver crimes,”the King said smiling;“and I'm sure your reason, whatever it is, reflects nothing but honour on yourself. I owe you a debt. Claim it's payment in my gratitude whenever you will; the sooner the[pg 280]better. And if you want a friend, you'll know where to find one.”He held out his hand, and when I took it, shook mine warmly in English fashion. Something else he was about to say on a second thought, when his friend—who had now restored the chauffeur to dazed consciousness—drew his attention.“Sir,”he said,“the guardia civile are coming back without prisoners.”A minute or two later the two men had galloped up to us, one wounded in the cheek. They had chased the brigands, exchanging shots, until suddenly, having passed beyond a clump of trees and a few lumpy hummocks of sand, the band had vanished as if by magic. The civil guards had explored the spot for some cleverly concealed hiding-place, which they knew must exist within the space of two hundred metres, but they had found nothing. And as they had had no time to ascertain the condition of the men left for us to deal with, they had thought it best to return lest the wounded enemy prove not to behors de combatafter all.Fortunately the distance from this lonely spot to Jerez was not more than thirty kilometres, and within three miles there was a farm. Here a cart could be got to take the wounded brigands into the town; and from Jerez a posse of men would be immediately sent out to scour the country for the escaped brigands.The King, whom the guardia civile recognized with respectful surprise, was now anxious to get back to Seville, where he was due in the royal box for the Good Friday procession, and must appear by five o'clock at latest. He delayed only long enough to be sure that his chauffeur was not hurt beyond a slight concussion of the brain, to speak a few kind words to the civil guard, and to say a significantly emphasized“Au revoir”to Dick and me. Then, taking the wheel himself, whilst the half-dazed chauffeur lay in the tonneau, he backed the big, reddish-brown car off the barricade, and darted away in a cloud of dust at a good forty miles an hour.It was left for us to do what we could to advance the civil guard with their task; and though we had already lost too much[pg 281]time for my peace of mind, it was our plain duty to help those who had helped us. When we had levelled the rough barricade we reluctantly bundled the wounded men into our tonneau, and going at a pace which enabled the civil guards to gallop close behind us, we steered for the farm of which they had spoken. There, in a buzz of excitement, the brigands were piled into a cart; and leaving them to follow, presided over by one mounted guard leading his comrade's horse, we took the other on to Jerez in our car, so that the search party might be organized the sooner.Sometimes virtue brings its own reward, and mine came when I learned that our new companion had met an automobile going at a great pace towards Jerez. It had gone so fast that, in the dust, he was not sure of the colour or number of persons inside, but he thought that he had seen several ladies.If he could he would have compelled us to stop in Jerez and give evidence of the attack by brigands; but laughingly we told him that, rather than be delayed again, we would spill him out by the roadside and vanish into space before he could set the telegraph to work. As for the brigands, the leader with three others had escaped, and the faces of those captured were not known to the guard. But the fact that they had been seven was significant in his opinion; and he believed that they would prove to be men of Ecija, forming a band officially supposed to be defunct.Should we give a hint of our suspicions, we knew well that every effort would be made to detain us at Jerez, and such a catastrophe I would have avoided at almost any price, unless there had been a hope of handicapping Carmona. But that there was no such hope I was as sure as that the abortive plan had been organized by him.How he had communicated so quickly with his friends the Seven, I did not pretend to say, unless he had known where to find their leader, and visited him this morning in his car. Whatever he had done, however, he would not have been fool enough to jeopardize his reputation for the sake of laying me by the heels.[pg 282]The fact that he had claimed the aid of bandits proved that he wished to dispose of me without implicating himself, though why he had not adopted the far simpler plan of denouncing me as Casa Triana to the police, I could not conceive. Still, there was ingenuity in this idea. If a young man—or two young men—were captured in a lonely place known to be infected with brigands; if such young men were held for ransom, and kept out of the way for weeks or months, what was all that to a Duke of Carmona?What if, when one of those young men appeared in the world again (minus an ear or a finger, perhaps), he told a fairy story about the enmity of the Duke, and reminded the public of an old nurse's tale concerning a bond between the house of Carmona and the leader of the seven famous brigands? Who would believe him? Who would not think it a silly and spiteful attempt on the part of an embittered man to injure a grandee of Spain?Carmona would not have taken the whole Seven into his confidence, that was certain. He would have appealed to the leader alone. That leader had escaped; and even if he were captured he would not betray the Duke. Why should he, since it would not help himself; whereas, if he wereloyal, Carmona would secretly use influence to lighten his lot?Dick and I discussed these matters in English, under the nose of the civil guard, as I drove on to Jerez; and shrewd Yankee as he was, for once he accepted the Spanish point of view. If we were to“get even with Carmona and pay him out for this,”it must be in some less clumsy way, Dick agreed.[pg 283]XXXIVThe RaceIt was lucky for us that the guard had met an automobile between the brigands' barricade and Jerez, otherwise we should have been at sea. The road-mender near Utrera had seen but one car, and that might have been the King's; but now we had something to hope for still; and Dick and I resolved to get out of Jerez as soon as possible, provided we could learn that the car we followed had gone on. If we lingered, the civil guard might, after all, think it his duty to have us detained, and we did not wish to give him time to change his mind.“It's a pity, though,”said Dick, with a thirsty sigh.“I've always had a sneaking fancy that if I ever came to Spain I'd stop at Jerez—‘the place where the sherry comes from’—and potter about in huge, cool bodegas, sampling golden wine from giant casks with queer names on them. Only think what it would feel like to-day to have a stream of mellow‘Methusalem’trickling over our dusty lips and down our dry throats? Great Scott! I daren't dwell on it, since it can't be. But it's a grand chance missed.”Almost as he spoke we flashed into a neat white town, with green glimpses ofpatios; and groaning, Dick shut his eyes upon a great bodega where the famous names of Gonzalez and Byass loomed black on white.We dumped our civil guard at the entrance to a side street which was, we hinted, rather narrow for automobiles, and, not waiting for his grateful adieux, we darted on, asking a bootblack the way to the best hotel. At the“Sign of the Swan”we paused[pg 284]just long enough to give the Gloria water, and to find out that a motor-car had stopped for a few moments about two hours ago. There were ladies inside, but they had not got out. A gentleman, covered with dust, had ordered sherry and biscuits, which he and the chauffeur had themselves carried to the other passengers, appearing rather impatient with the waiters. This gentleman had spoken Spanish in the hotel, but had been heard conversing in English with his friends. They had remained about fifteen minutes, and had then gone on. A waiter remembered seeing the chauffeur and his master consulting a road-map, and had heard the word“Cadiz”spoken.This gave us an apparently unbroken clue, and half expecting to be caught in a police-trap, we slipped stealthily out of Jerez, with a spurt of speed as streets were left behind.Still we were watched by purple-robed, guardian mountains, sitting in conclave. A running fire of poppies swept the fields between which we travelled, while distant meadows were paved with gold, or with forget-me-not blue like squares of the sky's mosaic fallen out. The air grew luminous as the crystal bell which hangs over the lagoons of Venice; and with the subtle change of atmosphere we had in our nostrils the first tang of the sea.Here and there a strip of lush green was belted with cactus, but we were driving through salt marshes, and round us spread a plain piled with strange, shining pyramids of salt, white and bright as hills of diamond dust. Then, suddenly, a broken line of turrets and domes and spires was cut in gleaming pearl against the sky; and it was not the opal clearness of the air alone which took the memory to Venice. Here was the same ebb and flow of salt water in glittering lagoons, the same dark, waving lines of seaweed, the same wide stretch of sapphire beyond the alabaster domes.For Spain, the road was good, and we glided smoothly through the pretty old town of Puerta de Santa Maria, with its big bodegas and Byronic associations. Across the Guadalquivir, where it tumbles into the Atlantic, dashing through an aromatic forest of[pg 285]umbrella pines we came out at Queen Isabel's white, Moorish looking Puerto Real. Thence, distant Cadiz on its rock appeared to change position bewilderingly, like a group of fairy castles, as we swept round the rim of that semicircular bay where once the Phœnicians traded in metals of England, and amber of the Baltic; where the ships of the Great Armada lay; and where Essex wrought destruction.At San Fernando, I was assailed by doubt. What if, after all, the car we sought had not gone to Cadiz, but had here taken the coast road to Algeciras? The great conference was only just over, there; tourists of all nations were flocking to the town, attracted by curiosity; and as the place boasts the most beautiful hotel in Spain, it seemed likely that in flying from Seville the Duke should choose Algeciras instead of Cadiz. But some fishermen, on that rope of sand which binds Cadiz to the mainland, had seen a car pass a few hours before. Yes, only one; and they thought it was grey. It had four or five passengers, and was going to Cadiz.Thither we spurted, Dick studying a plan of the city as we flew along the straight road embanked above the sand. By the time we arrived in silver Cadiz he was able to say in which direction I must drive to find the chief hotel; and in an openplacenot far from the crowded port we stopped.Dick stayed to guard the car from the crowd which quickly collected, while I went to question the landlord.No travellers with an automobile were stopping with him at present; but one had arrived a couple of hours ago, perhaps, and its passengers had wished to remain overnight. Unfortunately, however, as a big ship had just come in from America every room was taken.There was no other hotel at which persons of taste could stop in comfort; and after some discussion, the owner of the car had decided to run on to Algeciras by way of Tarifa. The party, consisting of three ladies, one gentleman, and the chauffeur, had taken a hasty meal, and had got away about an hour and a half before our arrival.[pg 286]“Those beastlybandidos!”I exclaimed to Dick in a rage of disappointment.“If it hadn't been for them we should have been on the heels of the grey car, and caught it up here at the hotel. I should have been able to snatch Monica away from under their noses—for I know she wouldn't have failed me.”“Those beastlybandidosintroduced you to the King,—don't forget that,”said Dick consolingly.“And the day may come before long when you'll be glad of that introduction. You can never tell, in a life like yours. And once Carmona's at Algeciras, why, you've got him in a kind ofcul-de-sacfrom which he can't escape, any more than a mouse can jump out of a basin half full of water. If he takes rooms at the Reina Cristina, you'll come plump upon him. If he tries to return by road, he'll run into your arms; and one or the other must happen unless he puts his auto on a train or steamer, neither of which is likely.”Somewhat comforted, I proposed to follow at once, but Dick wistfully reminded me that the afternoon was wearing on, and he was wearing with it. Soon he would be worn out, unless I gave him something to eat. It seemed years since that cup of coffee and roll of the early morning.If we needed nourishment, the car needed water. Both needs were supplied somewhat grudgingly by me, though the physical part of me did appreciate the coolness of the restaurant, and the strange dishes for which Cadiz is famous; the mushroom-flavoured cuttle-fish, the golden dorado in sherry.Then off we started again, to take a road which the landlord warned us was none too good. People who travelled by carriage or diligence had evil things to say of the fourteen to eighteen hours of journey, though the scenery was fine. This did not sound enlivening; but what good horses could do in fourteen hours, the Gloria could do in three or four.Through ramifications of narrow streets I steered the car out of Cadiz. In all directions they branched off from one another, interlacing, overlapping with the intricacy of a puzzle. The houses were high, too, and there was not a window with glittering balcony[pg 287]of glass and iron, where dark-eyed women did not lean between heaven and earth, to smile down upon our humming motor. It was all very quaint and gay, in spite of ancient, tragic memories; and though few cities of Spain are older than Cadiz—which claims Hercules for founder—the white houses looked as clean as if they had been built yesterday or some mediæval model.We tore back to San Fernando; and soon came upon the bad surface which had been prophesied. The Gloria bumped over ruts and grooves, and scattered stones, and perforce I had to slacken speed lest she should break some blood-vessel. Nevertheless we did not waste time in covering the six miles to Chiclana de la Frontera; and when we had crashed through this ancient stronghold of the Phœnicians we jolted out into an open, sandy solitude, with only the knoll of Barosa to break its blank monotony.Even a mind preoccupied must spare a few thoughts for Graham and the“Faugh-a-ballaghs,”on this ground where Spanish men and British men fought shoulder to shoulder against the French invader. But when we passed the road branching away to Conil, and held straight on across the little river Salado, I heard a thing more instructive than history, more exciting than romance.A man we met—who looked almost old enough to remember the brave days of the great tunny fishing—had seen a large automobile, not more than an hour ago. Evidently, then, we were gaining on the quarry. The news gave me courage.The sea and the Straits of Gibraltar were near now, and though they were not in sight yet, nor the sandy headland of Trafalgar, the smell of salt came to us with the wind.At the old Moorish town of Vejer de la Frontera (scarcely a town in this storied corner of the world but tells, with its“de la Frontera,”of days when the Moors were crushed back, ever farther and farther) we had travelled full thirty miles from Cadiz. Childish voices screaming round the car cried that another automobile was not far ahead; and like a racehorse nearing the finish, we put on speed, dashing at a rush to the Laguna de Janda,[pg 288]over the ground where Tarik the Conquerer began his great running fight with Rodrigo. So through little Venta de Tabilla, leaving the lake to plunge into an imposing gorge which was a doorway to the sea. There, spread out before, were the straits and the burning African coast; Europe and Africa face to face; white Tarifa jutting into the green waves; Trafalgar in the distance, smothered in clouds like clinging memories; Tangier opposite, a crescent of pearls, tossed seaward by towering blue waves which were the Atlas Mountains. Taking the wild beauty of the scene with all that it meant, it was one of the great sights of the world—the world once supposed to end here, with Hercules' pillars.As the Gloria sprang on towards Tarifa, a fierce wind which had been lying in wait leapt at the car and sent her staggering. Gust after gust darted from ambush, half blinding our ungoggled eyes with the sand they flung by handfuls into our faces. But we jammed on our hats; and the Gloria bore the onslaughts bravely, her voice drowned in the screaming of the wind, which might have been the war cries of those Moorish armies whose battleground this land had been for seven centuries.As the good white road mounted the shoulder of a down on its way to Tarifa, that most Moorish of all Spanish towns stood up like a model cut out of alabaster in a frame of jade. Clear against the sky rose the crumbling tower of Guzman el Bueno, the Abraham of mediæval history; but our way, instead of leading through the strange old city, passed the horseshoe gate of entrance, and bore us up into the mountains.Not a soul did we meet, once we turned our backs upon Tarifa. Only the wild wind would not desert us, but roared in strange voices along the hollows of the land, in a country where all was wild. The rough mountain sides were peppered with stunted oaks; and as our way ascended more thrilling grew the views, with the smoke of great steamers streaming black pennons over the sea, and the Atlas Mountains squatting Sphinx-like to guard the African shore.[pg 289]Then, we lost the hard blue line of water, screened behind mountains; and slipping down over the summit we hid from the bellowing wind. The car flew like a circling bird round the wide curves, and dropped us in peaceful vales sheltered by cork forests, and rocky walls inlaid with the silver of trickling streams.Thus, back to the wide sea view and downs whose flowery carpet was torn by jagged nail-heads of rock. Cork trees, sombre as giant olives clad in mourning, strong in their corselets and shields of half-stripped bark as knights in armour, covered the hills like a vast army. At the foot of the hoary warriors, waved bracken and yellow iris in tangled masses; high above their heads sailed here and there a golden eagle of a vulture, looking like paper birds or Japanese kites.Far below us the white houses of Algeciras lay scattered, a broken necklace of white beads; and from across the water that dark lion, Gibraltar, crouched as if waiting to spring.Whether Dick or I saw it first I can't tell, but we exclaimed together,“There's the other car!”And there it was, a moving speck upon the road in a white cloud of dust.After it we went with a bound of increased speed. No need now to stop and ask the way to the hotel; all we had to do was to follow and catch up with the Lecomte at the steps of the Hotel Reina Cristina. A wild idea flashed into my head, that I would snatch Monica as she alighted from Carmona's car, fling her to Dick in mine, jump in after her myself, and be off before the others had time to recover from their surprise.The more I thought of this the more feasible did it seem. No slowing up for sharp turnings now; trust to luck that the road was clear ahead! I was thrilling with hope and excitement as we dashed after the disappearing dust-covered automobile into a wide open gateway. The scent of heliotrope and rose geranium, hot under the April sun, intoxicated me as we swept along the white avenue, and came in sight of the other car just drawing up before an arcaded loggia.[pg 290]XXXVThe Moon in the WildernessTwo ladies and their maid were getting out. An American young man was helping them down. The grey car was not a Lecomte. The owner, his chauffeur, and the three women were of types entirely different from those we sought.The discovery, coming after such exaltation of hope, was like a blow over the heart.“Hard luck,”exclaimed Dick.“But Carmona's car must be somewhere.”“If it ever started,”I said.“I begin to think now that Carmona rallied his brigands, and sent me out to meet them, knowing I'd surely follow if I believed he had gone that way.”“Oh come, there's hope still,”Dick consoled me. And turning to the owner of the car, he asked if he had seen another grey automobile. He had not; and, on further questioning, he went on to tell us that he had started from Seville meaning to stop at Cadiz and come on here to-morrow; but the hotel had been full, so he had“rushed it”to Algeciras. These details proved that his was the motor we had been chasing from the first; and the excellent Spanish which the Californian spoke to the porters accounted for one misleading bit of information.While the party of care-free tourists went indoors, Dick and I stood in our coats of dust to discuss the situation. We soon agreed that there was but one thing to do. Wire Colonel O'Donnel for news of Carmona's movements, and wait where we were for an answer.