XXXVIII

[pg 324]XXXVIIIThe FountainThe delicate fretwork of the walls was blurred in twilight when I waked from heavy, irresistible sleep.I felt dull, but could trace no other bad effect from the drug. Indeed, I fancied that I was stronger; and very slowly, with occasional rests, I got upon my feet and began to crawl about the room.There was very little furniture, but what there was, was good, and of a graceful Moorish design which suited the wall decoration, and the horseshoe shape of the window. This had an elaborate lattice of wood, which let in plenty of air, as there was no glass; but outside were six stout bars of iron, and the lattice was securely fastened. I stared through the pattern of wood into a very small but charmingpatio, paved with brick and tiles, and having in the centre a fountain, with a shallow basin. Feathery plumes of water played over a few low palms in great blue and white pots of Triana ware, but as I looked the plumes shrank almost to nothing, then ceased to wave. The fountain was asleep for the night.Supporting myself with a hand on the wall, I got to the room of the marble bath. There, the window was but a foot square, and was set high in the wall. On a low, carved bench, lay the clothing I had worn on the night of my visit to the gypsy's cave. I sat down, and explored the pockets. What money I had had—six or seven hundred pesetas, so far as I could remember—was gone; so was my gold watch, and the revolver I had so gaily carried as a sure means of self-protection.[pg 325]“Gypsy perquisites,”I said to myself, but the sight of the clothes brought back the past so vividly that I could see myself bidding good-bye to Dick at the railway station. Loyal, resourceful old Dick! Why had he not found his friend in all this time, while my hands were growing white and thin?Surely there must have been some hue or cry, when I did not appear either at the villa or the hotel? A man cannot vanish off the face of the earth, I told myself, and leave no trace. I longed for the man with thecapuchato come back, so that I could ask him more questions, even though I could put no faith in his answers; but he did not appear again that night. I slept after a time, a sleep of exhaustion; and when I waked in broad daylight, I found a glass of milk on a small Moorish stand by the bed.I could not bear to drink it, lest the same drug should make me sleep as before. But how regain strength without food? And evidently I was to have this or none.For a time I waited, hoping that my“good friend”would come, and that, if I told him I disliked milk, he would give me something else, not so easy to mix with a drug. At last, however, I grew faint. Perhaps, I thought, the milk was innocent this time. I drank, and the same heaviness overcame me. So, through most of the day I slept, and raged against myself when I awoke.Again, a full glass stood by the bedside, but I would not drink. Many hours of dozing had left me wakeful; and my eyes were wide open when, an hour or two after dawn, the door in the outer room was softly unlocked.He had not forgotten hiscapucha, though he must have expected to find me asleep. In his hand was a glass of milk, but when he had seen that I lay awake, he saw also that the other glass had not been touched.I was neither hungry no thirsty, I said in excuse. And I could not rest because I was not comfortable. It had got upon my nerves, I explained, to feel my hair long on my neck and my face unshaven. Would my host get in a barber?The man reflected for a moment, and then said that he would[pg 326]do his best as a barber. At present, and until his vow had been accomplished, he did not go out, except after nightfall, and therefore could not ask anyone to come to the house.The instant he had turned his back, I slipped off the bed, so that I might be ready to stagger as well as I could from my alcove, and pounce upon him when he had the door open; for I believed that I was strong enough now to have some chance. But his hearing must have been keen, for he turned, and told me not to exert myself. What—I was only getting up so as to be ready when he came back with shears and razor? I need not trouble. He would do all while I was in bed; and he would wait until he had seen me return there.He was master of the situation, and knew it. I was obliged to give him his way; and afterwards he was so quick in getting to the door that, in my weak state, I could not have reached him in time.When he came back, however, I was ready. Waiting just inside the door, as it was cautiously opened I threw myself upon him. But I had overestimated my strength, and underestimated his. Quick and lithe as a leopard, the old man wound himself round me, and for a moment we struggled together for the mastery, I thinking of the razor he had promised to bring, and hoping to get it. If I could do that, I should be able to keep him at bay, without any violence, save threats.Once, I had almost got him down, or he let me fancy it; but with a sudden twist he caused me to lose my balance, which was none too steady. I slipped on the tiled floor, and had half saved myself when a quick push sent me staggering back. Instantly thecapuchawas on the other side of the door, a bolt slid into place, and the key turned in the lock.Rage gave me a brief spurt of strength. I caught up the carved wooden bench in the bathroom, and dashed it furiously again and again against a panel of the door. But the strong wood did not even crack under my blows.As hour after hour passed, and I was left alone, from time to[pg 327]time I renewed my efforts, with no result except that eventually I broke the bench. Then I tore at the lattice of the window, thrusting my fingers through, and trying vainly to pull the woodwork to pieces. Though the iron bars on the outside would prevent my escaping into thepatio, I thought, if the lattice were broken, shouts might be heard more easily.At last, when I had been obliged to give up hope, I pressed my face against the close pattern of the woodwork and yelled lustily, till my voice failed. But my own shouts were the only sounds I heard, save distant church bells, and the singing of subterranean waters, silent only at night when the fountain went to sleep. It would be all but impossible, I had to admit, for anyone outside to judge the direction of a cry, coming through a screened window surrounded on all sides by high house walls.Darkness fell; and I grew so hungry that I would gladly have drunk the milk left since morning. I tasted it, and found it spoiled by the heat, for the day had been warm. In disgust I threw it away, but when all that night had gone and part of the next day, I regretted my fastidiousness.Frequent draughts of water from the room of the marble bath gave me an occasional fillip, but a man recovering from congestion of the brain or some such malady, following the breaking of his head, cannot live long on water; and it was clear that my host, disgusted with my“ingratitude,”intended to punish me cruelly or to put an end to me by starvation.When the second night closed in, I made up my mind that he had decided upon my death. Perhaps, if I had been docile, when the time fixed by his employer had expired, he might have chosen to set me free, trusting that I believed his story. But seeing that I did not believe it, that I would spare no effort, no trick, which might enable me to escape while my presence in the outside world was still highly undesirable, the man had probably crushed all humane feeling for his prisoner. Since no one had sought me, living, in his house, it was unlikely that I should be sought for there when dead.[pg 328]I was at the window, as I told myself these things, looking out into thepatio, where the palms, and the shell which was the upper basin of the fountain, were faintly definable in starlight. Robbed of my watch, the only way I had of calculating time after nightfall was by the silence which came about an hour after sunset. Then the gurgling voice of hidden water (which sang underground in this secludedpatioas everywhere in the Albaicín, and on the Alhambra hill) abruptly ceased, after a distant ringing which I took to be that of the bell in the Torre de la Vela, regulating the irrigation of all the country round. At this same moment the diamond plumes of the fountain invariably fell, and disappeared, not to wave again until the morning sun was up.I was always sorry when the fountain died, for it was the sole companion of my captivity, my one dim pleasure watching its nymph-like play. And to-night the dead silence of thepatioseemed the lull before my own death.It must have been, I thought, somewhere about ten o'clock when I heard a new sound in the court, slight, elusive, but distinct. Chink—chink—like metal on stone, as if a troll were mining underground. The old man was taking time by the forelock, I said grimly to myself, getting ready a place in some cellar to lay me away when I should be finished. I should last some days yet; but it took time to do these things well. At the hotel they had told me how a year or two ago, in destroying an old house in the Albaicín to build a new one on the sight, workmen had come across the skeletons of two French grenadiers neatly sealed up in a wall of stone, where they had kept guard since the time of the Peninsular War. Probably a night or two had been needed for the making of their niche.Chink—chink! Yes, the old wretch must be at work in a cellar. The noise certainly came from underground; and it was not as agreeable to my ears as the tinkle of the vanished fountain. I wished the hour would come for the water to leap up and drown that other stealthy sound.Suddenly, as I turned a wistful gaze on the alabaster shell[pg 329]dimly glimmering among the low palms, to my astonishment it seemed to totter. I thought that it must be a mere illusion of weary eyes, or that the effect was created by a cloud obscuring the starlight. But again the white shell moved against the dark green background, this time swaying from side to side.Could there be an earthquake, so slight that I did not feel the shock? Even as I asked myself the question, the shell of the fountain was loosened from its support, and fell into the main basin, now almost empty. The water-lilies and their green pads which floated sparsely there muffled the sound of the crash, but there was a noise of breaking. The slabs of coloured mosaic which paved the lower basin upheaved, as if the earth beneath were bursting, and scattered from side to side, falling over the crushed lines. Thenthrougha ragged black aperture rose the head and shoulders of a man.The metallic sound had stopped; but from somewhere in the house there came the slamming of a door.The head and shoulders, motionless now, were sharply defined against the scattered heap of white fragments, like the bust of a man modelled in black marble. Someone whistled softly, and the tune was,“The Girl I Left Behind Me.”