[pg 291]To none save those who count every moment precious could such a delay have been irksome. The place was a paradise, the garden a corner of Eden, and the Reina Cristina more like the country house of some Spanish millionaire than a hotel.Leaving the Gloria, we went in to write a telegram; and in a court, charming as thepatioof a Moorish palace, we sat to plan out a message. The people of the hotel confirmed our fears that no answer could come from Seville till morning; so Dick busied himself in choosing rooms, while, to save time, I took the car by the sea road to the telegraph-office in town.How many miles up and down those flower-bordered paths Dick and I walked next morning waiting for news, neither could have told. Eleven o'clock had struck when Colonel O'Donnel's answer was brought to me in the garden.“On receipt of wire, interviewed verger,”I read.“Made him confess to accepting large sum from agent of C—— to send you on wrong track. Making inquiries and hope let you know in few hours whether C—— really gone; if so, which direction. Advise you stop Algeciras till hear from me again. Am sending on luggage there.”“A few hours!”I was beginning to know too well what a few hours could mean in Spain where, to a population of philosophers it mattered nothing if a thing happened to-morrow or the day after.Gibraltar was empurpled with night and sequined with ten thousand lights when the next telegram arrived—a message which covered two telegraph forms.“Just learned C—— left to-day for Granada with same party. Took train, and whether shipped automobile not found out. C—— believed to be ill. Friend at club says C—— been heard say knows at Granada man worth twenty physicians, natural bone-setter, herb doctor. Perhaps wishes consult this person. Illness seems mysterious. House of C—— well known at Granada. Inquire at Washington Irving, where suppose you will stay. Will wire or write to that address.”[pg 292]I should have been off within the hour, but the quickest way of reaching Granada was by Ronda, and there was no road for automobiles. One could walk, one could ride, along a bridle path through gorges unsurpassed for grandeur; but it was an expedition of two days, whereas if we could curb our impatience until early morning, we would reach Ronda by train in about four hours.Not being quite mad, we waited, rose at five, and before seven were steaming out of Algeciras, while the great cloud-cataract of the Levanter churned and boiled over Gibraltar. On a truck, travelling by the same train, was my brave Gloria, none the worse for yesterday's wild flight, and ready for another when she could take the road beyond Ronda. I had not ceased yet to wonder at the expedition with which she had been shipped. Dick discovered, however, that the manager of the line was a Scotsman, a kind of fairy godfather for all the region round, which explained the mystery; and his road was wonderful. In a glass coach, which was an“observation car,”we tore through scenery so diversified that it might have been chosen from the finest bits of a whole continent. There were wooded ravines tapestried with pink sweetbrier; there were far hill-towns like flocks of gulls resting on the edge of giddy precipices; there were strange old fortresses; ruined Moorish castles; velvet-green fields with aloe hedges grey as lines of broken slate; dark, noble gorges sprinkled with mother-o'-pearl flakes of white wild roses, that drifted down the red rock into water green as onyx. There were blossomy bits of Holland and long tracts of Switzerland. Glacier-mills in narrow gorges were like empty niches for colossal statues of saints; pink and white orchards foamed at the feet of ancient look-out towers; black rocks, like huge watch-dogs, seemed to crouch on cushions of wild flowers; and weeping willows fringed the river with silver before it dashed away to do battle among the mountains; acacias showered perfume, and orange groves pushed so near to the train that a hand reached out could have plucked their golden globes.[pg 293]There were caves and underground rivers, haunted by enchanted Moors; and at last, a brief glimpse of Ronda hanging high against the sky, vanishing like the fabled Garden of Iram, and not to be seen again until the train mounted the cliff by many loops.Just as we arrived at the end of the journey a thought in my brain seemed to snap like the trigger of a carbine. In my haste to get off by the first morning train I had forgotten to try and find more petrol at Algeciras, although I had not enough left to get the car to Granada.There was just time to telegraph back to the Reina Cristina and beg some of the young Californian, who had fallen so deeply in love with the place that he intended to stay a week. We had become friendly and he would certainly grant the favour, therefore we might count on travelling that night by acetylene and moonlight. Meanwhile, there was a long day to wait, but I tramped off my restlessness as best I could in exploring every foot of Ronda.After that one look upward from the train, when Ronda hung before our eyes over a thousand foot gorge, we had at last sneaked in, so to speak, by a back door. If it had not been for that first glimpse, and if we had not read“Miranda of the Balcony”we should not have guessed, in walking from the station to the Alameda, that Ronda differed from other Moorish towns. But far away was a barrier of iron railing, and a curious effect as if beyond it everything ended except the sky. We walked on, reached that railing, and leaned over.No picture, no book had been able to give us a real idea of Ronda. It was stupendous—wonderful. We stared down at the world beneath as if we hung in a balloon, for the rock fell away from our feet, a sheer precipice; and men working in the valley below were like tiny crabs. The Moorish mills were white, broken hour-glasses, shaking out a stream of silver; geese on the river were floating bread-crumbs; a string of donkeys crawling up the steep Moorish road were invisible under their packs, which looked like mushrooms with moving stems.[pg 294]The noise of the river floated up to us with a muffled roar, and across the deep valley its water had cut, tumbled a wild mountain-land, crossed here and there by white threads of road which clung to the sky-line and disappeared.“Great Scott, if this eagle's nest doesn't take the cake!”exclaimed Dick, always modern.“If there were any more to take, it could have that, too. Hurrah for you, rock and river. You're sublime.”But we had not seen all, by hanging over that iron railing, nor nearly all. There was the palace of the Moorish King, and the terrible steps cut by Christian captives. There was the bridge swung over the gorge; and the far-famed“window”of rock, one of the wonders of the world. There was the old Roman amphitheatre, turned into a bull-ring; the town wall, which Hercules helped to build; the Roman gate, and the Moorish gate, and the house where Miranda lived; and a hundred other things to be found by mounting steep hills or sliding down wild precipices.The splendid mountain air had given Dick a ferocious appetite; nevertheless he could hardly be torn from the cliff above the“window,”and vowed that it would be worth while coming all the way from New York to Ronda next year when the grand new hotel should be finished.Rain fell while we lunched, but we wandered out again, in a thin mist like a sieve, through which sifted turquoises and silver spangles; nor did we cease wandering until it was time for the train to arrive with the expected petrol. The Californian had not failed us; and with a good supply of food for the Gloria, and enough for ourselves to last until morning, we set off, against the advice of everyone.The sky had cleared, and twilight would soon merge into moonlight; but we would need the moon and stars as well on the road we had to travel. In more than one place it was marked on my map by an ominous, thin black line which meant“Motorists, beware.”The country was sparsely populated; people whispered[pg 295]ofbandidos; and if anything happened to the car in the middle of the night, there would be no means of getting help.Still, if we won through without serious mishap, we should save a day; for there was no train to Granada until morning, and Dick was as keen on the adventure, for the adventure's sake, as I was for another reason.After all, we reminded each other, it was a journey of only a hundred and twenty miles. With no traffic to interfere, the Gloria ought to fly over the distance in four hours; and what if everyone did try to discourage us? We had experienced that sort of thing in Biarritz, and the dangers had resolved themselves into chimeras. Nothing in Spain was as troublesome nowadays as the busybodies would have one believe—not even the beggars.My big searchlights cast a flashing ring on the road, which the car seemed to push swiftly before it as it ran.Dick peered through the uncertain light for the hill town of Teba, from which the Empress Eugenie took her title, but my eyes were glued to the road.To think, if we had known at Jerez that Granada was the lodestar, we could have reached Ronda in a run of four hours day before yesterday! But it was useless to repine, and fate had given us Ronda.By the time we had passed through the straggling village of Campillos the moon was up, a great white, incandescent globe of light, so brilliant that instead of draining colour from rock, and grass, and flower, it gave new and almost supernatural values to all.We had the world to ourselves, a wonderful world like a vast silver bowl half full of jewels. Over the tops of mountains cut jaggedly of steel, strange figures seemed to run along the horizon. Bathed in unearthly radiance lay fields of poppies like deep lakes of blood filling the valleys between little rolling hills, and here and there a miniature mountain of pink or glittering grey, rose out of the plain like a fairy palace which would be invisible in daylight. Olive trees stretching away in straight lines on[pg 296]either side of endless avenues, fountained silver under the moon, each avenue swept by a wave of poppies. It was an Aladdin's Cave landscape made out of rare metals and precious stones that imitated trees and flowers.Antiquera on its wild crags, was a ragged black hole in the silver sky, until we shot into the town under the dominating castle of crimson memories.There, was life and music still; guitars tinkled, children who should have been in bed frolicked in the streets with lambs that followed them like dogs, while everyone, old and young, laughed and hooted at the Gloria as she shot by without stopping, on her way to Loja and Granada.A sharp turn to the left swept us out of Antiquera, and so good was the road that Dick and I began to laugh at the gloomy prognostications which thus far had not been fulfilled.My spirits rose to such a height that as we passed under the Lovers' Rock, still haunted by the Moorish maiden and her Christian lover, I quoted Southey, verse after verse of the old-fashioned poetry coming back to my mind. The Peña de los Enamorados stood up like a small model of Gibraltar, rising out of the plain; and as we wound on among other pinnacles almost as majestic, we could see the bleached skeleton of Archidona hanging on its mountain. Once the place had been a famous nest of brigands; and when after climbing a tremendous hill, we had come into its long white street, Dick was of opinion that Archidona of to-day was still an ideal summer resort for the fraternity in case they should crave a town life. Each low-browed house in the interminable avenue looked a fit nursery for mysteries and secrets. Here and there a dark face framed in a knotted red handkerchief peered from a lighted doorway, staring after the Gloria until she had slipped over the brow of the hill to coast smoothly down another as steep.There, had we but known, the peaceful olive grove through which we passed and hushed the song of nightingales was to be our last glimpse of peace. Beyond that silver barrier lay chaos,[pg 297]a chaos of wild mountains, deep chasms, and grim steppes, solitary, unpeopled, forbidding under the moon!If we broke an axle here, with leagues to walk to the nearest farm, there was no hope of Granada to-morrow. And now the road was equally well fitted for breaking axles, necks, and hearts.It was made of rock in petrified waves, among which the Gloria floundered and buck-jumped as long ago Dick had expected her to do when she crossed the Spanish border. Every part of her shivered as though she were a horse in the bull-ring, and I pitied her as if she had a nerve in every spring and chain.“This is no road; it's a nightmare,”groaned Dick. But if it were, it was a nightmare which ran with us glaring, showing frightful fangs, for mile after mile of horror. Just as the steep slope of a descent offered a softer cushion for the suffering tyres, and hope stirred within us, we broke into such a region as imagination pictures in the streets of Lisbon after the great earthquake. Gullies and vertical rifts scored the highway serpentining hither and thither, the chasms gaping to swallow the Gloria or at least bite off a wheel.Now the earthy lip of a cleft would crumble and fall in as our driving-wheels skimmed along the edge; now, steer with all the nerve and nicety I might, the Gloria would rock as she hung half over a gully. Somehow I coaxed her down the hill, and driving out from the labyrinth of crevasses, I breathed a sigh of relief. But the next instant, I had only time to jam on the brakes to save the car from vaulting into a small river which ran across the road. Carefully embanked on either side, the stream flowed swiftly, cutting the descent at right angles.Whatever the depth might prove, I had to risk it. Mounting the nearer embankment, I drove down into the running water, where the moon laughed up at me as I broke her glittering reflection.“Good old San Cristóbal!”cried Dick as we came through without damage and climbed the opposite bank, to plump down a breakneck descent on the other side.[pg 298]But it was early still to praise the saint. We had only to look ahead to see how much more he had to do for us, if we were to win through to Granada at all. Where a little clump of houses had assembled at the bottom of the hill, as if to watch our struggle, another and far broader river flowed.It also raced across the highway, as if roads were made for river-beds; and this time the situation was so serious that I stopped the Gloria to reflect.There was no doubt about it; this river was deep. Though a cart might ford it safely, and have the flood of rippling silver no higher than the axles, it was different with an automobile. I wondered bleakly what would happen to the silencer if its mass of heated metal were suddenly plunged into cold water, and what would happen to the commutator.“When in doubt, play a trump,”said Dick.“And I guess that camel-backed bridge is a trump, if it's only a knave—or the deuce.”It was true, there was a narrow erection which might pass as a bridge, if one wished to pay a compliment. It was of stone, and came to a steep point at the apex, like a“card tent”when two cards receive support from one another. It was the question of a fraction of an inch, if the Gloria were to squeeze over; but between the danger of a jam and the danger of a burst cylinder, I decided to risk playing Dick's trump.First I got out and unscrewed the wheel-caps to give more clearance, then in again for the trial, while Dick walked, ready to offer aid if it were needed. I had rasped through to the top, and the Gloria had actually started on the down grade, when she gave a grinding scream, and stuck between the parapets.I tried to move, and could not. The car was hopelessly jammed.“Nice fix,”said Dick.“If I was writing a book, I'd say,‘this route only suitable for hundred horse-power cars, built in small sections, and carrying cheerful passengers.’Now, we were cheerful once—and may be again. Chuck me over the key of the tool-box, will you?”[pg 299]I did so without a word, lest if I uttered any they should be too strong. But curiosity overcame me when I heard a metallic chinking, then the blows of a hammer.“Only knocking down a bit of this old parapet,”was the calm answer to my question.“Some of it's gone already; why not more? I bet future generations will thank me—as it's certain never to be mended.”As he spoke, there was a great splash, when a piece of the parapet, already weakened by years of storm and stress, plumped over into the river. The car was released, and slid down the other slope of the camel's back.Now it did seem that we might safely thank San Cristóbal, since nothing could well be worse than the pass from which he had just delivered us, scratched, bruised, yet unbroken. We had but to scramble out of the rough river-bed, bump over the level crossing of a railway, to come out upon a broad, smooth highway like a road to paradise. Ready to shout with joy, I put on speed, and the Gloria sprinted over the white and silent way as if she were happy to turn her back upon Inferno.Yesterday's study of the map assured me that at length we had struck the main road from Malaga, and there seemed every reason to believe that the ordeal just over would be our last. Flying along at a good fifty miles an hour, under a tired moon that sought the west, presently a town rose grandly up before us, throned on rocks in a wide valley, and pallid in the strange light as some sad queen.Loja, tragically lost key of Granada, sister of famed Alhama, stronghold of that fierce alcayde who called Boabdil's sultana daughter! Loja, and only thirty miles more to Granada.We rushed towards that wide valley, and on to the mountain town which dared to repulse Ferdinand. In the deserted streets the only sound was the singing of many springs, the same musical voices, the same strains that Lord Rivers heard close upon five hundred years ago, when he came with his English archers to help conquer the wild place.El GranCapitán, too, had come[pg 300]here, a lonely exile, after all his splendid services to an ungrateful king. He, too, had heard the singing of Loja's springs, not in triumph, but in sorrow.Down in the valley beyond, the river cried a warning to us; but we did not heed, even when the road surface changed again to gluey mud; squelching on, mile after mile, at the best pace we could, and saying always that soon we should be on the Vega. So the dawn stole up and quivered on the snows of the Sierra Nevada.The moon was gone, and it must still be long before the sun would shine over the mountains, when a black shadow like a great coffin deserted on the road, gave me pause. I pulled up in haste, only just in time, and could hardly believe I saw aright. But there was no illusion. We were on the highway from the port of Malaga to Granada, yet here was a broken bridge, a noble structure which should have outworn centuries, tumbling into ruin.The fall of the great central arch was no new thing, for moss and lichen enamelled its jagged edges with green and gold. Some branches loosely strewn across the road were the only signposts indicating this tragedy, though perhaps it was a story as old as the great earthquake of two-and-twenty years ago.A yard or so more and we should have been over; but San Cristóbal had not forgotten us; and the next thing was, how to cross the river without a bridge. I turned and went back, discovering wheel-tracks which showed an obscure bye-path dipping over the edge of theembankment. I followed, and beheld the ford, a little farther on in a baby forest, where a broad stream lay in flood between low banks.“We'll have to get through,”I said, and drove the Gloria into the water. If there should be mud—but there were stones instead; and with tiny waves swishing among the spokes of her wheels she set out to rumble over.“I believe she'll do it—”I had begun, when she gave a great hiss, as when a blacksmith plunges a red-hot horseshoe[pg 301]into water; and a cloud of steam gushed up. Still I forced her on, expecting each instant to hear some fatal crash, while we plunged deeper into the stream. Now the little waves splashed coldly across my feet. Would they mount to the carburetor, spoil the ignition, or, still worse, would they crack the cylinders?Neither of us spoke, and the car stormed on, sobbing. For a moment she clawed in vain at something, and then stumbled, as if on her knees, up the farther bank. Dripping water and puffing steam she climbed to the high-road again, and, with a bound, started on through spouting mud, as if nothing had happened. One would have thought her fired by some incentive as powerful as mine, which forced her on in the face of all difficulties; and perhaps it was a song of gladness which the motor hummed, as she came out upon the Vega.Suddenly the first beams of the sun streamed down the white slopes of the far Sierra Nevada, touched the vast fertile plain, and wrought magic with a castled hill which floated up, dreamlike, from a purple haze where a great city lay asleep. Clustering vermilion towers blazed with the gold of dawn, and dazzled our eyes with the glamour of romance. For the sleeping city was Granada, and the red towers and gardens on the castled hill were the towers and gardens of the Alhambra.The adventure was over. And under one of those roofs, dove-grey in the dawn, I hoped that Monica was sleeping.