“Dick!”I called through the close wooden lattice.“Hurrah!”he answered; and the black marble bust became a full length statue of a man.How he had found me, how he had come, I did not know; but there he was, and the gate of life had not closed upon me after all. Dick was out of the jagged hole in the basin, and half across thepatio, when a door, which I had always seen shut, burst open to let out a stream of light, and the figure of the old man I knew so well, leaped on him.I was weak, and for a moment I turned sick, thepatiowith its broken fountain, and the forms of the men in a halo of yellow light, whirling before my eyes as if there were indeed an earthquake. Then the mist cleared, and like a rat in a cage I watched the fight which meant life or death for more than one of us.[pg 330]There was nocapuchanow to cover the grey-streaked head and venerable beard. Once I caught a glimpse of a profile sharp as a hawk's. The old man had come out of the house with a Toledo sword-stick, such as the King and his friend had used with the brigands, and as he saw the enemy he had to deal with, he had thrown away the bamboo stick. The long, thin blade glittered in the same light that showed me Dick, armed with an iron crowbar, formidable and threatening.If it had been a scene in a play, and I in the audience, I should have applauded, for there was something in me which cried out that it was a fine picture. But Dick's life and mine were in the balance.[pg 331]XXXIXDay After To-morrowThe pair stood eyeing each other like two fencers, Dick with the crowbar raised, and pointing at his heart the blade which would pierce it when the Spaniard dared advance an inch.I longed to shout“Fling the crowbar at his head!”But if Dick's eye released the eye of his opponent he was a dead man, I must not risk distracting him for the fraction of a second.It seemed an hour, though it could not have been a minute when, as if my thought had winged to his brain, the thick iron bar whirled through the air, and struck the old man full upon the forehead. The Toledo blade dropped from his hand, and he fell back without a cry, his head inside the open door.“Is he dead?”I called.Dick bent over the limp body; but, after a long moment, he was up again, waving a big, old-fashioned key.“No,”he answered.“Heart beating. Bad penny. He'll be all right. This the key of spider's parlour?”“I think so,”I said.“Dick, you're just in time to keep me from giving in. I'm starved.”He stooped and picked up the crowbar.“Old brute! I've a mind to finish him!”he exclaimed.“You don't mean that,”I said.“But look for something to tie him up with. He may come to himself before we're off.”“I guess I'll just tote him along with me,”said Dick.“Safe bind, safe find.”Gathering up the long body as if it had been the form of a[pg 332]sleeping child, Dick disappeared into the house. I knew that he was looking for the door of my cage, and presently—for the first time with pleasure—I heard the slipping back of the bolt and turning of the key.Already I was at the door, opening it for Dick to come in with his heavy burden.“Here's the bed,”I said, and Dick laid his burden down, not too gently. Then I think the next thing we did was to shake hands.“Blessed old man!”exclaimed Dick, a little unsteadily.“What a beastly business.”“It's a mystery,”I said.“And how you got to me—”“Conduit,”said Dick,“But I'll tell you all about that, and everything. Got no electric light here?”“Nothing but starlight. For Heaven's sake, tell me about Monica!”“She's all right,”said Dick.“Not a Duchess yet, if that's what worries you. Look here, if this place has been good enough to box you up in all this time, it's good enough to keephimin—”(He nodded towards the alcove.)“He lives alone here, without servants; I've found out all that, with a lot more; and his master—guess you know who—is in Madrid; so when this chap comes to himself he can try how he likes your quarters. They seem rather nice ones, judging from what I can see; but Carmona always does himself well.”“Is this Carmona's house?”I asked.“You bet it is. Little private sort of place he keeps ready when he wants to amuse himself in some way which his mother and Monica and other people mightn't approve of in Dukes. This old Johnny's a combination of caretaker and physician in ordinary to his grace. But let's get out of this. I can't give you a marble bath or Moorish decorations at my hotel, but I shouldn't wonder if you'd prefer the accommodation; and after that conduit business I need a‘wash and brush up’as much as you do. Why, old man, what's the matter? Not going to crack up, are you?”[pg 333]“I'm all right,”I said;“but I haven't had anything to eat since the day after I saw you off, except milk, and none of that for the last two days.”“Great Scott! you're joking. We parted five weeks ago!”The words gave me a shock in spite of the stubble on my chin and the whiteness of my hands. Dick had his wet arm round my shoulders, and we were at the door, which he was about to lock, and I startled him by caving in a little at the knees.“See here,”he said, hanging on to my arm as if he were afraid I should vanish in thin air,“we won't wait to dine at my hotel. We'll nose round a bit in this old Johnny's larder. You must be bucked up before you go out into the street. Oh, it's safe enough. The old brute's a hermit—for his own reasons or Carmona's. Nobody comes near the house, and we can take our own time. While you're eating you shall hear everything I've got to tell.”He locked and bolted the door, and helped me down the stairs, up which I must have been carried unconscious; perhaps by the gypsy, assisted by the master of the house.Below stairs the place was dark save for the light which had streamed out into thepatiowith the opening door. It came from a good-sized room evidently intended for a kitchen, but also used by the solitary tenant as a dining-room. It had a window opening on the court; this, however, was not only covered with heavy shutters, but protected by a curtain as well, and ventilation came through an adjoining room from a window that looked on another small court.Evidently my gaoler had been interrupted in the midst of his supper, and hearing a noise in thepatiohad stopped only long enough to snatch up a sword-stick. On the table was a simple meal of cold meat, salad, goats'-milk cheese, and fresh fruit; but to my starved eyes it seemed a feast. There was also a bottle half-full of red Spanish wine; and I did not wait for Dick's suggestion to sit down. I must get back my strength if I were to be of any use to Monica or myself, and I hardly listened to[pg 334]Dick's warning that a starved man must not satisfy his first hunger.“Eat slowly, and not too much,”he said, with anxious eyes on my face, which must have been frightful, though he was too tactful to make comments. As I obeyed, he told me his story, briefly and disjointedly, as the points came back to him.“Didn't hear from you,”he said,“and began wondering what was up. Wired twice; no answer; was a bit taken up with my own affairs just then, I'm afraid. Yes, I mean Pilar. After five days, wired the landlord. He answered you'd left with a friend. I thought that queer, and set out for Granada by next train, Ropes with me. At the Washington Irving I found both my telegrams to you and a letter. Landlord said he got a note from you, dated Motril, telling him you'd met a friend and gone off unexpectedly in his automobile. You enclosed more than enough money to pay bill and tips, and asked him to have your luggage packed and kept till your return, which might be in a few days or not for some time. Naturally, he hadn't worried; and as he'd destroyed the letter, I couldn't tell if it was your handwriting.“Well, I thought youmighthave rushed off suddenly on account of some lark of Carmona's; but I soon found out he was still in Granada, slowly getting better; and the guests hadn't gone. By the way, I called, but nobody in the house was seeing visitors. Ropes discovered that your car was in a stable down in the town, where you'd left it, without saying for how long. He and I were getting scared, and I went to the police, but didn't dare give your real name without your permission, especially as the authorities had a kind of prejudice against it. Fired off my best Spanish, though, and insinuated that Carmona wasn't very fond of you; but when I began hinting that it might be convenient for his plans that you should disappear, they wouldn't take me seriously, were polite, and all that, promised to look you up, as if you were a stray kitten, but intimated that most people who vanished had private reasons for doing so.“After that, I didn't expect them to find out anything, and[pg 335]they did their best not to disappoint me. I saw that if anybody was going to do the Sherlock Holmes' act, it must be Ropes and me. We sat tight at the Washington Irving, and looked around; but at the end of a fortnight no one was any wiser than at the beginning. Then what should happen but the dear old Colonel and Pilar popped down to see if they could help. Oh, and I forgot to tell you that meanwhile the people at Carmona's palace had cleared out. They'd gone back to Seville again by train; and what should happen but the Colonel and Pilar met Carmona face to face in the station.”“Not Monica?”I broke in.“No. I suppose the others had got into a carriage; he was lingering behind to give a valet directions about luggage. And then there was a scene. Pilar told me all about it. Carmona bowed; and before the Cherub could pull the little girl away, as he tried, seeing danger in her eye, she gave the Duke a piece of her mind. Said he was a villain, or some kind words of that sort. He retorted by saying to her father that he could make a lot of trouble for Cristóbal if they didn't take care. Pilar said they could accuse him of worse things than he could them; and somehow or other, in an evil moment, the subject of Corcito, a grey bull Carmona was once nasty about, came up. Then, before she knew what she was doing, Pilar flashed out the name of Vivillo, the beast she wanted to buy, you know. And from that minute the fat was in the fire as far as she was concerned. But about that later. What with you and the bull, she was in a dreadful state of mind when she got here, poor child. However, she put on her thinking cap, and said she,‘Try the gypsies. See if they don't know something.’