[pg 275]XXXIIIThe Seven Men of EcijaClose in front of us was drawn up a large automobile, its front wheels mounted on a barrier of rough stones built across the highway. Rolled in the dust lay a leather-clad chauffeur, limp in unconsciousness or death; and with their backs to the car, two young men stood bravely defending themselves against seven.So suddenly did we burst upon the scene, and so furiously had I to put on the brake, that I saw only a wild picture of determined faces pale above flashing blades, fierce faces under red peasant caps, and carbines used as clubs. Then Dick and I were out of the Gloria; and instead of two there were four against seven.Where were the revolvers we had bought by Don Cipriano's advice at Madrid, for just such an emergency as this?—In our suit-cases at the Cortijo de Santa Rufina, forgotten from the moment of purchase until this moment of need. But, as by one accord, each seized a jagged stone which had rolled from the barricade, and before we had had time for two consecutive thoughts we had joined the strangers, and all four were fighting like demons.Oddly enough, the seven red caps did not fire their carbines, and had apparently directed all their efforts to disarming or stunning the automobilists. But at sight of us their tactics changed. Surprised at first, their astonishment was burnt up by rage. Four of the seven turned upon us, and drew knives, but quick as light I had wrenched one of them out of a brown[pg 276]hand, giving its owner a smashing blow between the eyes with my stone.Down he dropped like an ox, and I was ready for another; but the blade of a third would have slid between my ribs had not one of the seven cried out sharply,“Stop! A red car—a red car. These are the men we want.”“Disable them,”yelled another voice; but it was easier said than done. The second's pause which followed the warning shout saved my skin. The brigand's knife flew; and he got a side blow on the temple which sent him spinning.We were now four against five; but already the right arm of another red cap spouted crimson from the blade in a sword-stick which was flashing blue lightning, and another wore a dark spot on his shirt—a spot which spread and changed its shape.There was no time to look at faces. I scarcely saw the features of friend or foe, and could not have sworn to the identity of one man had my life depended on it. But I knew that two beside whom we fought were brave beyond the common, that they were worth fighting for and with. We were all four shoulder to shoulder now, our backs against the car, though how we had won through to that position I could not have told.Another red cap had gone down on one knee, cursing, and there was a fresh blot of crimson on a dark-stained shirt. We four had the advantage now, for we had come to no harm but a few bruises and an aching head or two, when suddenly there was a howl from the fellow last down,“El guardia civile!”It was true. Out of the distance rode two men, dashing towards us from the direction of Jerez. Far away still, their white, black, and red uniforms caught the sun; and guessing from the knot of forms swaying round a motor-car that something was wrong, the pair spurred their horses to a gallop.“It's too hot for us!”panted the brigand I took for the leader. He growled an order; and supporting two of their fallen comrades who were able to help themselves, the uninjured pair made off towards a small wood where I now saw horses tethered.[pg 277]After them we went; but they promptly left their half-disabled friends to shift for themselves, and loaded their carbines—so lately clubs—with quickness almost incredible.An instant later two black muzzles covered us; and the tide of battle might after all have turned disastrously, had not the shrill ping of a bullet warned the enemy that there was no time to waste upon reprisals.One of the civil guard had fired from a distance, but with precise aim, as a yell of pain announced. A man already wounded got another souvenir of the encounter; and out of the seven only four could get to their saddles. One limped in the rear, but he had lost his carbine; one sat where his comrades had flung him in their flight, and the last of the seven—stunned by my stone—lay breathing stertorously on the road.“After them—after them!”one of the young men who had fought so brilliantly shouted now to the civil guards.“Don't let them get away.”For the first time I looked at him with seeing eyes. Then, I could hardly stifle an exclamation. It was the King.He gave me back look for look, smiling that brave and charming smile which has magic in it to transform an enemy into a loyal servant.I had my cap off now, and so had Dick, who wore the jaunty air I had seen him wear in more than one battle.“I have to thank you both,”said the King.“And—not for the first time. Our cars, as well as ourselves, have met before. Wasn't it—near Biarritz?”I felt the blood stream up to the roots of my hair.“Your Majesty has a King's memory for faces,”I stammered.“There are faces one doesn't forget,”said he.“But we'll talk of that presently. Now we have work here.”The King's companion was already down on one knee by the side of the chauffeur, pouringaguardientefrom a flask into the man's half-open mouth. As for the fellow I had hit, I was sure that he would presently come round, but little the worse for wear;[pg 278]and I suggested that Dick and I find a rope in the car, which would bind him and the two other half-disabled ones. But the King would not let us work alone. He did as much as we, and more, before we were joined by the young officer who was his friend.Discouraged and weak from loss of blood, as well as the loss of their carbines and their comrades, the wounded brigands made no further fight. But they were silent, save for a muttered oath or two, and I made up my mind that the true secret of this morning's work would never be torn from them.For there was, of course, a secret. The King, who had not the clue which I held, saw that, and wondered why the brigands had not wished at first to shoot us. Plainly, their plan had been to make captives.The obvious idea was that they would have conveyed their prisoners to some brigands' nest in the mountains, in the hope of obtaining a rich ransom. But they had evidently expected an automobile, or they would not have raised a barricade, just round a sharp corner on a particularly lonely piece of road.Could they have been lying in wait for the King? This seemed impossible, as he had told no one that he was going out, and the expedition had indeed been made on the impulse, in the company of but one companion beside the chauffeur. He had intended to have a spin, and discover the state of the roads as far as practicable on the way to Jerez before turning back for the procession in the afternoon. And that evening he must return to Madrid. No, it was not the King for whom the seven men had prepared.Who, then, was to have been their prey?I believed that I could have answered this question, but I kept silent; and there was no reason why the King should guess that I had a suspicion.“At all events,”he said,“we have you and your friend to thank that the affair was not more serious. I hope we should have been able to give a good account of ourselves; but seven[pg 279]against two are long odds. And there seems a fate in it that you should have come to me in the nick of time to-day as well as at Biarritz. I should like to know your names.”I had dreaded this. Foolishly, perhaps, I felt that I could not bear to see the cordial light in his eyes fade to proud coldness, as it must when he knew me for a son of the man who had tried to place another on his throne. Besides, that I should at such a moment announce myself a Casa Triana would seem like bidding for pardon as a reward for what I had done. The confession stuck in my throat; and while I hesitated, Dick spoke.“My friend didn't mean you to know, sir,”said he, gabbling so fast that I could not stop him;“but this isn't thesecondtime he's happened to be around when there was a little thing to be done for your Majesty,—it's the third. Yesterday it was he who snatched that bomb away from the man under thepaso, collared the other fellow, and stuck the bomb in a smashed water-jar, although he gave the credit to the chauffeur—who, by the way, is‘shover’to this car. My friend here is travelling, as you might say, incog. for important private reasons, which he'll want you to know some day, sir, if he doesn't now; and that's why, when Ropes the chauffeur happened along, he made him a present of all the praise.”The King flushed, looking me straight in the eyes with an expression so noble and at the same time so kind that, had we lived a century or two ago, when men were not ashamed to show their true feelings, I should have thrown myself at his feet.“I thank you again,”he said,“foreverything. I'm glad to know you are Spanish, even if I am to know no more. But am I to know no more?”“Will your Majesty pardon me,”I asked,“if I beg to remain nameless for the present?”“I could pardon you far graver crimes,”the King said smiling;“and I'm sure your reason, whatever it is, reflects nothing but honour on yourself. I owe you a debt. Claim it's payment in my gratitude whenever you will; the sooner the[pg 280]better. And if you want a friend, you'll know where to find one.”He held out his hand, and when I took it, shook mine warmly in English fashion. Something else he was about to say on a second thought, when his friend—who had now restored the chauffeur to dazed consciousness—drew his attention.“Sir,”he said,“the guardia civile are coming back without prisoners.”A minute or two later the two men had galloped up to us, one wounded in the cheek. They had chased the brigands, exchanging shots, until suddenly, having passed beyond a clump of trees and a few lumpy hummocks of sand, the band had vanished as if by magic. The civil guards had explored the spot for some cleverly concealed hiding-place, which they knew must exist within the space of two hundred metres, but they had found nothing. And as they had had no time to ascertain the condition of the men left for us to deal with, they had thought it best to return lest the wounded enemy prove not to behors de combatafter all.Fortunately the distance from this lonely spot to Jerez was not more than thirty kilometres, and within three miles there was a farm. Here a cart could be got to take the wounded brigands into the town; and from Jerez a posse of men would be immediately sent out to scour the country for the escaped brigands.The King, whom the guardia civile recognized with respectful surprise, was now anxious to get back to Seville, where he was due in the royal box for the Good Friday procession, and must appear by five o'clock at latest. He delayed only long enough to be sure that his chauffeur was not hurt beyond a slight concussion of the brain, to speak a few kind words to the civil guard, and to say a significantly emphasized“Au revoir”to Dick and me. Then, taking the wheel himself, whilst the half-dazed chauffeur lay in the tonneau, he backed the big, reddish-brown car off the barricade, and darted away in a cloud of dust at a good forty miles an hour.It was left for us to do what we could to advance the civil guard with their task; and though we had already lost too much[pg 281]time for my peace of mind, it was our plain duty to help those who had helped us. When we had levelled the rough barricade we reluctantly bundled the wounded men into our tonneau, and going at a pace which enabled the civil guards to gallop close behind us, we steered for the farm of which they had spoken. There, in a buzz of excitement, the brigands were piled into a cart; and leaving them to follow, presided over by one mounted guard leading his comrade's horse, we took the other on to Jerez in our car, so that the search party might be organized the sooner.Sometimes virtue brings its own reward, and mine came when I learned that our new companion had met an automobile going at a great pace towards Jerez. It had gone so fast that, in the dust, he was not sure of the colour or number of persons inside, but he thought that he had seen several ladies.If he could he would have compelled us to stop in Jerez and give evidence of the attack by brigands; but laughingly we told him that, rather than be delayed again, we would spill him out by the roadside and vanish into space before he could set the telegraph to work. As for the brigands, the leader with three others had escaped, and the faces of those captured were not known to the guard. But the fact that they had been seven was significant in his opinion; and he believed that they would prove to be men of Ecija, forming a band officially supposed to be defunct.Should we give a hint of our suspicions, we knew well that every effort would be made to detain us at Jerez, and such a catastrophe I would have avoided at almost any price, unless there had been a hope of handicapping Carmona. But that there was no such hope I was as sure as that the abortive plan had been organized by him.How he had communicated so quickly with his friends the Seven, I did not pretend to say, unless he had known where to find their leader, and visited him this morning in his car. Whatever he had done, however, he would not have been fool enough to jeopardize his reputation for the sake of laying me by the heels.[pg 282]The fact that he had claimed the aid of bandits proved that he wished to dispose of me without implicating himself, though why he had not adopted the far simpler plan of denouncing me as Casa Triana to the police, I could not conceive. Still, there was ingenuity in this idea. If a young man—or two young men—were captured in a lonely place known to be infected with brigands; if such young men were held for ransom, and kept out of the way for weeks or months, what was all that to a Duke of Carmona?What if, when one of those young men appeared in the world again (minus an ear or a finger, perhaps), he told a fairy story about the enmity of the Duke, and reminded the public of an old nurse's tale concerning a bond between the house of Carmona and the leader of the seven famous brigands? Who would believe him? Who would not think it a silly and spiteful attempt on the part of an embittered man to injure a grandee of Spain?Carmona would not have taken the whole Seven into his confidence, that was certain. He would have appealed to the leader alone. That leader had escaped; and even if he were captured he would not betray the Duke. Why should he, since it would not help himself; whereas, if he wereloyal, Carmona would secretly use influence to lighten his lot?Dick and I discussed these matters in English, under the nose of the civil guard, as I drove on to Jerez; and shrewd Yankee as he was, for once he accepted the Spanish point of view. If we were to“get even with Carmona and pay him out for this,”it must be in some less clumsy way, Dick agreed.