“That was enough for me. I took a sudden fancy to Captain Pepe, the chief of the gypsies, and went every night to see a dance in his cave. But I soon saw he was straight; and they weren't a bad lot of people in the colony. The nasty ones he kicked out, and they had to hustle for themselves. Captain Pepe told me about one fellow, Juan Castello, who'd got himself disliked,[pg 336]though he was a nailer with the guitar; and when he said the chap had a sister who had a fine position in the house of a titled person, because she was the best seamstress in the country, I pricked up my ears. You can bet, after I'd heard the titled person was Carmona, I turned my attention to Mr. Castello, dropped in on him one day, named a big price, and asked him to give me lessons on the guitar. He didn't mind if he did, and we got quite friendly. I spent several evenings in his cave, where one night I heard a dog howling, as if it was mighty sick, behind a red curtain.”“That red curtain!”I exclaimed.“I shouldn't be where I am now, or have a scar on the back of my head, if I'd looked behind it.”“By Jove! Well, I got some idea of that sort. Castello said the dog belonged to a gentleman in Granada, who lived all alone in the Albaicín, and kept this beast as a watch-dog; but he was afraid it was going mad, and told Castello to shoot it. However, it was a valuable animal, and Castello was undertaking to cure it for his own benefit. Already it was better, and the owner talked of buying it back if it recovered. The old gentleman was coming up to see the dog that very evening, perhaps, Castello said; and being evidently proud of a respectable acquaintance, he went on talking about him, I encouraging him all I could, because any friend of his might prove interesting to me.“The minute I heard the chap was a kind of herb doctor, and sometimes treated grand people, I nearly jumped off my seat; for you know why Carmona was supposed to come to Granada?”I nodded.“Well, Castello was in with this doctor in a way, for he was engaged by him to fetch herbs and flowers from the mountains—like the Manzanilla, for instance, which only begins to grow at an elevation of twelve thousand feet. Castello believed that the old fellow could make poisons too, as well as antidotes; and said I to myself, 'Maybe that little dagger in the cathedral was[pg 337]specially prepared, eh?' Which would account for Carmona hurrying off to Granada after it had found the wrong billet.“Anyhow, I said I'd like to see the dog, so I was taken behind the red curtain into Mr. Castello's bedroom, and on a shelf lay a revolver which might have been twin to the one you bought in Madrid.”“It was still more nearly related,”said I.“Well, I thought so, but wasn't sure enough to call on the police. I went away when I'd said nice things about the sick dog; but I didn't go far. I hung around till Castello's visitor had been and gone, and then followed him to the door of this house. Such a mild, intelligent looking, well-dressed old gentleman, the herb doctor was; but I guess I needn't describe him to you!“Next day I bought some things at a baker's not far from here, and buttered up the shopkeeper, saying his store was too good for the neighbourhood. Of course he told me he had rich customers, and it was jolly lucky I'd been fagging up Spanish for Pilar's sake, or I should have missed a lot, right there. I soon got him on the subject of the herb doctor, his best client, who, though supposed to be well-off, and living in a good house, did all his shopping himself and kept no servants. Nobody knew much about him, except what he said of himself; that he could set bones, and was able to make as much money as he liked, selling his herb medicines to great personages. Who were the great personages? The baker couldn't tell; but the doctor had lived in his present house for years, after taking it when in a bad state of repair, and having it done up inside by workmen he brought from Madrid. From that day on, no one the baker knew had ever been invited in, though he'd heard stories of veiled ladies, and sounds of music at night.“At that, the thought jumped into my mind that maybe the house was Carmona's, a little secret plaything of his. And I remembered reading about a famous old palace in the Albaicín with an underground way to the Alhambra. Why shouldn't there be such a way from Carmona's palace to the doctor's[pg 338]house? And what a convenient place it would be to keep a troublesome person.”“Or to kill one,”I amended.“I thought of that; but I hoped. People don't commit murder when their blood is cool if they can get what they want cheaper. I went again to the police, said I believed that my friend was detained against his will in the house of Doctor Molina. But when they wanted my reasons I couldn't give any to convince them. They thought I was mad, and refused to search. I was afraid they'd warn the old chap to look out for a crazy American, so I hurried up and took matters into my own hands.“I wasn't sure enough of anything to jump on the man outside his own door and do the burglar act openly, lest the police should jump onme, and I should be laid by before I'd found you. But about that time I began to have water on the brain; or rather, I got possessed with the idea of sneaking into houses by means of conduits; and no wonder, when the whole Albaicín is honeycombed with watercourses, gluddering and gurgling from morning till night.“In the next street to this, there's a Moorish house of much the same sort, being torn down. They were selling old tiles to curiosity dealers one day, so I strolled into thepatio. The pavement was up, and I saw how the conduit ran underneath and supplied the fountain. That was instructive. Opposite this place of Molina's is a mill. I found out how the miller got his water, and that after it turned his wheel, it poured in this direction, being turned off every night about nine. At the miller's the conduit is open, only guarded by a rail; and I developed a taste for making sketches and taking photographs—tourist in search of the picturesque; miller got used to seeing me about, while I made myself familiar with the landscape. Then I bought a crowbar and a little electric lamp. The bar I hid under my coat; and when I was ready to shed the garment, Ropes put it on. I guess it was a looser fit for him than that conduit was for me, and there were twelve feet of conduit; good long strait-jacket, but I've been in it[pg 339]a lot of times now, and feel quite at home. You see, the job couldn't be done in one go, for I had to make the hole under the fountain bigger, and I've been tinkering away for nearly a week, o' nights when the water was stopped. And if I'd come up at last, like a demon in a pantomime, to find I'd had my trouble for my pains, I can't say what I should have turned my wits to next.”“Does Pilar know?”I asked.“She and the Colonel went off in a hurry to Madrid just before I took the job on. They thought they could influence the police at headquarters, which was their principal reason for going; though they had one or two others besides. But see here, you've got the story pat now, and you're looking a thousand per cent. more healthy than when you sat down at this table ten minutes ago. Poor old Ropes, who always hangs about keeping guard, will be mighty glad to see you; but before we open the door and walk out as if we owned the house, let's have a look round. There may be something which will give me a chance to say‘I told you so!’to the police.”Refreshed with wine, and such scanty rations as Dick had allowed, I walked steadily enough into the adjoining room, while Dick carried a lamp. There were no such gorgeous decorations here, as in the suite I had reluctantly occupied. A modern bed stood in one corner. There were shelves on the wall, fitted with glass doors which protected jars and bottles. On a large table lay an outfit for chemical experiments, and on another some yellow flowers half buried in green leaves. In the window was a modern desk, and Dick at once began to rummage among the few papers in the pigeon-holes. There was nothing, however, which seemed to bear upon our affairs, with the exception of a telegraph form, which I seized upon. It was dated June first, and had been sent from a Madrid office. There was no signature, but there was a hint of something secret in the three words it contained.“Day after to-morrow.”Dick and I stared at the paper, as if we expected the meaning of the message to spring up to our eyes.[pg 340]“My name's not Richard D. Waring if Carmona's signature oughtn't to be tacked on to that,”he said.“Now, we've something to go upon, for a beginning. This telegram will be traced to the sender before I'm many hours older; we can trust our dear old Cherub for that.”“Day after to-morrow,”I repeated.“What's going to happen day after to-morrow, that Carmona should have wired to this man?”“I should say it was his way of letting Molina know that the cage door could open.”“But why day after to-morrow? He—”I broke off suddenly, and it seemed that my heart would stop beating.“Dick,”I began again, in a queer voice that did not sound like my own,“is Monica—”I could not finish the sentence. But Dick understood.“Forgive me,”he said.“I saw you weren't strong enough to bear it at first. I wanted you to eat, and then—I'd have kept it back a bit longer if I could, just till I got you to the hotel. She's going to marry him—on the third of June, Heaven knows why, though Pilar vows the girl can't be to blame, and that they've made her believe somehow she's sacrificing herself for your sake.”“What day is this?”I asked.“The first. The Royal Wedding was yesterday, and a terrible bomb explosion, in which the King and Queen had a narrow escape, and—but come, Ramón, I want to get you to the hotel.”“I'm not going to the hotel,”I said.“I'm going to Madrid, to stop Carmona's marriage.”[pg 341]XLThrough the NightDick looked at me with indulgent sympathy, as if I were a child.“It's after eleven o'clock at night,”he said.“The train for Madrid went two hours ago, and—”“Did you say Ropes was waiting for you outside?”I asked.“Yes.”“And my car's still in the garage where I put it?”“Yes; but you're not in a fit state for a journey. If you could see yourself—”“Oh, I know I'm a nightmare apparition,”I cut in;“but when I'm shaved and—”“The trip would kill you.”“It would kill me not to take it.”We looked at each other for a moment, then Dick said—“All right. Come on. I know what you feel. But what about that old reprobate upstairs?”“I'll wait for you here while you take up some food and leave it in the room. We can't waste time in Granada on his account. I'll tell my story, and you can tell yours to the police in Madrid, after I—after I've done what I'm going there to do.”“How long a drive is it?”Dick asked resignedly.“It's about two hundred and seventy miles. If we can start by one or two, bar accidents we ought to be in Madrid by noon.”“The royal bull-fight's to-morrow,”answered Dick.“Although the wedding's next day, and the invitations have been out a fortnight, Carmona and Lady Monica are bound[pg 342]to be there, as it's a royal invitation show; that means a command.”“Very well,”said I.“Since it may be as difficult to reach her in Madrid as in Seville and Granada, I shall wait outside the entrance to the bull-ring, and as she's about to go in, she shall see me and hear the whole truth. Don't look as if you thought it would do no good, Dick; if she's promised to marry Carmona in spite of all, it's because he has made her think he can ruin me if she refuses. Pilar's instinct is right, I know; and now for the first time I understand why Carmona didn't denounce me to the police as Casa Triana, when Monica refused to keep her engagement with him, as I'm sure she did. No doubt he told her lies—that I could be imprisoned—for years, perhaps. And his wounded hand—what an opportunity for him! Ah! he wouldn't waste it. He'd make her believe I stabbed him in the cathedral that night. How plausible! And as he's been very ill, can't you imagine what her fears for me must have been? Dick, I regard her coming marriage as a proof of love, not of indifference.”“I'm ready to agree with you,”said Dick.“But you're risking your life to prove it.”“Nonsense,”I answered.“The thought that I'm free, that I'm going to her, and that at last I have Carmona in my hand, will give me strength enough to get through.”Dick raised his eyebrows, but did not answer. He was collecting bread and meat on a plate, to leave for the man upstairs.Five minutes later we were out of the house and in the street. In front of the miller's premises Ropes was walking up and down. He did not say much when he saw that Dick had a companion; but as he wrung the hand I held out to him, I heard him breathing hard, and he swore under his breath when he saw my face by the light of a street lamp.It was the look on his which made me realize, as Dick's persuasions had not, that I must delay long enough to be made again into some semblance of a sane man. An hour more before getting[pg 343]on the road would not endanger success, though it would try my patience. A quarter of a mile's walk to the garage was a sharper test of my strength than I would confess; but when Ropes had roused the watchman, filled the good old Gloria with petrol, and started her up the hill, the rush of pure night air gave me life.At the hotel, we walked in without waking the dozingconcièrge. Dick made me free of his things; and when, between us, we had finished my toilet, he admitted that I was not as appalling an object as he had thought. He changed his wet clothes, left a note for the landlord, and it was not yet two o'clock when we started, Ropes driving, Dick with me in the tonneau.“To Madrid, top speed, quickest way,”was the word; and I hoped for a non-stop run, or as near it as possible.The quickest way was by Jaen, a road which none of us knew, and the starlit sky was obscured by dark clouds which heralded a summer thunder-storm. As Ropes steered across the Vega towards that gap in the mountains which is the door of the north, there came a waterspout of rain on the roof. Thunder drowned the purr of the motor, and a flash of lightning every other moment dimmed the flying circle of our acetylenes. There had been rain more than once of late, and this deluge made the road, already bad, soft and greasy as an outworn sponge. The Gloria waltzed and slipped in a mass of brown porridge, but Ropes knew that we were to drive against time, and, throwing caution to the wind, tore through the treacherous mud as if to win the cup in a great race.We flung Granada behind us, dashing in among the foothills of the mountains, mounting a slippery defile, with the rain like whips lashing our faces. Orchards flashed by; there was a rock tunnel, where the lights shone fiercely on rough-hewn stone, and the thrum of the motor became a roar.Out again, and still up, the beams from our lamps shooting across vineyards, plantations of figs and pomegranates, and striking silver from the curves of the Guadalbullon River. A[pg 344]glimpse of an old castle commanding a dark gorge, and we were at Jaen; then, presently, the road became familiar, for we had travelled it before. At this very corner we had stopped to ask the way of men who carried strange implements like fire-extinguishers, for this was Bailen; but now, instead of receiving our first glimpse of Andalucía, we were leaving it behind.Eighty miles out of two hundred and seventy we had come, though the pace had not been good. Still the rain was ceasing, and we could make up for lost time, as country traffic had not begun yet.La Carolina, Santa Elena; the road was mounting for the well-remembered defile of Despeñaperros. Hoot! went the siren, screaming along the face of tremendous cliffs, and a louder shriek rang as if an echo. A line of fire down in the gorge meant the train from Madrid to Seville. It glittered like a string of stars drawn across a spider's-web viaduct, then vanished into a tunnel, while we swept on towards the plains of La Mancha, Ropes crouched like a goblin over his wheel.Rain again, blurring villages, and sweeping through the stone streets of a town: fields once more, and at last Manzanares. There Dick insisted that we should stop for food, lest strength fail me when I should need it most; but I could not bear to go back to thefondaI knew, to see the pretty girls there look at my pale face with shocked eyes, perhaps to have them question me about the“white and gold angel.”It was eight o'clock when we got away from the café, where we had spent some twenty minutes; and the road was no longer clear. We were obliged to moderate our speed, and lost more time than we could afford getting on to Aranjuez.“Do your best now, Ropes,”I was saying, when the Gloria—for once perverse—burst a tyre with a loud explosion. Ropes threw me a rueful look.“I'd hoped to get through without trouble, sir,”he said,“but the car's lain up for more than five weeks, and there was no time last night to look her over.”[pg 345]“You've done splendidly,”I assured him.“I'll get out with Mr. Waring and stretch my legs.”I was glad to walk, and still more glad to feel that instead of being exhausted as Dick had prophesied, strength seemed coming back. As we strolled up and down, so sure was I of Dick's sympathy that I began to talk about my hopes and fears. He did not disappoint me, but once or twice he answered absent-mindedly, with a far-off look in his eyes, and suddenly, with a pang of remorse, I remembered that I had not once referred to the progress of his love affairs. My own had preoccupied me to the exclusion of everything outside, and I had spoken of Pilar's only in connection with Monica.Anathematizing myself aloud as an ungrateful and ungracious brute, I asked if Pilar had made up her mind.“You needn't blame yourself,”he said.“All this time she's kept me on tenter-hooks, because, though she admitted liking me, she couldn't reconcile her heart with her conscience. I got the dear old Cherub's blessing, and flaunted it in her face; but that wasn't enough. I also argued that it was her duty to marry me and try to make me as good as herself, but she seemed to think it might work out the other way. Then you disappeared, and the last word she said was that if I found you, she'd take it as a sign that San Cristóbal wanted the match; seems he's a matchmaking saint, when he's in Spain, as well as a motoring one. So, you see, she'll have to keep her promise now; and I'll owe my happiness to you.”“I haven't come back to life in vain, then,”I said.“It will be a good moment for me, whatever happens, when I see my little sister Pilar again.”“She'll be at the royal bull-fight,”Dick sighed.“I thought she hated bull-fights—for Vivillo's sake.”“It's for Vivillo's sake she's going. She's moved heaven and earth to get invitations.”“And she's succeeded.”“Thereby hangs a tale. But I'm not going to bother you with it.”[pg 346]I insisted, urging him the more to atone for past carelessness.“Well, then,”he said with another sigh,“Vivillo's fifth bull in the royal fight to-day.”I was shocked, knowing how Pilar loved the noble brown beast, and how she had counted on possessing him. But, if I had had my wits about me, I might have guessed last night how matters stood. Dick had told me then that, in the impromptu scene between Carmona and the O'Donnels, with Seville railway station for the stage,“the name of Vivillo had unfortunately come up.”Now, Dick explained that Carmona had caught at the girl's hasty words, had written his agent at theganaderíainstructing him not to part with the bull at any price, no matter how far negotiations had gone with Colonel O'Donnel. A day or two later the agent was directed by telegram to send Vivillo immediately to Madrid, as the Duke had offered him as a gift for the great show of the royal bull-fight. This news had come to Pilar at Granada in an ill-spelled, but well-meaning letter from Mateo, theganadero.“It was sheer spite,”went on Dick,“and Pilar was broken-hearted. If she hadn't blurted out Vivillo's name in a temper, the bull might have been safe. Carmona wouldn't have interested himself, as he trusts his agent in all business matters. It's true several of the grandee owners of bull-farms have been asked togiveeach a picked bull for the royal fight, which is expected to be the grandest affair of the generation; but Carmona could as well have given another instead of Vivillo.”“It's like him,”I said.“Poor Pilar!”“She's simply ill. But queerly enough, she hasn't given up hope yet—or hadn't when she wrote, and enclosed an invitation-ticket she'd contrived to get for me. She begged me to come if I could, and‘see her through,’though I haven't the vaguest notion what she means. All I know is, she and the Cherub have been doing everything they could till the last minute to make an exchange of bulls. The dear old chap rushed off to Madrid, as I said, to stir up the police in your affair; and Pilar hoped she[pg 347]might get a chance to see Lady Monica, and ask what the dickens she meant by throwing you over. But any spare time the two had, I guess they've put in for Vivillo. They bought a fine Muira bull, at a tiptop price, and offered it to the authorities in exchange for Vivillo, who has been at pasture for the last ten days, recruiting after being boxed up for his long railroad journey. Whether Carmona had a hand in that part or not, anyhow nothing could be done.”“And Pilar is going to see her pet die!”I exclaimed.“I can't understand the Cherub allowing that,”said Dick.