Close in front of us was drawn up a large automobile, its front wheels mounted on a barrier of rough stones built across the highway. Rolled in the dust lay a leather-clad chauffeur, limp in unconsciousness or death; and with their backs to the car, two young men stood bravely defending themselves against seven.

So suddenly did we burst upon the scene, and so furiously had I to put on the brake, that I saw only a wild picture of determined faces pale above flashing blades, fierce faces under red peasant caps, and carbines used as clubs. Then Dick and I were out of the Gloria; and instead of two there were four against seven.

Where were the revolvers we had bought by Don Cipriano's advice at Madrid, for just such an emergency as this?—In our suit-cases at the Cortijo de Santa Rufina, forgotten from the moment of purchase until this moment of need. But, as by one accord, each seized a jagged stone which had rolled from the barricade, and before we had had time for two consecutive thoughts we had joined the strangers, and all four were fighting like demons.

Oddly enough, the seven red caps did not fire their carbines, and had apparently directed all their efforts to disarming or stunning the automobilists. But at sight of us their tactics changed. Surprised at first, their astonishment was burnt up by rage. Four of the seven turned upon us, and drew knives, but quick as light I had wrenched one of them out of a brown[pg 276]hand, giving its owner a smashing blow between the eyes with my stone.

Down he dropped like an ox, and I was ready for another; but the blade of a third would have slid between my ribs had not one of the seven cried out sharply,“Stop! A red car—a red car. These are the men we want.”

“Disable them,”yelled another voice; but it was easier said than done. The second's pause which followed the warning shout saved my skin. The brigand's knife flew; and he got a side blow on the temple which sent him spinning.

We were now four against five; but already the right arm of another red cap spouted crimson from the blade in a sword-stick which was flashing blue lightning, and another wore a dark spot on his shirt—a spot which spread and changed its shape.

There was no time to look at faces. I scarcely saw the features of friend or foe, and could not have sworn to the identity of one man had my life depended on it. But I knew that two beside whom we fought were brave beyond the common, that they were worth fighting for and with. We were all four shoulder to shoulder now, our backs against the car, though how we had won through to that position I could not have told.

Another red cap had gone down on one knee, cursing, and there was a fresh blot of crimson on a dark-stained shirt. We four had the advantage now, for we had come to no harm but a few bruises and an aching head or two, when suddenly there was a howl from the fellow last down,“El guardia civile!”

It was true. Out of the distance rode two men, dashing towards us from the direction of Jerez. Far away still, their white, black, and red uniforms caught the sun; and guessing from the knot of forms swaying round a motor-car that something was wrong, the pair spurred their horses to a gallop.

“It's too hot for us!”panted the brigand I took for the leader. He growled an order; and supporting two of their fallen comrades who were able to help themselves, the uninjured pair made off towards a small wood where I now saw horses tethered.[pg 277]After them we went; but they promptly left their half-disabled friends to shift for themselves, and loaded their carbines—so lately clubs—with quickness almost incredible.

An instant later two black muzzles covered us; and the tide of battle might after all have turned disastrously, had not the shrill ping of a bullet warned the enemy that there was no time to waste upon reprisals.

One of the civil guard had fired from a distance, but with precise aim, as a yell of pain announced. A man already wounded got another souvenir of the encounter; and out of the seven only four could get to their saddles. One limped in the rear, but he had lost his carbine; one sat where his comrades had flung him in their flight, and the last of the seven—stunned by my stone—lay breathing stertorously on the road.

“After them—after them!”one of the young men who had fought so brilliantly shouted now to the civil guards.“Don't let them get away.”

For the first time I looked at him with seeing eyes. Then, I could hardly stifle an exclamation. It was the King.

He gave me back look for look, smiling that brave and charming smile which has magic in it to transform an enemy into a loyal servant.

I had my cap off now, and so had Dick, who wore the jaunty air I had seen him wear in more than one battle.

“I have to thank you both,”said the King.“And—not for the first time. Our cars, as well as ourselves, have met before. Wasn't it—near Biarritz?”

I felt the blood stream up to the roots of my hair.“Your Majesty has a King's memory for faces,”I stammered.

“There are faces one doesn't forget,”said he.“But we'll talk of that presently. Now we have work here.”

The King's companion was already down on one knee by the side of the chauffeur, pouringaguardientefrom a flask into the man's half-open mouth. As for the fellow I had hit, I was sure that he would presently come round, but little the worse for wear;[pg 278]and I suggested that Dick and I find a rope in the car, which would bind him and the two other half-disabled ones. But the King would not let us work alone. He did as much as we, and more, before we were joined by the young officer who was his friend.

Discouraged and weak from loss of blood, as well as the loss of their carbines and their comrades, the wounded brigands made no further fight. But they were silent, save for a muttered oath or two, and I made up my mind that the true secret of this morning's work would never be torn from them.

For there was, of course, a secret. The King, who had not the clue which I held, saw that, and wondered why the brigands had not wished at first to shoot us. Plainly, their plan had been to make captives.

The obvious idea was that they would have conveyed their prisoners to some brigands' nest in the mountains, in the hope of obtaining a rich ransom. But they had evidently expected an automobile, or they would not have raised a barricade, just round a sharp corner on a particularly lonely piece of road.

Could they have been lying in wait for the King? This seemed impossible, as he had told no one that he was going out, and the expedition had indeed been made on the impulse, in the company of but one companion beside the chauffeur. He had intended to have a spin, and discover the state of the roads as far as practicable on the way to Jerez before turning back for the procession in the afternoon. And that evening he must return to Madrid. No, it was not the King for whom the seven men had prepared.

Who, then, was to have been their prey?

I believed that I could have answered this question, but I kept silent; and there was no reason why the King should guess that I had a suspicion.

“At all events,”he said,“we have you and your friend to thank that the affair was not more serious. I hope we should have been able to give a good account of ourselves; but seven[pg 279]against two are long odds. And there seems a fate in it that you should have come to me in the nick of time to-day as well as at Biarritz. I should like to know your names.”

I had dreaded this. Foolishly, perhaps, I felt that I could not bear to see the cordial light in his eyes fade to proud coldness, as it must when he knew me for a son of the man who had tried to place another on his throne. Besides, that I should at such a moment announce myself a Casa Triana would seem like bidding for pardon as a reward for what I had done. The confession stuck in my throat; and while I hesitated, Dick spoke.

“My friend didn't mean you to know, sir,”said he, gabbling so fast that I could not stop him;“but this isn't thesecondtime he's happened to be around when there was a little thing to be done for your Majesty,—it's the third. Yesterday it was he who snatched that bomb away from the man under thepaso, collared the other fellow, and stuck the bomb in a smashed water-jar, although he gave the credit to the chauffeur—who, by the way, is‘shover’to this car. My friend here is travelling, as you might say, incog. for important private reasons, which he'll want you to know some day, sir, if he doesn't now; and that's why, when Ropes the chauffeur happened along, he made him a present of all the praise.”

The King flushed, looking me straight in the eyes with an expression so noble and at the same time so kind that, had we lived a century or two ago, when men were not ashamed to show their true feelings, I should have thrown myself at his feet.

“I thank you again,”he said,“foreverything. I'm glad to know you are Spanish, even if I am to know no more. But am I to know no more?”

“Will your Majesty pardon me,”I asked,“if I beg to remain nameless for the present?”

“I could pardon you far graver crimes,”the King said smiling;“and I'm sure your reason, whatever it is, reflects nothing but honour on yourself. I owe you a debt. Claim it's payment in my gratitude whenever you will; the sooner the[pg 280]better. And if you want a friend, you'll know where to find one.”

He held out his hand, and when I took it, shook mine warmly in English fashion. Something else he was about to say on a second thought, when his friend—who had now restored the chauffeur to dazed consciousness—drew his attention.“Sir,”he said,“the guardia civile are coming back without prisoners.”

A minute or two later the two men had galloped up to us, one wounded in the cheek. They had chased the brigands, exchanging shots, until suddenly, having passed beyond a clump of trees and a few lumpy hummocks of sand, the band had vanished as if by magic. The civil guards had explored the spot for some cleverly concealed hiding-place, which they knew must exist within the space of two hundred metres, but they had found nothing. And as they had had no time to ascertain the condition of the men left for us to deal with, they had thought it best to return lest the wounded enemy prove not to behors de combatafter all.

Fortunately the distance from this lonely spot to Jerez was not more than thirty kilometres, and within three miles there was a farm. Here a cart could be got to take the wounded brigands into the town; and from Jerez a posse of men would be immediately sent out to scour the country for the escaped brigands.

The King, whom the guardia civile recognized with respectful surprise, was now anxious to get back to Seville, where he was due in the royal box for the Good Friday procession, and must appear by five o'clock at latest. He delayed only long enough to be sure that his chauffeur was not hurt beyond a slight concussion of the brain, to speak a few kind words to the civil guard, and to say a significantly emphasized“Au revoir”to Dick and me. Then, taking the wheel himself, whilst the half-dazed chauffeur lay in the tonneau, he backed the big, reddish-brown car off the barricade, and darted away in a cloud of dust at a good forty miles an hour.

It was left for us to do what we could to advance the civil guard with their task; and though we had already lost too much[pg 281]time for my peace of mind, it was our plain duty to help those who had helped us. When we had levelled the rough barricade we reluctantly bundled the wounded men into our tonneau, and going at a pace which enabled the civil guards to gallop close behind us, we steered for the farm of which they had spoken. There, in a buzz of excitement, the brigands were piled into a cart; and leaving them to follow, presided over by one mounted guard leading his comrade's horse, we took the other on to Jerez in our car, so that the search party might be organized the sooner.

Sometimes virtue brings its own reward, and mine came when I learned that our new companion had met an automobile going at a great pace towards Jerez. It had gone so fast that, in the dust, he was not sure of the colour or number of persons inside, but he thought that he had seen several ladies.

If he could he would have compelled us to stop in Jerez and give evidence of the attack by brigands; but laughingly we told him that, rather than be delayed again, we would spill him out by the roadside and vanish into space before he could set the telegraph to work. As for the brigands, the leader with three others had escaped, and the faces of those captured were not known to the guard. But the fact that they had been seven was significant in his opinion; and he believed that they would prove to be men of Ecija, forming a band officially supposed to be defunct.

Should we give a hint of our suspicions, we knew well that every effort would be made to detain us at Jerez, and such a catastrophe I would have avoided at almost any price, unless there had been a hope of handicapping Carmona. But that there was no such hope I was as sure as that the abortive plan had been organized by him.

How he had communicated so quickly with his friends the Seven, I did not pretend to say, unless he had known where to find their leader, and visited him this morning in his car. Whatever he had done, however, he would not have been fool enough to jeopardize his reputation for the sake of laying me by the heels.[pg 282]The fact that he had claimed the aid of bandits proved that he wished to dispose of me without implicating himself, though why he had not adopted the far simpler plan of denouncing me as Casa Triana to the police, I could not conceive. Still, there was ingenuity in this idea. If a young man—or two young men—were captured in a lonely place known to be infected with brigands; if such young men were held for ransom, and kept out of the way for weeks or months, what was all that to a Duke of Carmona?

What if, when one of those young men appeared in the world again (minus an ear or a finger, perhaps), he told a fairy story about the enmity of the Duke, and reminded the public of an old nurse's tale concerning a bond between the house of Carmona and the leader of the seven famous brigands? Who would believe him? Who would not think it a silly and spiteful attempt on the part of an embittered man to injure a grandee of Spain?

Carmona would not have taken the whole Seven into his confidence, that was certain. He would have appealed to the leader alone. That leader had escaped; and even if he were captured he would not betray the Duke. Why should he, since it would not help himself; whereas, if he wereloyal, Carmona would secretly use influence to lighten his lot?

Dick and I discussed these matters in English, under the nose of the civil guard, as I drove on to Jerez; and shrewd Yankee as he was, for once he accepted the Spanish point of view. If we were to“get even with Carmona and pay him out for this,”it must be in some less clumsy way, Dick agreed.