“I went to a bull-fight with him the day after I got back to Seville. Jove, it was a sickener, though there were some fine moments, I admit; and I can understand how Spaniards, brought up to understand every stroke, every move, think it fine sport. But it isn't sport for amateurs, and I haven't been able to swallow beef since; feel as if I'd been on visiting terms with it. Last touch of horror, each bull having a name. Great Scott! how would it feel to be as intimate as that with sheep and chickens, so you could speak of frying Lottie for breakfast, or grilling Maud with peas for lunch? Of course, the royal bull-fight will be wonderful—something only seen when a Spanish king marries—but I hate the thought of Pilar being there.”“Her father'll be with her,”I tried to console him.“No, he won't. His seat's in a box. Hers has been given inTendidoNumber 9, a space set apart for thesenoritas de la aristocraciato sit together, in smart dresses and mantillas, as if they were part of the show.”“Perhaps Monica will be there,”I said quickly.“Not she. The Duke and Duchess of Carmona and the Duke's fiancée and her mother will be in a box next the royal bride and bridegroom; Pilar heard that, and wrote me. You see, they're in high favour at Court now, and Carmona's ambition will be satisfied at last. The new Duchess is to be a lady-in-waiting, and take up her duties when the King and Queen come back from their honeymoon.”[pg 348]“She never will take them up as Duchess of Carmona,”said I.“Car ready,”announced Ropes, who had made record time in changing an inner tube, and was panting with his exertions.But where was San Cristóbal to-day—on this day of all others, when his services were needed? We had not gone half a mile when there came a whizz, and a grinding noise which meant a broken chain. Ropes grew pale and bit his lip. In his overpowering anxiety for me he was losing nerve.“Never mind mending it here,”I said.“Tighten up the axle, and go on with one sprocket only. We can get into the town that way, and find a machine-shop.”We did find one; but we were kept a full hour in Aranjuez; nor could we make good going afterwards as we approached the capital. The road was covered with vehicles, and packed as we neared Madrid; for every soul not bidden to the great bull-fight wished to see the favoured ones who were, and to applaud the King and Queen who by their splendid courage two days before had won double popularity.It was almost beyond endurance to be caught in the pack, and to know that there was no way out, except to move with the throng; nevertheless, it had to be endured. And time went on.We had hoped to run into some hole or corner as near as might be to the royal entrance of the Plaza de Toros, before the crowd began to pour in; but an hour struck as we crept into the great sunlit plaza—four o'clock; the time appointed for the pageant to begin.

[pg 324]XXXVIIIThe FountainThe delicate fretwork of the walls was blurred in twilight when I waked from heavy, irresistible sleep.I felt dull, but could trace no other bad effect from the drug. Indeed, I fancied that I was stronger; and very slowly, with occasional rests, I got upon my feet and began to crawl about the room.There was very little furniture, but what there was, was good, and of a graceful Moorish design which suited the wall decoration, and the horseshoe shape of the window. This had an elaborate lattice of wood, which let in plenty of air, as there was no glass; but outside were six stout bars of iron, and the lattice was securely fastened. I stared through the pattern of wood into a very small but charmingpatio, paved with brick and tiles, and having in the centre a fountain, with a shallow basin. Feathery plumes of water played over a few low palms in great blue and white pots of Triana ware, but as I looked the plumes shrank almost to nothing, then ceased to wave. The fountain was asleep for the night.Supporting myself with a hand on the wall, I got to the room of the marble bath. There, the window was but a foot square, and was set high in the wall. On a low, carved bench, lay the clothing I had worn on the night of my visit to the gypsy's cave. I sat down, and explored the pockets. What money I had had—six or seven hundred pesetas, so far as I could remember—was gone; so was my gold watch, and the revolver I had so gaily carried as a sure means of self-protection.[pg 325]“Gypsy perquisites,”I said to myself, but the sight of the clothes brought back the past so vividly that I could see myself bidding good-bye to Dick at the railway station. Loyal, resourceful old Dick! Why had he not found his friend in all this time, while my hands were growing white and thin?Surely there must have been some hue or cry, when I did not appear either at the villa or the hotel? A man cannot vanish off the face of the earth, I told myself, and leave no trace. I longed for the man with thecapuchato come back, so that I could ask him more questions, even though I could put no faith in his answers; but he did not appear again that night. I slept after a time, a sleep of exhaustion; and when I waked in broad daylight, I found a glass of milk on a small Moorish stand by the bed.I could not bear to drink it, lest the same drug should make me sleep as before. But how regain strength without food? And evidently I was to have this or none.For a time I waited, hoping that my“good friend”would come, and that, if I told him I disliked milk, he would give me something else, not so easy to mix with a drug. At last, however, I grew faint. Perhaps, I thought, the milk was innocent this time. I drank, and the same heaviness overcame me. So, through most of the day I slept, and raged against myself when I awoke.Again, a full glass stood by the bedside, but I would not drink. Many hours of dozing had left me wakeful; and my eyes were wide open when, an hour or two after dawn, the door in the outer room was softly unlocked.He had not forgotten hiscapucha, though he must have expected to find me asleep. In his hand was a glass of milk, but when he had seen that I lay awake, he saw also that the other glass had not been touched.I was neither hungry no thirsty, I said in excuse. And I could not rest because I was not comfortable. It had got upon my nerves, I explained, to feel my hair long on my neck and my face unshaven. Would my host get in a barber?The man reflected for a moment, and then said that he would[pg 326]do his best as a barber. At present, and until his vow had been accomplished, he did not go out, except after nightfall, and therefore could not ask anyone to come to the house.The instant he had turned his back, I slipped off the bed, so that I might be ready to stagger as well as I could from my alcove, and pounce upon him when he had the door open; for I believed that I was strong enough now to have some chance. But his hearing must have been keen, for he turned, and told me not to exert myself. What—I was only getting up so as to be ready when he came back with shears and razor? I need not trouble. He would do all while I was in bed; and he would wait until he had seen me return there.He was master of the situation, and knew it. I was obliged to give him his way; and afterwards he was so quick in getting to the door that, in my weak state, I could not have reached him in time.When he came back, however, I was ready. Waiting just inside the door, as it was cautiously opened I threw myself upon him. But I had overestimated my strength, and underestimated his. Quick and lithe as a leopard, the old man wound himself round me, and for a moment we struggled together for the mastery, I thinking of the razor he had promised to bring, and hoping to get it. If I could do that, I should be able to keep him at bay, without any violence, save threats.Once, I had almost got him down, or he let me fancy it; but with a sudden twist he caused me to lose my balance, which was none too steady. I slipped on the tiled floor, and had half saved myself when a quick push sent me staggering back. Instantly thecapuchawas on the other side of the door, a bolt slid into place, and the key turned in the lock.Rage gave me a brief spurt of strength. I caught up the carved wooden bench in the bathroom, and dashed it furiously again and again against a panel of the door. But the strong wood did not even crack under my blows.As hour after hour passed, and I was left alone, from time to[pg 327]time I renewed my efforts, with no result except that eventually I broke the bench. Then I tore at the lattice of the window, thrusting my fingers through, and trying vainly to pull the woodwork to pieces. Though the iron bars on the outside would prevent my escaping into thepatio, I thought, if the lattice were broken, shouts might be heard more easily.At last, when I had been obliged to give up hope, I pressed my face against the close pattern of the woodwork and yelled lustily, till my voice failed. But my own shouts were the only sounds I heard, save distant church bells, and the singing of subterranean waters, silent only at night when the fountain went to sleep. It would be all but impossible, I had to admit, for anyone outside to judge the direction of a cry, coming through a screened window surrounded on all sides by high house walls.Darkness fell; and I grew so hungry that I would gladly have drunk the milk left since morning. I tasted it, and found it spoiled by the heat, for the day had been warm. In disgust I threw it away, but when all that night had gone and part of the next day, I regretted my fastidiousness.Frequent draughts of water from the room of the marble bath gave me an occasional fillip, but a man recovering from congestion of the brain or some such malady, following the breaking of his head, cannot live long on water; and it was clear that my host, disgusted with my“ingratitude,”intended to punish me cruelly or to put an end to me by starvation.When the second night closed in, I made up my mind that he had decided upon my death. Perhaps, if I had been docile, when the time fixed by his employer had expired, he might have chosen to set me free, trusting that I believed his story. But seeing that I did not believe it, that I would spare no effort, no trick, which might enable me to escape while my presence in the outside world was still highly undesirable, the man had probably crushed all humane feeling for his prisoner. Since no one had sought me, living, in his house, it was unlikely that I should be sought for there when dead.[pg 328]I was at the window, as I told myself these things, looking out into thepatio, where the palms, and the shell which was the upper basin of the fountain, were faintly definable in starlight. Robbed of my watch, the only way I had of calculating time after nightfall was by the silence which came about an hour after sunset. Then the gurgling voice of hidden water (which sang underground in this secludedpatioas everywhere in the Albaicín, and on the Alhambra hill) abruptly ceased, after a distant ringing which I took to be that of the bell in the Torre de la Vela, regulating the irrigation of all the country round. At this same moment the diamond plumes of the fountain invariably fell, and disappeared, not to wave again until the morning sun was up.I was always sorry when the fountain died, for it was the sole companion of my captivity, my one dim pleasure watching its nymph-like play. And to-night the dead silence of thepatioseemed the lull before my own death.It must have been, I thought, somewhere about ten o'clock when I heard a new sound in the court, slight, elusive, but distinct. Chink—chink—like metal on stone, as if a troll were mining underground. The old man was taking time by the forelock, I said grimly to myself, getting ready a place in some cellar to lay me away when I should be finished. I should last some days yet; but it took time to do these things well. At the hotel they had told me how a year or two ago, in destroying an old house in the Albaicín to build a new one on the sight, workmen had come across the skeletons of two French grenadiers neatly sealed up in a wall of stone, where they had kept guard since the time of the Peninsular War. Probably a night or two had been needed for the making of their niche.Chink—chink! Yes, the old wretch must be at work in a cellar. The noise certainly came from underground; and it was not as agreeable to my ears as the tinkle of the vanished fountain. I wished the hour would come for the water to leap up and drown that other stealthy sound.Suddenly, as I turned a wistful gaze on the alabaster shell[pg 329]dimly glimmering among the low palms, to my astonishment it seemed to totter. I thought that it must be a mere illusion of weary eyes, or that the effect was created by a cloud obscuring the starlight. But again the white shell moved against the dark green background, this time swaying from side to side.Could there be an earthquake, so slight that I did not feel the shock? Even as I asked myself the question, the shell of the fountain was loosened from its support, and fell into the main basin, now almost empty. The water-lilies and their green pads which floated sparsely there muffled the sound of the crash, but there was a noise of breaking. The slabs of coloured mosaic which paved the lower basin upheaved, as if the earth beneath were bursting, and scattered from side to side, falling over the crushed lines. Thenthrougha ragged black aperture rose the head and shoulders of a man.The metallic sound had stopped; but from somewhere in the house there came the slamming of a door.The head and shoulders, motionless now, were sharply defined against the scattered heap of white fragments, like the bust of a man modelled in black marble. Someone whistled softly, and the tune was,“The Girl I Left Behind Me.”“Dick!”I called through the close wooden lattice.“Hurrah!”he answered; and the black marble bust became a full length statue of a man.How he had found me, how he had come, I did not know; but there he was, and the gate of life had not closed upon me after all. Dick was out of the jagged hole in the basin, and half across thepatio, when a door, which I had always seen shut, burst open to let out a stream of light, and the figure of the old man I knew so well, leaped on him.I was weak, and for a moment I turned sick, thepatiowith its broken fountain, and the forms of the men in a halo of yellow light, whirling before my eyes as if there were indeed an earthquake. Then the mist cleared, and like a rat in a cage I watched the fight which meant life or death for more than one of us.[pg 330]There was nocapuchanow to cover the grey-streaked head and venerable beard. Once I caught a glimpse of a profile sharp as a hawk's. The old man had come out of the house with a Toledo sword-stick, such as the King and his friend had used with the brigands, and as he saw the enemy he had to deal with, he had thrown away the bamboo stick. The long, thin blade glittered in the same light that showed me Dick, armed with an iron crowbar, formidable and threatening.If it had been a scene in a play, and I in the audience, I should have applauded, for there was something in me which cried out that it was a fine picture. But Dick's life and mine were in the balance.[pg 331]XXXIXDay After To-morrowThe pair stood eyeing each other like two fencers, Dick with the crowbar raised, and pointing at his heart the blade which would pierce it when the Spaniard dared advance an inch.I longed to shout“Fling the crowbar at his head!”But if Dick's eye released the eye of his opponent he was a dead man, I must not risk distracting him for the fraction of a second.It seemed an hour, though it could not have been a minute when, as if my thought had winged to his brain, the thick iron bar whirled through the air, and struck the old man full upon the forehead. The Toledo blade dropped from his hand, and he fell back without a cry, his head inside the open door.“Is he dead?”I called.Dick bent over the limp body; but, after a long moment, he was up again, waving a big, old-fashioned key.“No,”he answered.“Heart beating. Bad penny. He'll be all right. This the key of spider's parlour?”“I think so,”I said.“Dick, you're just in time to keep me from giving in. I'm starved.”He stooped and picked up the crowbar.“Old brute! I've a mind to finish him!”he exclaimed.“You don't mean that,”I said.“But look for something to tie him up with. He may come to himself before we're off.”“I guess I'll just tote him along with me,”said Dick.“Safe bind, safe find.”Gathering up the long body as if it had been the form of a[pg 332]sleeping child, Dick disappeared into the house. I knew that he was looking for the door of my cage, and presently—for the first time with pleasure—I heard the slipping back of the bolt and turning of the key.Already I was at the door, opening it for Dick to come in with his heavy burden.“Here's the bed,”I said, and Dick laid his burden down, not too gently. Then I think the next thing we did was to shake hands.“Blessed old man!”exclaimed Dick, a little unsteadily.“What a beastly business.”“It's a mystery,”I said.“And how you got to me—”“Conduit,”said Dick,“But I'll tell you all about that, and everything. Got no electric light here?”“Nothing but starlight. For Heaven's sake, tell me about Monica!”“She's all right,”said Dick.“Not a Duchess yet, if that's what worries you. Look here, if this place has been good enough to box you up in all this time, it's good enough to keephimin—”(He nodded towards the alcove.)“He lives alone here, without servants; I've found out all that, with a lot more; and his master—guess you know who—is in Madrid; so when this chap comes to himself he can try how he likes your quarters. They seem rather nice ones, judging from what I can see; but Carmona always does himself well.”“Is this Carmona's house?”I asked.“You bet it is. Little private sort of place he keeps ready when he wants to amuse himself in some way which his mother and Monica and other people mightn't approve of in Dukes. This old Johnny's a combination of caretaker and physician in ordinary to his grace. But let's get out of this. I can't give you a marble bath or Moorish decorations at my hotel, but I shouldn't wonder if you'd prefer the accommodation; and after that conduit business I need a‘wash and brush up’as much as you do. Why, old man, what's the matter? Not going to crack up, are you?”[pg 333]“I'm all right,”I said;“but I haven't had anything to eat since the day after I saw you off, except milk, and none of that for the last two days.”“Great Scott! you're joking. We parted five weeks ago!”The words gave me a shock in spite of the stubble on my chin and the whiteness of my hands. Dick had his wet arm round my shoulders, and we were at the door, which he was about to lock, and I startled him by caving in a little at the knees.“See here,”he said, hanging on to my arm as if he were afraid I should vanish in thin air,“we won't wait to dine at my hotel. We'll nose round a bit in this old Johnny's larder. You must be bucked up before you go out into the street. Oh, it's safe enough. The old brute's a hermit—for his own reasons or Carmona's. Nobody comes near the house, and we can take our own time. While you're eating you shall hear everything I've got to tell.”He locked and bolted the door, and helped me down the stairs, up which I must have been carried unconscious; perhaps by the gypsy, assisted by the master of the house.Below stairs the place was dark save for the light which had streamed out into thepatiowith the opening door. It came from a good-sized room evidently intended for a kitchen, but also used by the solitary tenant as a dining-room. It had a window opening on the court; this, however, was not only covered with heavy shutters, but protected by a curtain as well, and ventilation came through an adjoining room from a window that looked on another small court.Evidently my gaoler had been interrupted in the midst of his supper, and hearing a noise in thepatiohad stopped only long enough to snatch up a sword-stick. On the table was a simple meal of cold meat, salad, goats'-milk cheese, and fresh fruit; but to my starved eyes it seemed a feast. There was also a bottle half-full of red Spanish wine; and I did not wait for Dick's suggestion to sit down. I must get back my strength if I were to be of any use to Monica or myself, and I hardly listened to[pg 334]Dick's warning that a starved man must not satisfy his first hunger.“Eat slowly, and not too much,”he said, with anxious eyes on my face, which must have been frightful, though he was too tactful to make comments. As I obeyed, he told me his story, briefly and disjointedly, as the points came back to him.“Didn't hear from you,”he said,“and began wondering what was up. Wired twice; no answer; was a bit taken up with my own affairs just then, I'm afraid. Yes, I mean Pilar. After five days, wired the landlord. He answered you'd left with a friend. I thought that queer, and set out for Granada by next train, Ropes with me. At the Washington Irving I found both my telegrams to you and a letter. Landlord said he got a note from you, dated Motril, telling him you'd met a friend and gone off unexpectedly in his automobile. You enclosed more than enough money to pay bill and tips, and asked him to have your luggage packed and kept till your return, which might be in a few days or not for some time. Naturally, he hadn't worried; and as he'd destroyed the letter, I couldn't tell if it was your handwriting.