[pg 283]XXXIVThe RaceIt was lucky for us that the guard had met an automobile between the brigands' barricade and Jerez, otherwise we should have been at sea. The road-mender near Utrera had seen but one car, and that might have been the King's; but now we had something to hope for still; and Dick and I resolved to get out of Jerez as soon as possible, provided we could learn that the car we followed had gone on. If we lingered, the civil guard might, after all, think it his duty to have us detained, and we did not wish to give him time to change his mind.“It's a pity, though,”said Dick, with a thirsty sigh.“I've always had a sneaking fancy that if I ever came to Spain I'd stop at Jerez—‘the place where the sherry comes from’—and potter about in huge, cool bodegas, sampling golden wine from giant casks with queer names on them. Only think what it would feel like to-day to have a stream of mellow‘Methusalem’trickling over our dusty lips and down our dry throats? Great Scott! I daren't dwell on it, since it can't be. But it's a grand chance missed.”Almost as he spoke we flashed into a neat white town, with green glimpses ofpatios; and groaning, Dick shut his eyes upon a great bodega where the famous names of Gonzalez and Byass loomed black on white.We dumped our civil guard at the entrance to a side street which was, we hinted, rather narrow for automobiles, and, not waiting for his grateful adieux, we darted on, asking a bootblack the way to the best hotel. At the“Sign of the Swan”we paused[pg 284]just long enough to give the Gloria water, and to find out that a motor-car had stopped for a few moments about two hours ago. There were ladies inside, but they had not got out. A gentleman, covered with dust, had ordered sherry and biscuits, which he and the chauffeur had themselves carried to the other passengers, appearing rather impatient with the waiters. This gentleman had spoken Spanish in the hotel, but had been heard conversing in English with his friends. They had remained about fifteen minutes, and had then gone on. A waiter remembered seeing the chauffeur and his master consulting a road-map, and had heard the word“Cadiz”spoken.This gave us an apparently unbroken clue, and half expecting to be caught in a police-trap, we slipped stealthily out of Jerez, with a spurt of speed as streets were left behind.Still we were watched by purple-robed, guardian mountains, sitting in conclave. A running fire of poppies swept the fields between which we travelled, while distant meadows were paved with gold, or with forget-me-not blue like squares of the sky's mosaic fallen out. The air grew luminous as the crystal bell which hangs over the lagoons of Venice; and with the subtle change of atmosphere we had in our nostrils the first tang of the sea.Here and there a strip of lush green was belted with cactus, but we were driving through salt marshes, and round us spread a plain piled with strange, shining pyramids of salt, white and bright as hills of diamond dust. Then, suddenly, a broken line of turrets and domes and spires was cut in gleaming pearl against the sky; and it was not the opal clearness of the air alone which took the memory to Venice. Here was the same ebb and flow of salt water in glittering lagoons, the same dark, waving lines of seaweed, the same wide stretch of sapphire beyond the alabaster domes.For Spain, the road was good, and we glided smoothly through the pretty old town of Puerta de Santa Maria, with its big bodegas and Byronic associations. Across the Guadalquivir, where it tumbles into the Atlantic, dashing through an aromatic forest of[pg 285]umbrella pines we came out at Queen Isabel's white, Moorish looking Puerto Real. Thence, distant Cadiz on its rock appeared to change position bewilderingly, like a group of fairy castles, as we swept round the rim of that semicircular bay where once the Phœnicians traded in metals of England, and amber of the Baltic; where the ships of the Great Armada lay; and where Essex wrought destruction.At San Fernando, I was assailed by doubt. What if, after all, the car we sought had not gone to Cadiz, but had here taken the coast road to Algeciras? The great conference was only just over, there; tourists of all nations were flocking to the town, attracted by curiosity; and as the place boasts the most beautiful hotel in Spain, it seemed likely that in flying from Seville the Duke should choose Algeciras instead of Cadiz. But some fishermen, on that rope of sand which binds Cadiz to the mainland, had seen a car pass a few hours before. Yes, only one; and they thought it was grey. It had four or five passengers, and was going to Cadiz.Thither we spurted, Dick studying a plan of the city as we flew along the straight road embanked above the sand. By the time we arrived in silver Cadiz he was able to say in which direction I must drive to find the chief hotel; and in an openplacenot far from the crowded port we stopped.Dick stayed to guard the car from the crowd which quickly collected, while I went to question the landlord.No travellers with an automobile were stopping with him at present; but one had arrived a couple of hours ago, perhaps, and its passengers had wished to remain overnight. Unfortunately, however, as a big ship had just come in from America every room was taken.There was no other hotel at which persons of taste could stop in comfort; and after some discussion, the owner of the car had decided to run on to Algeciras by way of Tarifa. The party, consisting of three ladies, one gentleman, and the chauffeur, had taken a hasty meal, and had got away about an hour and a half before our arrival.[pg 286]“Those beastlybandidos!”I exclaimed to Dick in a rage of disappointment.“If it hadn't been for them we should have been on the heels of the grey car, and caught it up here at the hotel. I should have been able to snatch Monica away from under their noses—for I know she wouldn't have failed me.”“Those beastlybandidosintroduced you to the King,—don't forget that,”said Dick consolingly.“And the day may come before long when you'll be glad of that introduction. You can never tell, in a life like yours. And once Carmona's at Algeciras, why, you've got him in a kind ofcul-de-sacfrom which he can't escape, any more than a mouse can jump out of a basin half full of water. If he takes rooms at the Reina Cristina, you'll come plump upon him. If he tries to return by road, he'll run into your arms; and one or the other must happen unless he puts his auto on a train or steamer, neither of which is likely.”Somewhat comforted, I proposed to follow at once, but Dick wistfully reminded me that the afternoon was wearing on, and he was wearing with it. Soon he would be worn out, unless I gave him something to eat. It seemed years since that cup of coffee and roll of the early morning.If we needed nourishment, the car needed water. Both needs were supplied somewhat grudgingly by me, though the physical part of me did appreciate the coolness of the restaurant, and the strange dishes for which Cadiz is famous; the mushroom-flavoured cuttle-fish, the golden dorado in sherry.Then off we started again, to take a road which the landlord warned us was none too good. People who travelled by carriage or diligence had evil things to say of the fourteen to eighteen hours of journey, though the scenery was fine. This did not sound enlivening; but what good horses could do in fourteen hours, the Gloria could do in three or four.Through ramifications of narrow streets I steered the car out of Cadiz. In all directions they branched off from one another, interlacing, overlapping with the intricacy of a puzzle. The houses were high, too, and there was not a window with glittering balcony[pg 287]of glass and iron, where dark-eyed women did not lean between heaven and earth, to smile down upon our humming motor. It was all very quaint and gay, in spite of ancient, tragic memories; and though few cities of Spain are older than Cadiz—which claims Hercules for founder—the white houses looked as clean as if they had been built yesterday or some mediæval model.We tore back to San Fernando; and soon came upon the bad surface which had been prophesied. The Gloria bumped over ruts and grooves, and scattered stones, and perforce I had to slacken speed lest she should break some blood-vessel. Nevertheless we did not waste time in covering the six miles to Chiclana de la Frontera; and when we had crashed through this ancient stronghold of the Phœnicians we jolted out into an open, sandy solitude, with only the knoll of Barosa to break its blank monotony.Even a mind preoccupied must spare a few thoughts for Graham and the“Faugh-a-ballaghs,”on this ground where Spanish men and British men fought shoulder to shoulder against the French invader. But when we passed the road branching away to Conil, and held straight on across the little river Salado, I heard a thing more instructive than history, more exciting than romance.A man we met—who looked almost old enough to remember the brave days of the great tunny fishing—had seen a large automobile, not more than an hour ago. Evidently, then, we were gaining on the quarry. The news gave me courage.The sea and the Straits of Gibraltar were near now, and though they were not in sight yet, nor the sandy headland of Trafalgar, the smell of salt came to us with the wind.At the old Moorish town of Vejer de la Frontera (scarcely a town in this storied corner of the world but tells, with its“de la Frontera,”of days when the Moors were crushed back, ever farther and farther) we had travelled full thirty miles from Cadiz. Childish voices screaming round the car cried that another automobile was not far ahead; and like a racehorse nearing the finish, we put on speed, dashing at a rush to the Laguna de Janda,[pg 288]over the ground where Tarik the Conquerer began his great running fight with Rodrigo. So through little Venta de Tabilla, leaving the lake to plunge into an imposing gorge which was a doorway to the sea. There, spread out before, were the straits and the burning African coast; Europe and Africa face to face; white Tarifa jutting into the green waves; Trafalgar in the distance, smothered in clouds like clinging memories; Tangier opposite, a crescent of pearls, tossed seaward by towering blue waves which were the Atlas Mountains. Taking the wild beauty of the scene with all that it meant, it was one of the great sights of the world—the world once supposed to end here, with Hercules' pillars.As the Gloria sprang on towards Tarifa, a fierce wind which had been lying in wait leapt at the car and sent her staggering. Gust after gust darted from ambush, half blinding our ungoggled eyes with the sand they flung by handfuls into our faces. But we jammed on our hats; and the Gloria bore the onslaughts bravely, her voice drowned in the screaming of the wind, which might have been the war cries of those Moorish armies whose battleground this land had been for seven centuries.As the good white road mounted the shoulder of a down on its way to Tarifa, that most Moorish of all Spanish towns stood up like a model cut out of alabaster in a frame of jade. Clear against the sky rose the crumbling tower of Guzman el Bueno, the Abraham of mediæval history; but our way, instead of leading through the strange old city, passed the horseshoe gate of entrance, and bore us up into the mountains.Not a soul did we meet, once we turned our backs upon Tarifa. Only the wild wind would not desert us, but roared in strange voices along the hollows of the land, in a country where all was wild. The rough mountain sides were peppered with stunted oaks; and as our way ascended more thrilling grew the views, with the smoke of great steamers streaming black pennons over the sea, and the Atlas Mountains squatting Sphinx-like to guard the African shore.[pg 289]Then, we lost the hard blue line of water, screened behind mountains; and slipping down over the summit we hid from the bellowing wind. The car flew like a circling bird round the wide curves, and dropped us in peaceful vales sheltered by cork forests, and rocky walls inlaid with the silver of trickling streams.Thus, back to the wide sea view and downs whose flowery carpet was torn by jagged nail-heads of rock. Cork trees, sombre as giant olives clad in mourning, strong in their corselets and shields of half-stripped bark as knights in armour, covered the hills like a vast army. At the foot of the hoary warriors, waved bracken and yellow iris in tangled masses; high above their heads sailed here and there a golden eagle of a vulture, looking like paper birds or Japanese kites.Far below us the white houses of Algeciras lay scattered, a broken necklace of white beads; and from across the water that dark lion, Gibraltar, crouched as if waiting to spring.Whether Dick or I saw it first I can't tell, but we exclaimed together,“There's the other car!”And there it was, a moving speck upon the road in a white cloud of dust.After it we went with a bound of increased speed. No need now to stop and ask the way to the hotel; all we had to do was to follow and catch up with the Lecomte at the steps of the Hotel Reina Cristina. A wild idea flashed into my head, that I would snatch Monica as she alighted from Carmona's car, fling her to Dick in mine, jump in after her myself, and be off before the others had time to recover from their surprise.The more I thought of this the more feasible did it seem. No slowing up for sharp turnings now; trust to luck that the road was clear ahead! I was thrilling with hope and excitement as we dashed after the disappearing dust-covered automobile into a wide open gateway. The scent of heliotrope and rose geranium, hot under the April sun, intoxicated me as we swept along the white avenue, and came in sight of the other car just drawing up before an arcaded loggia.

It was lucky for us that the guard had met an automobile between the brigands' barricade and Jerez, otherwise we should have been at sea. The road-mender near Utrera had seen but one car, and that might have been the King's; but now we had something to hope for still; and Dick and I resolved to get out of Jerez as soon as possible, provided we could learn that the car we followed had gone on. If we lingered, the civil guard might, after all, think it his duty to have us detained, and we did not wish to give him time to change his mind.

“It's a pity, though,”said Dick, with a thirsty sigh.“I've always had a sneaking fancy that if I ever came to Spain I'd stop at Jerez—‘the place where the sherry comes from’—and potter about in huge, cool bodegas, sampling golden wine from giant casks with queer names on them. Only think what it would feel like to-day to have a stream of mellow‘Methusalem’trickling over our dusty lips and down our dry throats? Great Scott! I daren't dwell on it, since it can't be. But it's a grand chance missed.”

Almost as he spoke we flashed into a neat white town, with green glimpses ofpatios; and groaning, Dick shut his eyes upon a great bodega where the famous names of Gonzalez and Byass loomed black on white.

We dumped our civil guard at the entrance to a side street which was, we hinted, rather narrow for automobiles, and, not waiting for his grateful adieux, we darted on, asking a bootblack the way to the best hotel. At the“Sign of the Swan”we paused[pg 284]just long enough to give the Gloria water, and to find out that a motor-car had stopped for a few moments about two hours ago. There were ladies inside, but they had not got out. A gentleman, covered with dust, had ordered sherry and biscuits, which he and the chauffeur had themselves carried to the other passengers, appearing rather impatient with the waiters. This gentleman had spoken Spanish in the hotel, but had been heard conversing in English with his friends. They had remained about fifteen minutes, and had then gone on. A waiter remembered seeing the chauffeur and his master consulting a road-map, and had heard the word“Cadiz”spoken.

This gave us an apparently unbroken clue, and half expecting to be caught in a police-trap, we slipped stealthily out of Jerez, with a spurt of speed as streets were left behind.

Still we were watched by purple-robed, guardian mountains, sitting in conclave. A running fire of poppies swept the fields between which we travelled, while distant meadows were paved with gold, or with forget-me-not blue like squares of the sky's mosaic fallen out. The air grew luminous as the crystal bell which hangs over the lagoons of Venice; and with the subtle change of atmosphere we had in our nostrils the first tang of the sea.

Here and there a strip of lush green was belted with cactus, but we were driving through salt marshes, and round us spread a plain piled with strange, shining pyramids of salt, white and bright as hills of diamond dust. Then, suddenly, a broken line of turrets and domes and spires was cut in gleaming pearl against the sky; and it was not the opal clearness of the air alone which took the memory to Venice. Here was the same ebb and flow of salt water in glittering lagoons, the same dark, waving lines of seaweed, the same wide stretch of sapphire beyond the alabaster domes.

For Spain, the road was good, and we glided smoothly through the pretty old town of Puerta de Santa Maria, with its big bodegas and Byronic associations. Across the Guadalquivir, where it tumbles into the Atlantic, dashing through an aromatic forest of[pg 285]umbrella pines we came out at Queen Isabel's white, Moorish looking Puerto Real. Thence, distant Cadiz on its rock appeared to change position bewilderingly, like a group of fairy castles, as we swept round the rim of that semicircular bay where once the Phœnicians traded in metals of England, and amber of the Baltic; where the ships of the Great Armada lay; and where Essex wrought destruction.

At San Fernando, I was assailed by doubt. What if, after all, the car we sought had not gone to Cadiz, but had here taken the coast road to Algeciras? The great conference was only just over, there; tourists of all nations were flocking to the town, attracted by curiosity; and as the place boasts the most beautiful hotel in Spain, it seemed likely that in flying from Seville the Duke should choose Algeciras instead of Cadiz. But some fishermen, on that rope of sand which binds Cadiz to the mainland, had seen a car pass a few hours before. Yes, only one; and they thought it was grey. It had four or five passengers, and was going to Cadiz.

Thither we spurted, Dick studying a plan of the city as we flew along the straight road embanked above the sand. By the time we arrived in silver Cadiz he was able to say in which direction I must drive to find the chief hotel; and in an openplacenot far from the crowded port we stopped.

Dick stayed to guard the car from the crowd which quickly collected, while I went to question the landlord.

No travellers with an automobile were stopping with him at present; but one had arrived a couple of hours ago, perhaps, and its passengers had wished to remain overnight. Unfortunately, however, as a big ship had just come in from America every room was taken.

There was no other hotel at which persons of taste could stop in comfort; and after some discussion, the owner of the car had decided to run on to Algeciras by way of Tarifa. The party, consisting of three ladies, one gentleman, and the chauffeur, had taken a hasty meal, and had got away about an hour and a half before our arrival.

[pg 286]“Those beastlybandidos!”I exclaimed to Dick in a rage of disappointment.“If it hadn't been for them we should have been on the heels of the grey car, and caught it up here at the hotel. I should have been able to snatch Monica away from under their noses—for I know she wouldn't have failed me.”

“Those beastlybandidosintroduced you to the King,—don't forget that,”said Dick consolingly.“And the day may come before long when you'll be glad of that introduction. You can never tell, in a life like yours. And once Carmona's at Algeciras, why, you've got him in a kind ofcul-de-sacfrom which he can't escape, any more than a mouse can jump out of a basin half full of water. If he takes rooms at the Reina Cristina, you'll come plump upon him. If he tries to return by road, he'll run into your arms; and one or the other must happen unless he puts his auto on a train or steamer, neither of which is likely.”

Somewhat comforted, I proposed to follow at once, but Dick wistfully reminded me that the afternoon was wearing on, and he was wearing with it. Soon he would be worn out, unless I gave him something to eat. It seemed years since that cup of coffee and roll of the early morning.

If we needed nourishment, the car needed water. Both needs were supplied somewhat grudgingly by me, though the physical part of me did appreciate the coolness of the restaurant, and the strange dishes for which Cadiz is famous; the mushroom-flavoured cuttle-fish, the golden dorado in sherry.

Then off we started again, to take a road which the landlord warned us was none too good. People who travelled by carriage or diligence had evil things to say of the fourteen to eighteen hours of journey, though the scenery was fine. This did not sound enlivening; but what good horses could do in fourteen hours, the Gloria could do in three or four.

Through ramifications of narrow streets I steered the car out of Cadiz. In all directions they branched off from one another, interlacing, overlapping with the intricacy of a puzzle. The houses were high, too, and there was not a window with glittering balcony[pg 287]of glass and iron, where dark-eyed women did not lean between heaven and earth, to smile down upon our humming motor. It was all very quaint and gay, in spite of ancient, tragic memories; and though few cities of Spain are older than Cadiz—which claims Hercules for founder—the white houses looked as clean as if they had been built yesterday or some mediæval model.

We tore back to San Fernando; and soon came upon the bad surface which had been prophesied. The Gloria bumped over ruts and grooves, and scattered stones, and perforce I had to slacken speed lest she should break some blood-vessel. Nevertheless we did not waste time in covering the six miles to Chiclana de la Frontera; and when we had crashed through this ancient stronghold of the Phœnicians we jolted out into an open, sandy solitude, with only the knoll of Barosa to break its blank monotony.

Even a mind preoccupied must spare a few thoughts for Graham and the“Faugh-a-ballaghs,”on this ground where Spanish men and British men fought shoulder to shoulder against the French invader. But when we passed the road branching away to Conil, and held straight on across the little river Salado, I heard a thing more instructive than history, more exciting than romance.

A man we met—who looked almost old enough to remember the brave days of the great tunny fishing—had seen a large automobile, not more than an hour ago. Evidently, then, we were gaining on the quarry. The news gave me courage.

The sea and the Straits of Gibraltar were near now, and though they were not in sight yet, nor the sandy headland of Trafalgar, the smell of salt came to us with the wind.

At the old Moorish town of Vejer de la Frontera (scarcely a town in this storied corner of the world but tells, with its“de la Frontera,”of days when the Moors were crushed back, ever farther and farther) we had travelled full thirty miles from Cadiz. Childish voices screaming round the car cried that another automobile was not far ahead; and like a racehorse nearing the finish, we put on speed, dashing at a rush to the Laguna de Janda,[pg 288]over the ground where Tarik the Conquerer began his great running fight with Rodrigo. So through little Venta de Tabilla, leaving the lake to plunge into an imposing gorge which was a doorway to the sea. There, spread out before, were the straits and the burning African coast; Europe and Africa face to face; white Tarifa jutting into the green waves; Trafalgar in the distance, smothered in clouds like clinging memories; Tangier opposite, a crescent of pearls, tossed seaward by towering blue waves which were the Atlas Mountains. Taking the wild beauty of the scene with all that it meant, it was one of the great sights of the world—the world once supposed to end here, with Hercules' pillars.

As the Gloria sprang on towards Tarifa, a fierce wind which had been lying in wait leapt at the car and sent her staggering. Gust after gust darted from ambush, half blinding our ungoggled eyes with the sand they flung by handfuls into our faces. But we jammed on our hats; and the Gloria bore the onslaughts bravely, her voice drowned in the screaming of the wind, which might have been the war cries of those Moorish armies whose battleground this land had been for seven centuries.

As the good white road mounted the shoulder of a down on its way to Tarifa, that most Moorish of all Spanish towns stood up like a model cut out of alabaster in a frame of jade. Clear against the sky rose the crumbling tower of Guzman el Bueno, the Abraham of mediæval history; but our way, instead of leading through the strange old city, passed the horseshoe gate of entrance, and bore us up into the mountains.

Not a soul did we meet, once we turned our backs upon Tarifa. Only the wild wind would not desert us, but roared in strange voices along the hollows of the land, in a country where all was wild. The rough mountain sides were peppered with stunted oaks; and as our way ascended more thrilling grew the views, with the smoke of great steamers streaming black pennons over the sea, and the Atlas Mountains squatting Sphinx-like to guard the African shore.

[pg 289]Then, we lost the hard blue line of water, screened behind mountains; and slipping down over the summit we hid from the bellowing wind. The car flew like a circling bird round the wide curves, and dropped us in peaceful vales sheltered by cork forests, and rocky walls inlaid with the silver of trickling streams.

Thus, back to the wide sea view and downs whose flowery carpet was torn by jagged nail-heads of rock. Cork trees, sombre as giant olives clad in mourning, strong in their corselets and shields of half-stripped bark as knights in armour, covered the hills like a vast army. At the foot of the hoary warriors, waved bracken and yellow iris in tangled masses; high above their heads sailed here and there a golden eagle of a vulture, looking like paper birds or Japanese kites.

Far below us the white houses of Algeciras lay scattered, a broken necklace of white beads; and from across the water that dark lion, Gibraltar, crouched as if waiting to spring.

Whether Dick or I saw it first I can't tell, but we exclaimed together,“There's the other car!”And there it was, a moving speck upon the road in a white cloud of dust.

After it we went with a bound of increased speed. No need now to stop and ask the way to the hotel; all we had to do was to follow and catch up with the Lecomte at the steps of the Hotel Reina Cristina. A wild idea flashed into my head, that I would snatch Monica as she alighted from Carmona's car, fling her to Dick in mine, jump in after her myself, and be off before the others had time to recover from their surprise.

The more I thought of this the more feasible did it seem. No slowing up for sharp turnings now; trust to luck that the road was clear ahead! I was thrilling with hope and excitement as we dashed after the disappearing dust-covered automobile into a wide open gateway. The scent of heliotrope and rose geranium, hot under the April sun, intoxicated me as we swept along the white avenue, and came in sight of the other car just drawing up before an arcaded loggia.