“Well, I thought youmighthave rushed off suddenly on account of some lark of Carmona's; but I soon found out he was still in Granada, slowly getting better; and the guests hadn't gone. By the way, I called, but nobody in the house was seeing visitors. Ropes discovered that your car was in a stable down in the town, where you'd left it, without saying for how long. He and I were getting scared, and I went to the police, but didn't dare give your real name without your permission, especially as the authorities had a kind of prejudice against it. Fired off my best Spanish, though, and insinuated that Carmona wasn't very fond of you; but when I began hinting that it might be convenient for his plans that you should disappear, they wouldn't take me seriously, were polite, and all that, promised to look you up, as if you were a stray kitten, but intimated that most people who vanished had private reasons for doing so.“After that, I didn't expect them to find out anything, and[pg 335]they did their best not to disappoint me. I saw that if anybody was going to do the Sherlock Holmes' act, it must be Ropes and me. We sat tight at the Washington Irving, and looked around; but at the end of a fortnight no one was any wiser than at the beginning. Then what should happen but the dear old Colonel and Pilar popped down to see if they could help. Oh, and I forgot to tell you that meanwhile the people at Carmona's palace had cleared out. They'd gone back to Seville again by train; and what should happen but the Colonel and Pilar met Carmona face to face in the station.”“Not Monica?”I broke in.“No. I suppose the others had got into a carriage; he was lingering behind to give a valet directions about luggage. And then there was a scene. Pilar told me all about it. Carmona bowed; and before the Cherub could pull the little girl away, as he tried, seeing danger in her eye, she gave the Duke a piece of her mind. Said he was a villain, or some kind words of that sort. He retorted by saying to her father that he could make a lot of trouble for Cristóbal if they didn't take care. Pilar said they could accuse him of worse things than he could them; and somehow or other, in an evil moment, the subject of Corcito, a grey bull Carmona was once nasty about, came up. Then, before she knew what she was doing, Pilar flashed out the name of Vivillo, the beast she wanted to buy, you know. And from that minute the fat was in the fire as far as she was concerned. But about that later. What with you and the bull, she was in a dreadful state of mind when she got here, poor child. However, she put on her thinking cap, and said she,‘Try the gypsies. See if they don't know something.’“That was enough for me. I took a sudden fancy to Captain Pepe, the chief of the gypsies, and went every night to see a dance in his cave. But I soon saw he was straight; and they weren't a bad lot of people in the colony. The nasty ones he kicked out, and they had to hustle for themselves. Captain Pepe told me about one fellow, Juan Castello, who'd got himself disliked,[pg 336]though he was a nailer with the guitar; and when he said the chap had a sister who had a fine position in the house of a titled person, because she was the best seamstress in the country, I pricked up my ears. You can bet, after I'd heard the titled person was Carmona, I turned my attention to Mr. Castello, dropped in on him one day, named a big price, and asked him to give me lessons on the guitar. He didn't mind if he did, and we got quite friendly. I spent several evenings in his cave, where one night I heard a dog howling, as if it was mighty sick, behind a red curtain.”“That red curtain!”I exclaimed.“I shouldn't be where I am now, or have a scar on the back of my head, if I'd looked behind it.”“By Jove! Well, I got some idea of that sort. Castello said the dog belonged to a gentleman in Granada, who lived all alone in the Albaicín, and kept this beast as a watch-dog; but he was afraid it was going mad, and told Castello to shoot it. However, it was a valuable animal, and Castello was undertaking to cure it for his own benefit. Already it was better, and the owner talked of buying it back if it recovered. The old gentleman was coming up to see the dog that very evening, perhaps, Castello said; and being evidently proud of a respectable acquaintance, he went on talking about him, I encouraging him all I could, because any friend of his might prove interesting to me.“The minute I heard the chap was a kind of herb doctor, and sometimes treated grand people, I nearly jumped off my seat; for you know why Carmona was supposed to come to Granada?”I nodded.“Well, Castello was in with this doctor in a way, for he was engaged by him to fetch herbs and flowers from the mountains—like the Manzanilla, for instance, which only begins to grow at an elevation of twelve thousand feet. Castello believed that the old fellow could make poisons too, as well as antidotes; and said I to myself, 'Maybe that little dagger in the cathedral was[pg 337]specially prepared, eh?' Which would account for Carmona hurrying off to Granada after it had found the wrong billet.“Anyhow, I said I'd like to see the dog, so I was taken behind the red curtain into Mr. Castello's bedroom, and on a shelf lay a revolver which might have been twin to the one you bought in Madrid.”“It was still more nearly related,”said I.“Well, I thought so, but wasn't sure enough to call on the police. I went away when I'd said nice things about the sick dog; but I didn't go far. I hung around till Castello's visitor had been and gone, and then followed him to the door of this house. Such a mild, intelligent looking, well-dressed old gentleman, the herb doctor was; but I guess I needn't describe him to you!“Next day I bought some things at a baker's not far from here, and buttered up the shopkeeper, saying his store was too good for the neighbourhood. Of course he told me he had rich customers, and it was jolly lucky I'd been fagging up Spanish for Pilar's sake, or I should have missed a lot, right there. I soon got him on the subject of the herb doctor, his best client, who, though supposed to be well-off, and living in a good house, did all his shopping himself and kept no servants. Nobody knew much about him, except what he said of himself; that he could set bones, and was able to make as much money as he liked, selling his herb medicines to great personages. Who were the great personages? The baker couldn't tell; but the doctor had lived in his present house for years, after taking it when in a bad state of repair, and having it done up inside by workmen he brought from Madrid. From that day on, no one the baker knew had ever been invited in, though he'd heard stories of veiled ladies, and sounds of music at night.“At that, the thought jumped into my mind that maybe the house was Carmona's, a little secret plaything of his. And I remembered reading about a famous old palace in the Albaicín with an underground way to the Alhambra. Why shouldn't there be such a way from Carmona's palace to the doctor's[pg 338]house? And what a convenient place it would be to keep a troublesome person.”“Or to kill one,”I amended.“I thought of that; but I hoped. People don't commit murder when their blood is cool if they can get what they want cheaper. I went again to the police, said I believed that my friend was detained against his will in the house of Doctor Molina. But when they wanted my reasons I couldn't give any to convince them. They thought I was mad, and refused to search. I was afraid they'd warn the old chap to look out for a crazy American, so I hurried up and took matters into my own hands.“I wasn't sure enough of anything to jump on the man outside his own door and do the burglar act openly, lest the police should jump onme, and I should be laid by before I'd found you. But about that time I began to have water on the brain; or rather, I got possessed with the idea of sneaking into houses by means of conduits; and no wonder, when the whole Albaicín is honeycombed with watercourses, gluddering and gurgling from morning till night.“In the next street to this, there's a Moorish house of much the same sort, being torn down. They were selling old tiles to curiosity dealers one day, so I strolled into thepatio. The pavement was up, and I saw how the conduit ran underneath and supplied the fountain. That was instructive. Opposite this place of Molina's is a mill. I found out how the miller got his water, and that after it turned his wheel, it poured in this direction, being turned off every night about nine. At the miller's the conduit is open, only guarded by a rail; and I developed a taste for making sketches and taking photographs—tourist in search of the picturesque; miller got used to seeing me about, while I made myself familiar with the landscape. Then I bought a crowbar and a little electric lamp. The bar I hid under my coat; and when I was ready to shed the garment, Ropes put it on. I guess it was a looser fit for him than that conduit was for me, and there were twelve feet of conduit; good long strait-jacket, but I've been in it[pg 339]a lot of times now, and feel quite at home. You see, the job couldn't be done in one go, for I had to make the hole under the fountain bigger, and I've been tinkering away for nearly a week, o' nights when the water was stopped. And if I'd come up at last, like a demon in a pantomime, to find I'd had my trouble for my pains, I can't say what I should have turned my wits to next.”“Does Pilar know?”I asked.“She and the Colonel went off in a hurry to Madrid just before I took the job on. They thought they could influence the police at headquarters, which was their principal reason for going; though they had one or two others besides. But see here, you've got the story pat now, and you're looking a thousand per cent. more healthy than when you sat down at this table ten minutes ago. Poor old Ropes, who always hangs about keeping guard, will be mighty glad to see you; but before we open the door and walk out as if we owned the house, let's have a look round. There may be something which will give me a chance to say‘I told you so!’to the police.”Refreshed with wine, and such scanty rations as Dick had allowed, I walked steadily enough into the adjoining room, while Dick carried a lamp. There were no such gorgeous decorations here, as in the suite I had reluctantly occupied. A modern bed stood in one corner. There were shelves on the wall, fitted with glass doors which protected jars and bottles. On a large table lay an outfit for chemical experiments, and on another some yellow flowers half buried in green leaves. In the window was a modern desk, and Dick at once began to rummage among the few papers in the pigeon-holes. There was nothing, however, which seemed to bear upon our affairs, with the exception of a telegraph form, which I seized upon. It was dated June first, and had been sent from a Madrid office. There was no signature, but there was a hint of something secret in the three words it contained.