[pg 290]XXXVThe Moon in the WildernessTwo ladies and their maid were getting out. An American young man was helping them down. The grey car was not a Lecomte. The owner, his chauffeur, and the three women were of types entirely different from those we sought.The discovery, coming after such exaltation of hope, was like a blow over the heart.“Hard luck,”exclaimed Dick.“But Carmona's car must be somewhere.”“If it ever started,”I said.“I begin to think now that Carmona rallied his brigands, and sent me out to meet them, knowing I'd surely follow if I believed he had gone that way.”“Oh come, there's hope still,”Dick consoled me. And turning to the owner of the car, he asked if he had seen another grey automobile. He had not; and, on further questioning, he went on to tell us that he had started from Seville meaning to stop at Cadiz and come on here to-morrow; but the hotel had been full, so he had“rushed it”to Algeciras. These details proved that his was the motor we had been chasing from the first; and the excellent Spanish which the Californian spoke to the porters accounted for one misleading bit of information.While the party of care-free tourists went indoors, Dick and I stood in our coats of dust to discuss the situation. We soon agreed that there was but one thing to do. Wire Colonel O'Donnel for news of Carmona's movements, and wait where we were for an answer.[pg 291]To none save those who count every moment precious could such a delay have been irksome. The place was a paradise, the garden a corner of Eden, and the Reina Cristina more like the country house of some Spanish millionaire than a hotel.Leaving the Gloria, we went in to write a telegram; and in a court, charming as thepatioof a Moorish palace, we sat to plan out a message. The people of the hotel confirmed our fears that no answer could come from Seville till morning; so Dick busied himself in choosing rooms, while, to save time, I took the car by the sea road to the telegraph-office in town.How many miles up and down those flower-bordered paths Dick and I walked next morning waiting for news, neither could have told. Eleven o'clock had struck when Colonel O'Donnel's answer was brought to me in the garden.“On receipt of wire, interviewed verger,”I read.“Made him confess to accepting large sum from agent of C—— to send you on wrong track. Making inquiries and hope let you know in few hours whether C—— really gone; if so, which direction. Advise you stop Algeciras till hear from me again. Am sending on luggage there.”“A few hours!”I was beginning to know too well what a few hours could mean in Spain where, to a population of philosophers it mattered nothing if a thing happened to-morrow or the day after.Gibraltar was empurpled with night and sequined with ten thousand lights when the next telegram arrived—a message which covered two telegraph forms.“Just learned C—— left to-day for Granada with same party. Took train, and whether shipped automobile not found out. C—— believed to be ill. Friend at club says C—— been heard say knows at Granada man worth twenty physicians, natural bone-setter, herb doctor. Perhaps wishes consult this person. Illness seems mysterious. House of C—— well known at Granada. Inquire at Washington Irving, where suppose you will stay. Will wire or write to that address.”[pg 292]I should have been off within the hour, but the quickest way of reaching Granada was by Ronda, and there was no road for automobiles. One could walk, one could ride, along a bridle path through gorges unsurpassed for grandeur; but it was an expedition of two days, whereas if we could curb our impatience until early morning, we would reach Ronda by train in about four hours.Not being quite mad, we waited, rose at five, and before seven were steaming out of Algeciras, while the great cloud-cataract of the Levanter churned and boiled over Gibraltar. On a truck, travelling by the same train, was my brave Gloria, none the worse for yesterday's wild flight, and ready for another when she could take the road beyond Ronda. I had not ceased yet to wonder at the expedition with which she had been shipped. Dick discovered, however, that the manager of the line was a Scotsman, a kind of fairy godfather for all the region round, which explained the mystery; and his road was wonderful. In a glass coach, which was an“observation car,”we tore through scenery so diversified that it might have been chosen from the finest bits of a whole continent. There were wooded ravines tapestried with pink sweetbrier; there were far hill-towns like flocks of gulls resting on the edge of giddy precipices; there were strange old fortresses; ruined Moorish castles; velvet-green fields with aloe hedges grey as lines of broken slate; dark, noble gorges sprinkled with mother-o'-pearl flakes of white wild roses, that drifted down the red rock into water green as onyx. There were blossomy bits of Holland and long tracts of Switzerland. Glacier-mills in narrow gorges were like empty niches for colossal statues of saints; pink and white orchards foamed at the feet of ancient look-out towers; black rocks, like huge watch-dogs, seemed to crouch on cushions of wild flowers; and weeping willows fringed the river with silver before it dashed away to do battle among the mountains; acacias showered perfume, and orange groves pushed so near to the train that a hand reached out could have plucked their golden globes.[pg 293]There were caves and underground rivers, haunted by enchanted Moors; and at last, a brief glimpse of Ronda hanging high against the sky, vanishing like the fabled Garden of Iram, and not to be seen again until the train mounted the cliff by many loops.Just as we arrived at the end of the journey a thought in my brain seemed to snap like the trigger of a carbine. In my haste to get off by the first morning train I had forgotten to try and find more petrol at Algeciras, although I had not enough left to get the car to Granada.There was just time to telegraph back to the Reina Cristina and beg some of the young Californian, who had fallen so deeply in love with the place that he intended to stay a week. We had become friendly and he would certainly grant the favour, therefore we might count on travelling that night by acetylene and moonlight. Meanwhile, there was a long day to wait, but I tramped off my restlessness as best I could in exploring every foot of Ronda.After that one look upward from the train, when Ronda hung before our eyes over a thousand foot gorge, we had at last sneaked in, so to speak, by a back door. If it had not been for that first glimpse, and if we had not read“Miranda of the Balcony”we should not have guessed, in walking from the station to the Alameda, that Ronda differed from other Moorish towns. But far away was a barrier of iron railing, and a curious effect as if beyond it everything ended except the sky. We walked on, reached that railing, and leaned over.No picture, no book had been able to give us a real idea of Ronda. It was stupendous—wonderful. We stared down at the world beneath as if we hung in a balloon, for the rock fell away from our feet, a sheer precipice; and men working in the valley below were like tiny crabs. The Moorish mills were white, broken hour-glasses, shaking out a stream of silver; geese on the river were floating bread-crumbs; a string of donkeys crawling up the steep Moorish road were invisible under their packs, which looked like mushrooms with moving stems.[pg 294]The noise of the river floated up to us with a muffled roar, and across the deep valley its water had cut, tumbled a wild mountain-land, crossed here and there by white threads of road which clung to the sky-line and disappeared.“Great Scott, if this eagle's nest doesn't take the cake!”exclaimed Dick, always modern.“If there were any more to take, it could have that, too. Hurrah for you, rock and river. You're sublime.”But we had not seen all, by hanging over that iron railing, nor nearly all. There was the palace of the Moorish King, and the terrible steps cut by Christian captives. There was the bridge swung over the gorge; and the far-famed“window”of rock, one of the wonders of the world. There was the old Roman amphitheatre, turned into a bull-ring; the town wall, which Hercules helped to build; the Roman gate, and the Moorish gate, and the house where Miranda lived; and a hundred other things to be found by mounting steep hills or sliding down wild precipices.The splendid mountain air had given Dick a ferocious appetite; nevertheless he could hardly be torn from the cliff above the“window,”and vowed that it would be worth while coming all the way from New York to Ronda next year when the grand new hotel should be finished.Rain fell while we lunched, but we wandered out again, in a thin mist like a sieve, through which sifted turquoises and silver spangles; nor did we cease wandering until it was time for the train to arrive with the expected petrol. The Californian had not failed us; and with a good supply of food for the Gloria, and enough for ourselves to last until morning, we set off, against the advice of everyone.The sky had cleared, and twilight would soon merge into moonlight; but we would need the moon and stars as well on the road we had to travel. In more than one place it was marked on my map by an ominous, thin black line which meant“Motorists, beware.”The country was sparsely populated; people whispered[pg 295]ofbandidos; and if anything happened to the car in the middle of the night, there would be no means of getting help.Still, if we won through without serious mishap, we should save a day; for there was no train to Granada until morning, and Dick was as keen on the adventure, for the adventure's sake, as I was for another reason.After all, we reminded each other, it was a journey of only a hundred and twenty miles. With no traffic to interfere, the Gloria ought to fly over the distance in four hours; and what if everyone did try to discourage us? We had experienced that sort of thing in Biarritz, and the dangers had resolved themselves into chimeras. Nothing in Spain was as troublesome nowadays as the busybodies would have one believe—not even the beggars.My big searchlights cast a flashing ring on the road, which the car seemed to push swiftly before it as it ran.Dick peered through the uncertain light for the hill town of Teba, from which the Empress Eugenie took her title, but my eyes were glued to the road.To think, if we had known at Jerez that Granada was the lodestar, we could have reached Ronda in a run of four hours day before yesterday! But it was useless to repine, and fate had given us Ronda.By the time we had passed through the straggling village of Campillos the moon was up, a great white, incandescent globe of light, so brilliant that instead of draining colour from rock, and grass, and flower, it gave new and almost supernatural values to all.We had the world to ourselves, a wonderful world like a vast silver bowl half full of jewels. Over the tops of mountains cut jaggedly of steel, strange figures seemed to run along the horizon. Bathed in unearthly radiance lay fields of poppies like deep lakes of blood filling the valleys between little rolling hills, and here and there a miniature mountain of pink or glittering grey, rose out of the plain like a fairy palace which would be invisible in daylight. Olive trees stretching away in straight lines on[pg 296]either side of endless avenues, fountained silver under the moon, each avenue swept by a wave of poppies. It was an Aladdin's Cave landscape made out of rare metals and precious stones that imitated trees and flowers.Antiquera on its wild crags, was a ragged black hole in the silver sky, until we shot into the town under the dominating castle of crimson memories.There, was life and music still; guitars tinkled, children who should have been in bed frolicked in the streets with lambs that followed them like dogs, while everyone, old and young, laughed and hooted at the Gloria as she shot by without stopping, on her way to Loja and Granada.A sharp turn to the left swept us out of Antiquera, and so good was the road that Dick and I began to laugh at the gloomy prognostications which thus far had not been fulfilled.My spirits rose to such a height that as we passed under the Lovers' Rock, still haunted by the Moorish maiden and her Christian lover, I quoted Southey, verse after verse of the old-fashioned poetry coming back to my mind. The Peña de los Enamorados stood up like a small model of Gibraltar, rising out of the plain; and as we wound on among other pinnacles almost as majestic, we could see the bleached skeleton of Archidona hanging on its mountain. Once the place had been a famous nest of brigands; and when after climbing a tremendous hill, we had come into its long white street, Dick was of opinion that Archidona of to-day was still an ideal summer resort for the fraternity in case they should crave a town life. Each low-browed house in the interminable avenue looked a fit nursery for mysteries and secrets. Here and there a dark face framed in a knotted red handkerchief peered from a lighted doorway, staring after the Gloria until she had slipped over the brow of the hill to coast smoothly down another as steep.There, had we but known, the peaceful olive grove through which we passed and hushed the song of nightingales was to be our last glimpse of peace. Beyond that silver barrier lay chaos,[pg 297]a chaos of wild mountains, deep chasms, and grim steppes, solitary, unpeopled, forbidding under the moon!If we broke an axle here, with leagues to walk to the nearest farm, there was no hope of Granada to-morrow. And now the road was equally well fitted for breaking axles, necks, and hearts.It was made of rock in petrified waves, among which the Gloria floundered and buck-jumped as long ago Dick had expected her to do when she crossed the Spanish border. Every part of her shivered as though she were a horse in the bull-ring, and I pitied her as if she had a nerve in every spring and chain.“This is no road; it's a nightmare,”groaned Dick. But if it were, it was a nightmare which ran with us glaring, showing frightful fangs, for mile after mile of horror. Just as the steep slope of a descent offered a softer cushion for the suffering tyres, and hope stirred within us, we broke into such a region as imagination pictures in the streets of Lisbon after the great earthquake. Gullies and vertical rifts scored the highway serpentining hither and thither, the chasms gaping to swallow the Gloria or at least bite off a wheel.Now the earthy lip of a cleft would crumble and fall in as our driving-wheels skimmed along the edge; now, steer with all the nerve and nicety I might, the Gloria would rock as she hung half over a gully. Somehow I coaxed her down the hill, and driving out from the labyrinth of crevasses, I breathed a sigh of relief. But the next instant, I had only time to jam on the brakes to save the car from vaulting into a small river which ran across the road. Carefully embanked on either side, the stream flowed swiftly, cutting the descent at right angles.Whatever the depth might prove, I had to risk it. Mounting the nearer embankment, I drove down into the running water, where the moon laughed up at me as I broke her glittering reflection.“Good old San Cristóbal!”cried Dick as we came through without damage and climbed the opposite bank, to plump down a breakneck descent on the other side.[pg 298]But it was early still to praise the saint. We had only to look ahead to see how much more he had to do for us, if we were to win through to Granada at all. Where a little clump of houses had assembled at the bottom of the hill, as if to watch our struggle, another and far broader river flowed.It also raced across the highway, as if roads were made for river-beds; and this time the situation was so serious that I stopped the Gloria to reflect.There was no doubt about it; this river was deep. Though a cart might ford it safely, and have the flood of rippling silver no higher than the axles, it was different with an automobile. I wondered bleakly what would happen to the silencer if its mass of heated metal were suddenly plunged into cold water, and what would happen to the commutator.“When in doubt, play a trump,”said Dick.“And I guess that camel-backed bridge is a trump, if it's only a knave—or the deuce.”It was true, there was a narrow erection which might pass as a bridge, if one wished to pay a compliment. It was of stone, and came to a steep point at the apex, like a“card tent”when two cards receive support from one another. It was the question of a fraction of an inch, if the Gloria were to squeeze over; but between the danger of a jam and the danger of a burst cylinder, I decided to risk playing Dick's trump.First I got out and unscrewed the wheel-caps to give more clearance, then in again for the trial, while Dick walked, ready to offer aid if it were needed. I had rasped through to the top, and the Gloria had actually started on the down grade, when she gave a grinding scream, and stuck between the parapets.I tried to move, and could not. The car was hopelessly jammed.“Nice fix,”said Dick.“If I was writing a book, I'd say,‘this route only suitable for hundred horse-power cars, built in small sections, and carrying cheerful passengers.’Now, we were cheerful once—and may be again. Chuck me over the key of the tool-box, will you?”[pg 299]I did so without a word, lest if I uttered any they should be too strong. But curiosity overcame me when I heard a metallic chinking, then the blows of a hammer.“Only knocking down a bit of this old parapet,”was the calm answer to my question.“Some of it's gone already; why not more? I bet future generations will thank me—as it's certain never to be mended.”As he spoke, there was a great splash, when a piece of the parapet, already weakened by years of storm and stress, plumped over into the river. The car was released, and slid down the other slope of the camel's back.Now it did seem that we might safely thank San Cristóbal, since nothing could well be worse than the pass from which he had just delivered us, scratched, bruised, yet unbroken. We had but to scramble out of the rough river-bed, bump over the level crossing of a railway, to come out upon a broad, smooth highway like a road to paradise. Ready to shout with joy, I put on speed, and the Gloria sprinted over the white and silent way as if she were happy to turn her back upon Inferno.Yesterday's study of the map assured me that at length we had struck the main road from Malaga, and there seemed every reason to believe that the ordeal just over would be our last. Flying along at a good fifty miles an hour, under a tired moon that sought the west, presently a town rose grandly up before us, throned on rocks in a wide valley, and pallid in the strange light as some sad queen.Loja, tragically lost key of Granada, sister of famed Alhama, stronghold of that fierce alcayde who called Boabdil's sultana daughter! Loja, and only thirty miles more to Granada.We rushed towards that wide valley, and on to the mountain town which dared to repulse Ferdinand. In the deserted streets the only sound was the singing of many springs, the same musical voices, the same strains that Lord Rivers heard close upon five hundred years ago, when he came with his English archers to help conquer the wild place.El GranCapitán, too, had come[pg 300]here, a lonely exile, after all his splendid services to an ungrateful king. He, too, had heard the singing of Loja's springs, not in triumph, but in sorrow.Down in the valley beyond, the river cried a warning to us; but we did not heed, even when the road surface changed again to gluey mud; squelching on, mile after mile, at the best pace we could, and saying always that soon we should be on the Vega. So the dawn stole up and quivered on the snows of the Sierra Nevada.The moon was gone, and it must still be long before the sun would shine over the mountains, when a black shadow like a great coffin deserted on the road, gave me pause. I pulled up in haste, only just in time, and could hardly believe I saw aright. But there was no illusion. We were on the highway from the port of Malaga to Granada, yet here was a broken bridge, a noble structure which should have outworn centuries, tumbling into ruin.The fall of the great central arch was no new thing, for moss and lichen enamelled its jagged edges with green and gold. Some branches loosely strewn across the road were the only signposts indicating this tragedy, though perhaps it was a story as old as the great earthquake of two-and-twenty years ago.A yard or so more and we should have been over; but San Cristóbal had not forgotten us; and the next thing was, how to cross the river without a bridge. I turned and went back, discovering wheel-tracks which showed an obscure bye-path dipping over the edge of theembankment. I followed, and beheld the ford, a little farther on in a baby forest, where a broad stream lay in flood between low banks.“We'll have to get through,”I said, and drove the Gloria into the water. If there should be mud—but there were stones instead; and with tiny waves swishing among the spokes of her wheels she set out to rumble over.“I believe she'll do it—”I had begun, when she gave a great hiss, as when a blacksmith plunges a red-hot horseshoe[pg 301]into water; and a cloud of steam gushed up. Still I forced her on, expecting each instant to hear some fatal crash, while we plunged deeper into the stream. Now the little waves splashed coldly across my feet. Would they mount to the carburetor, spoil the ignition, or, still worse, would they crack the cylinders?Neither of us spoke, and the car stormed on, sobbing. For a moment she clawed in vain at something, and then stumbled, as if on her knees, up the farther bank. Dripping water and puffing steam she climbed to the high-road again, and, with a bound, started on through spouting mud, as if nothing had happened. One would have thought her fired by some incentive as powerful as mine, which forced her on in the face of all difficulties; and perhaps it was a song of gladness which the motor hummed, as she came out upon the Vega.Suddenly the first beams of the sun streamed down the white slopes of the far Sierra Nevada, touched the vast fertile plain, and wrought magic with a castled hill which floated up, dreamlike, from a purple haze where a great city lay asleep. Clustering vermilion towers blazed with the gold of dawn, and dazzled our eyes with the glamour of romance. For the sleeping city was Granada, and the red towers and gardens on the castled hill were the towers and gardens of the Alhambra.The adventure was over. And under one of those roofs, dove-grey in the dawn, I hoped that Monica was sleeping.

Two ladies and their maid were getting out. An American young man was helping them down. The grey car was not a Lecomte. The owner, his chauffeur, and the three women were of types entirely different from those we sought.

The discovery, coming after such exaltation of hope, was like a blow over the heart.

“Hard luck,”exclaimed Dick.“But Carmona's car must be somewhere.”

“If it ever started,”I said.“I begin to think now that Carmona rallied his brigands, and sent me out to meet them, knowing I'd surely follow if I believed he had gone that way.”

“Oh come, there's hope still,”Dick consoled me. And turning to the owner of the car, he asked if he had seen another grey automobile. He had not; and, on further questioning, he went on to tell us that he had started from Seville meaning to stop at Cadiz and come on here to-morrow; but the hotel had been full, so he had“rushed it”to Algeciras. These details proved that his was the motor we had been chasing from the first; and the excellent Spanish which the Californian spoke to the porters accounted for one misleading bit of information.

While the party of care-free tourists went indoors, Dick and I stood in our coats of dust to discuss the situation. We soon agreed that there was but one thing to do. Wire Colonel O'Donnel for news of Carmona's movements, and wait where we were for an answer.

[pg 291]To none save those who count every moment precious could such a delay have been irksome. The place was a paradise, the garden a corner of Eden, and the Reina Cristina more like the country house of some Spanish millionaire than a hotel.

Leaving the Gloria, we went in to write a telegram; and in a court, charming as thepatioof a Moorish palace, we sat to plan out a message. The people of the hotel confirmed our fears that no answer could come from Seville till morning; so Dick busied himself in choosing rooms, while, to save time, I took the car by the sea road to the telegraph-office in town.

How many miles up and down those flower-bordered paths Dick and I walked next morning waiting for news, neither could have told. Eleven o'clock had struck when Colonel O'Donnel's answer was brought to me in the garden.

“On receipt of wire, interviewed verger,”I read.“Made him confess to accepting large sum from agent of C—— to send you on wrong track. Making inquiries and hope let you know in few hours whether C—— really gone; if so, which direction. Advise you stop Algeciras till hear from me again. Am sending on luggage there.”

“A few hours!”I was beginning to know too well what a few hours could mean in Spain where, to a population of philosophers it mattered nothing if a thing happened to-morrow or the day after.

Gibraltar was empurpled with night and sequined with ten thousand lights when the next telegram arrived—a message which covered two telegraph forms.

“Just learned C—— left to-day for Granada with same party. Took train, and whether shipped automobile not found out. C—— believed to be ill. Friend at club says C—— been heard say knows at Granada man worth twenty physicians, natural bone-setter, herb doctor. Perhaps wishes consult this person. Illness seems mysterious. House of C—— well known at Granada. Inquire at Washington Irving, where suppose you will stay. Will wire or write to that address.”

[pg 292]I should have been off within the hour, but the quickest way of reaching Granada was by Ronda, and there was no road for automobiles. One could walk, one could ride, along a bridle path through gorges unsurpassed for grandeur; but it was an expedition of two days, whereas if we could curb our impatience until early morning, we would reach Ronda by train in about four hours.

Not being quite mad, we waited, rose at five, and before seven were steaming out of Algeciras, while the great cloud-cataract of the Levanter churned and boiled over Gibraltar. On a truck, travelling by the same train, was my brave Gloria, none the worse for yesterday's wild flight, and ready for another when she could take the road beyond Ronda. I had not ceased yet to wonder at the expedition with which she had been shipped. Dick discovered, however, that the manager of the line was a Scotsman, a kind of fairy godfather for all the region round, which explained the mystery; and his road was wonderful. In a glass coach, which was an“observation car,”we tore through scenery so diversified that it might have been chosen from the finest bits of a whole continent. There were wooded ravines tapestried with pink sweetbrier; there were far hill-towns like flocks of gulls resting on the edge of giddy precipices; there were strange old fortresses; ruined Moorish castles; velvet-green fields with aloe hedges grey as lines of broken slate; dark, noble gorges sprinkled with mother-o'-pearl flakes of white wild roses, that drifted down the red rock into water green as onyx. There were blossomy bits of Holland and long tracts of Switzerland. Glacier-mills in narrow gorges were like empty niches for colossal statues of saints; pink and white orchards foamed at the feet of ancient look-out towers; black rocks, like huge watch-dogs, seemed to crouch on cushions of wild flowers; and weeping willows fringed the river with silver before it dashed away to do battle among the mountains; acacias showered perfume, and orange groves pushed so near to the train that a hand reached out could have plucked their golden globes.

[pg 293]There were caves and underground rivers, haunted by enchanted Moors; and at last, a brief glimpse of Ronda hanging high against the sky, vanishing like the fabled Garden of Iram, and not to be seen again until the train mounted the cliff by many loops.

Just as we arrived at the end of the journey a thought in my brain seemed to snap like the trigger of a carbine. In my haste to get off by the first morning train I had forgotten to try and find more petrol at Algeciras, although I had not enough left to get the car to Granada.

There was just time to telegraph back to the Reina Cristina and beg some of the young Californian, who had fallen so deeply in love with the place that he intended to stay a week. We had become friendly and he would certainly grant the favour, therefore we might count on travelling that night by acetylene and moonlight. Meanwhile, there was a long day to wait, but I tramped off my restlessness as best I could in exploring every foot of Ronda.

After that one look upward from the train, when Ronda hung before our eyes over a thousand foot gorge, we had at last sneaked in, so to speak, by a back door. If it had not been for that first glimpse, and if we had not read“Miranda of the Balcony”we should not have guessed, in walking from the station to the Alameda, that Ronda differed from other Moorish towns. But far away was a barrier of iron railing, and a curious effect as if beyond it everything ended except the sky. We walked on, reached that railing, and leaned over.

No picture, no book had been able to give us a real idea of Ronda. It was stupendous—wonderful. We stared down at the world beneath as if we hung in a balloon, for the rock fell away from our feet, a sheer precipice; and men working in the valley below were like tiny crabs. The Moorish mills were white, broken hour-glasses, shaking out a stream of silver; geese on the river were floating bread-crumbs; a string of donkeys crawling up the steep Moorish road were invisible under their packs, which looked like mushrooms with moving stems.

[pg 294]The noise of the river floated up to us with a muffled roar, and across the deep valley its water had cut, tumbled a wild mountain-land, crossed here and there by white threads of road which clung to the sky-line and disappeared.

“Great Scott, if this eagle's nest doesn't take the cake!”exclaimed Dick, always modern.“If there were any more to take, it could have that, too. Hurrah for you, rock and river. You're sublime.”

But we had not seen all, by hanging over that iron railing, nor nearly all. There was the palace of the Moorish King, and the terrible steps cut by Christian captives. There was the bridge swung over the gorge; and the far-famed“window”of rock, one of the wonders of the world. There was the old Roman amphitheatre, turned into a bull-ring; the town wall, which Hercules helped to build; the Roman gate, and the Moorish gate, and the house where Miranda lived; and a hundred other things to be found by mounting steep hills or sliding down wild precipices.

The splendid mountain air had given Dick a ferocious appetite; nevertheless he could hardly be torn from the cliff above the“window,”and vowed that it would be worth while coming all the way from New York to Ronda next year when the grand new hotel should be finished.

Rain fell while we lunched, but we wandered out again, in a thin mist like a sieve, through which sifted turquoises and silver spangles; nor did we cease wandering until it was time for the train to arrive with the expected petrol. The Californian had not failed us; and with a good supply of food for the Gloria, and enough for ourselves to last until morning, we set off, against the advice of everyone.

The sky had cleared, and twilight would soon merge into moonlight; but we would need the moon and stars as well on the road we had to travel. In more than one place it was marked on my map by an ominous, thin black line which meant“Motorists, beware.”The country was sparsely populated; people whispered[pg 295]ofbandidos; and if anything happened to the car in the middle of the night, there would be no means of getting help.

Still, if we won through without serious mishap, we should save a day; for there was no train to Granada until morning, and Dick was as keen on the adventure, for the adventure's sake, as I was for another reason.

After all, we reminded each other, it was a journey of only a hundred and twenty miles. With no traffic to interfere, the Gloria ought to fly over the distance in four hours; and what if everyone did try to discourage us? We had experienced that sort of thing in Biarritz, and the dangers had resolved themselves into chimeras. Nothing in Spain was as troublesome nowadays as the busybodies would have one believe—not even the beggars.

My big searchlights cast a flashing ring on the road, which the car seemed to push swiftly before it as it ran.

Dick peered through the uncertain light for the hill town of Teba, from which the Empress Eugenie took her title, but my eyes were glued to the road.

To think, if we had known at Jerez that Granada was the lodestar, we could have reached Ronda in a run of four hours day before yesterday! But it was useless to repine, and fate had given us Ronda.

By the time we had passed through the straggling village of Campillos the moon was up, a great white, incandescent globe of light, so brilliant that instead of draining colour from rock, and grass, and flower, it gave new and almost supernatural values to all.

We had the world to ourselves, a wonderful world like a vast silver bowl half full of jewels. Over the tops of mountains cut jaggedly of steel, strange figures seemed to run along the horizon. Bathed in unearthly radiance lay fields of poppies like deep lakes of blood filling the valleys between little rolling hills, and here and there a miniature mountain of pink or glittering grey, rose out of the plain like a fairy palace which would be invisible in daylight. Olive trees stretching away in straight lines on[pg 296]either side of endless avenues, fountained silver under the moon, each avenue swept by a wave of poppies. It was an Aladdin's Cave landscape made out of rare metals and precious stones that imitated trees and flowers.

Antiquera on its wild crags, was a ragged black hole in the silver sky, until we shot into the town under the dominating castle of crimson memories.

There, was life and music still; guitars tinkled, children who should have been in bed frolicked in the streets with lambs that followed them like dogs, while everyone, old and young, laughed and hooted at the Gloria as she shot by without stopping, on her way to Loja and Granada.

A sharp turn to the left swept us out of Antiquera, and so good was the road that Dick and I began to laugh at the gloomy prognostications which thus far had not been fulfilled.

My spirits rose to such a height that as we passed under the Lovers' Rock, still haunted by the Moorish maiden and her Christian lover, I quoted Southey, verse after verse of the old-fashioned poetry coming back to my mind. The Peña de los Enamorados stood up like a small model of Gibraltar, rising out of the plain; and as we wound on among other pinnacles almost as majestic, we could see the bleached skeleton of Archidona hanging on its mountain. Once the place had been a famous nest of brigands; and when after climbing a tremendous hill, we had come into its long white street, Dick was of opinion that Archidona of to-day was still an ideal summer resort for the fraternity in case they should crave a town life. Each low-browed house in the interminable avenue looked a fit nursery for mysteries and secrets. Here and there a dark face framed in a knotted red handkerchief peered from a lighted doorway, staring after the Gloria until she had slipped over the brow of the hill to coast smoothly down another as steep.

There, had we but known, the peaceful olive grove through which we passed and hushed the song of nightingales was to be our last glimpse of peace. Beyond that silver barrier lay chaos,[pg 297]a chaos of wild mountains, deep chasms, and grim steppes, solitary, unpeopled, forbidding under the moon!

If we broke an axle here, with leagues to walk to the nearest farm, there was no hope of Granada to-morrow. And now the road was equally well fitted for breaking axles, necks, and hearts.

It was made of rock in petrified waves, among which the Gloria floundered and buck-jumped as long ago Dick had expected her to do when she crossed the Spanish border. Every part of her shivered as though she were a horse in the bull-ring, and I pitied her as if she had a nerve in every spring and chain.

“This is no road; it's a nightmare,”groaned Dick. But if it were, it was a nightmare which ran with us glaring, showing frightful fangs, for mile after mile of horror. Just as the steep slope of a descent offered a softer cushion for the suffering tyres, and hope stirred within us, we broke into such a region as imagination pictures in the streets of Lisbon after the great earthquake. Gullies and vertical rifts scored the highway serpentining hither and thither, the chasms gaping to swallow the Gloria or at least bite off a wheel.

Now the earthy lip of a cleft would crumble and fall in as our driving-wheels skimmed along the edge; now, steer with all the nerve and nicety I might, the Gloria would rock as she hung half over a gully. Somehow I coaxed her down the hill, and driving out from the labyrinth of crevasses, I breathed a sigh of relief. But the next instant, I had only time to jam on the brakes to save the car from vaulting into a small river which ran across the road. Carefully embanked on either side, the stream flowed swiftly, cutting the descent at right angles.

Whatever the depth might prove, I had to risk it. Mounting the nearer embankment, I drove down into the running water, where the moon laughed up at me as I broke her glittering reflection.

“Good old San Cristóbal!”cried Dick as we came through without damage and climbed the opposite bank, to plump down a breakneck descent on the other side.

[pg 298]But it was early still to praise the saint. We had only to look ahead to see how much more he had to do for us, if we were to win through to Granada at all. Where a little clump of houses had assembled at the bottom of the hill, as if to watch our struggle, another and far broader river flowed.

It also raced across the highway, as if roads were made for river-beds; and this time the situation was so serious that I stopped the Gloria to reflect.

There was no doubt about it; this river was deep. Though a cart might ford it safely, and have the flood of rippling silver no higher than the axles, it was different with an automobile. I wondered bleakly what would happen to the silencer if its mass of heated metal were suddenly plunged into cold water, and what would happen to the commutator.

“When in doubt, play a trump,”said Dick.“And I guess that camel-backed bridge is a trump, if it's only a knave—or the deuce.”

It was true, there was a narrow erection which might pass as a bridge, if one wished to pay a compliment. It was of stone, and came to a steep point at the apex, like a“card tent”when two cards receive support from one another. It was the question of a fraction of an inch, if the Gloria were to squeeze over; but between the danger of a jam and the danger of a burst cylinder, I decided to risk playing Dick's trump.

First I got out and unscrewed the wheel-caps to give more clearance, then in again for the trial, while Dick walked, ready to offer aid if it were needed. I had rasped through to the top, and the Gloria had actually started on the down grade, when she gave a grinding scream, and stuck between the parapets.

I tried to move, and could not. The car was hopelessly jammed.

“Nice fix,”said Dick.“If I was writing a book, I'd say,‘this route only suitable for hundred horse-power cars, built in small sections, and carrying cheerful passengers.’Now, we were cheerful once—and may be again. Chuck me over the key of the tool-box, will you?”

[pg 299]I did so without a word, lest if I uttered any they should be too strong. But curiosity overcame me when I heard a metallic chinking, then the blows of a hammer.

“Only knocking down a bit of this old parapet,”was the calm answer to my question.“Some of it's gone already; why not more? I bet future generations will thank me—as it's certain never to be mended.”

As he spoke, there was a great splash, when a piece of the parapet, already weakened by years of storm and stress, plumped over into the river. The car was released, and slid down the other slope of the camel's back.

Now it did seem that we might safely thank San Cristóbal, since nothing could well be worse than the pass from which he had just delivered us, scratched, bruised, yet unbroken. We had but to scramble out of the rough river-bed, bump over the level crossing of a railway, to come out upon a broad, smooth highway like a road to paradise. Ready to shout with joy, I put on speed, and the Gloria sprinted over the white and silent way as if she were happy to turn her back upon Inferno.

Yesterday's study of the map assured me that at length we had struck the main road from Malaga, and there seemed every reason to believe that the ordeal just over would be our last. Flying along at a good fifty miles an hour, under a tired moon that sought the west, presently a town rose grandly up before us, throned on rocks in a wide valley, and pallid in the strange light as some sad queen.

Loja, tragically lost key of Granada, sister of famed Alhama, stronghold of that fierce alcayde who called Boabdil's sultana daughter! Loja, and only thirty miles more to Granada.

We rushed towards that wide valley, and on to the mountain town which dared to repulse Ferdinand. In the deserted streets the only sound was the singing of many springs, the same musical voices, the same strains that Lord Rivers heard close upon five hundred years ago, when he came with his English archers to help conquer the wild place.El GranCapitán, too, had come[pg 300]here, a lonely exile, after all his splendid services to an ungrateful king. He, too, had heard the singing of Loja's springs, not in triumph, but in sorrow.

Down in the valley beyond, the river cried a warning to us; but we did not heed, even when the road surface changed again to gluey mud; squelching on, mile after mile, at the best pace we could, and saying always that soon we should be on the Vega. So the dawn stole up and quivered on the snows of the Sierra Nevada.

The moon was gone, and it must still be long before the sun would shine over the mountains, when a black shadow like a great coffin deserted on the road, gave me pause. I pulled up in haste, only just in time, and could hardly believe I saw aright. But there was no illusion. We were on the highway from the port of Malaga to Granada, yet here was a broken bridge, a noble structure which should have outworn centuries, tumbling into ruin.

The fall of the great central arch was no new thing, for moss and lichen enamelled its jagged edges with green and gold. Some branches loosely strewn across the road were the only signposts indicating this tragedy, though perhaps it was a story as old as the great earthquake of two-and-twenty years ago.

A yard or so more and we should have been over; but San Cristóbal had not forgotten us; and the next thing was, how to cross the river without a bridge. I turned and went back, discovering wheel-tracks which showed an obscure bye-path dipping over the edge of theembankment. I followed, and beheld the ford, a little farther on in a baby forest, where a broad stream lay in flood between low banks.

“We'll have to get through,”I said, and drove the Gloria into the water. If there should be mud—but there were stones instead; and with tiny waves swishing among the spokes of her wheels she set out to rumble over.

“I believe she'll do it—”I had begun, when she gave a great hiss, as when a blacksmith plunges a red-hot horseshoe[pg 301]into water; and a cloud of steam gushed up. Still I forced her on, expecting each instant to hear some fatal crash, while we plunged deeper into the stream. Now the little waves splashed coldly across my feet. Would they mount to the carburetor, spoil the ignition, or, still worse, would they crack the cylinders?

Neither of us spoke, and the car stormed on, sobbing. For a moment she clawed in vain at something, and then stumbled, as if on her knees, up the farther bank. Dripping water and puffing steam she climbed to the high-road again, and, with a bound, started on through spouting mud, as if nothing had happened. One would have thought her fired by some incentive as powerful as mine, which forced her on in the face of all difficulties; and perhaps it was a song of gladness which the motor hummed, as she came out upon the Vega.

Suddenly the first beams of the sun streamed down the white slopes of the far Sierra Nevada, touched the vast fertile plain, and wrought magic with a castled hill which floated up, dreamlike, from a purple haze where a great city lay asleep. Clustering vermilion towers blazed with the gold of dawn, and dazzled our eyes with the glamour of romance. For the sleeping city was Granada, and the red towers and gardens on the castled hill were the towers and gardens of the Alhambra.

The adventure was over. And under one of those roofs, dove-grey in the dawn, I hoped that Monica was sleeping.

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