“Day after to-morrow.”Dick and I stared at the paper, as if we expected the meaning of the message to spring up to our eyes.[pg 340]“My name's not Richard D. Waring if Carmona's signature oughtn't to be tacked on to that,”he said.“Now, we've something to go upon, for a beginning. This telegram will be traced to the sender before I'm many hours older; we can trust our dear old Cherub for that.”“Day after to-morrow,”I repeated.“What's going to happen day after to-morrow, that Carmona should have wired to this man?”“I should say it was his way of letting Molina know that the cage door could open.”“But why day after to-morrow? He—”I broke off suddenly, and it seemed that my heart would stop beating.“Dick,”I began again, in a queer voice that did not sound like my own,“is Monica—”I could not finish the sentence. But Dick understood.“Forgive me,”he said.“I saw you weren't strong enough to bear it at first. I wanted you to eat, and then—I'd have kept it back a bit longer if I could, just till I got you to the hotel. She's going to marry him—on the third of June, Heaven knows why, though Pilar vows the girl can't be to blame, and that they've made her believe somehow she's sacrificing herself for your sake.”“What day is this?”I asked.“The first. The Royal Wedding was yesterday, and a terrible bomb explosion, in which the King and Queen had a narrow escape, and—but come, Ramón, I want to get you to the hotel.”“I'm not going to the hotel,”I said.“I'm going to Madrid, to stop Carmona's marriage.”[pg 341]XLThrough the NightDick looked at me with indulgent sympathy, as if I were a child.“It's after eleven o'clock at night,”he said.“The train for Madrid went two hours ago, and—”“Did you say Ropes was waiting for you outside?”I asked.“Yes.”“And my car's still in the garage where I put it?”“Yes; but you're not in a fit state for a journey. If you could see yourself—”“Oh, I know I'm a nightmare apparition,”I cut in;“but when I'm shaved and—”“The trip would kill you.”“It would kill me not to take it.”We looked at each other for a moment, then Dick said—“All right. Come on. I know what you feel. But what about that old reprobate upstairs?”“I'll wait for you here while you take up some food and leave it in the room. We can't waste time in Granada on his account. I'll tell my story, and you can tell yours to the police in Madrid, after I—after I've done what I'm going there to do.”“How long a drive is it?”Dick asked resignedly.“It's about two hundred and seventy miles. If we can start by one or two, bar accidents we ought to be in Madrid by noon.”“The royal bull-fight's to-morrow,”answered Dick.“Although the wedding's next day, and the invitations have been out a fortnight, Carmona and Lady Monica are bound[pg 342]to be there, as it's a royal invitation show; that means a command.”“Very well,”said I.“Since it may be as difficult to reach her in Madrid as in Seville and Granada, I shall wait outside the entrance to the bull-ring, and as she's about to go in, she shall see me and hear the whole truth. Don't look as if you thought it would do no good, Dick; if she's promised to marry Carmona in spite of all, it's because he has made her think he can ruin me if she refuses. Pilar's instinct is right, I know; and now for the first time I understand why Carmona didn't denounce me to the police as Casa Triana, when Monica refused to keep her engagement with him, as I'm sure she did. No doubt he told her lies—that I could be imprisoned—for years, perhaps. And his wounded hand—what an opportunity for him! Ah! he wouldn't waste it. He'd make her believe I stabbed him in the cathedral that night. How plausible! And as he's been very ill, can't you imagine what her fears for me must have been? Dick, I regard her coming marriage as a proof of love, not of indifference.”“I'm ready to agree with you,”said Dick.“But you're risking your life to prove it.”“Nonsense,”I answered.“The thought that I'm free, that I'm going to her, and that at last I have Carmona in my hand, will give me strength enough to get through.”Dick raised his eyebrows, but did not answer. He was collecting bread and meat on a plate, to leave for the man upstairs.Five minutes later we were out of the house and in the street. In front of the miller's premises Ropes was walking up and down. He did not say much when he saw that Dick had a companion; but as he wrung the hand I held out to him, I heard him breathing hard, and he swore under his breath when he saw my face by the light of a street lamp.It was the look on his which made me realize, as Dick's persuasions had not, that I must delay long enough to be made again into some semblance of a sane man. An hour more before getting[pg 343]on the road would not endanger success, though it would try my patience. A quarter of a mile's walk to the garage was a sharper test of my strength than I would confess; but when Ropes had roused the watchman, filled the good old Gloria with petrol, and started her up the hill, the rush of pure night air gave me life.At the hotel, we walked in without waking the dozingconcièrge. Dick made me free of his things; and when, between us, we had finished my toilet, he admitted that I was not as appalling an object as he had thought. He changed his wet clothes, left a note for the landlord, and it was not yet two o'clock when we started, Ropes driving, Dick with me in the tonneau.“To Madrid, top speed, quickest way,”was the word; and I hoped for a non-stop run, or as near it as possible.The quickest way was by Jaen, a road which none of us knew, and the starlit sky was obscured by dark clouds which heralded a summer thunder-storm. As Ropes steered across the Vega towards that gap in the mountains which is the door of the north, there came a waterspout of rain on the roof. Thunder drowned the purr of the motor, and a flash of lightning every other moment dimmed the flying circle of our acetylenes. There had been rain more than once of late, and this deluge made the road, already bad, soft and greasy as an outworn sponge. The Gloria waltzed and slipped in a mass of brown porridge, but Ropes knew that we were to drive against time, and, throwing caution to the wind, tore through the treacherous mud as if to win the cup in a great race.We flung Granada behind us, dashing in among the foothills of the mountains, mounting a slippery defile, with the rain like whips lashing our faces. Orchards flashed by; there was a rock tunnel, where the lights shone fiercely on rough-hewn stone, and the thrum of the motor became a roar.Out again, and still up, the beams from our lamps shooting across vineyards, plantations of figs and pomegranates, and striking silver from the curves of the Guadalbullon River. A[pg 344]glimpse of an old castle commanding a dark gorge, and we were at Jaen; then, presently, the road became familiar, for we had travelled it before. At this very corner we had stopped to ask the way of men who carried strange implements like fire-extinguishers, for this was Bailen; but now, instead of receiving our first glimpse of Andalucía, we were leaving it behind.Eighty miles out of two hundred and seventy we had come, though the pace had not been good. Still the rain was ceasing, and we could make up for lost time, as country traffic had not begun yet.La Carolina, Santa Elena; the road was mounting for the well-remembered defile of Despeñaperros. Hoot! went the siren, screaming along the face of tremendous cliffs, and a louder shriek rang as if an echo. A line of fire down in the gorge meant the train from Madrid to Seville. It glittered like a string of stars drawn across a spider's-web viaduct, then vanished into a tunnel, while we swept on towards the plains of La Mancha, Ropes crouched like a goblin over his wheel.Rain again, blurring villages, and sweeping through the stone streets of a town: fields once more, and at last Manzanares. There Dick insisted that we should stop for food, lest strength fail me when I should need it most; but I could not bear to go back to thefondaI knew, to see the pretty girls there look at my pale face with shocked eyes, perhaps to have them question me about the“white and gold angel.”It was eight o'clock when we got away from the café, where we had spent some twenty minutes; and the road was no longer clear. We were obliged to moderate our speed, and lost more time than we could afford getting on to Aranjuez.“Do your best now, Ropes,”I was saying, when the Gloria—for once perverse—burst a tyre with a loud explosion. Ropes threw me a rueful look.“I'd hoped to get through without trouble, sir,”he said,“but the car's lain up for more than five weeks, and there was no time last night to look her over.”[pg 345]“You've done splendidly,”I assured him.“I'll get out with Mr. Waring and stretch my legs.”I was glad to walk, and still more glad to feel that instead of being exhausted as Dick had prophesied, strength seemed coming back. As we strolled up and down, so sure was I of Dick's sympathy that I began to talk about my hopes and fears. He did not disappoint me, but once or twice he answered absent-mindedly, with a far-off look in his eyes, and suddenly, with a pang of remorse, I remembered that I had not once referred to the progress of his love affairs. My own had preoccupied me to the exclusion of everything outside, and I had spoken of Pilar's only in connection with Monica.Anathematizing myself aloud as an ungrateful and ungracious brute, I asked if Pilar had made up her mind.“You needn't blame yourself,”he said.“All this time she's kept me on tenter-hooks, because, though she admitted liking me, she couldn't reconcile her heart with her conscience. I got the dear old Cherub's blessing, and flaunted it in her face; but that wasn't enough. I also argued that it was her duty to marry me and try to make me as good as herself, but she seemed to think it might work out the other way. Then you disappeared, and the last word she said was that if I found you, she'd take it as a sign that San Cristóbal wanted the match; seems he's a matchmaking saint, when he's in Spain, as well as a motoring one. So, you see, she'll have to keep her promise now; and I'll owe my happiness to you.”“I haven't come back to life in vain, then,”I said.“It will be a good moment for me, whatever happens, when I see my little sister Pilar again.”“She'll be at the royal bull-fight,”Dick sighed.“I thought she hated bull-fights—for Vivillo's sake.”“It's for Vivillo's sake she's going. She's moved heaven and earth to get invitations.”“And she's succeeded.”“Thereby hangs a tale. But I'm not going to bother you with it.”[pg 346]I insisted, urging him the more to atone for past carelessness.“Well, then,”he said with another sigh,“Vivillo's fifth bull in the royal fight to-day.”I was shocked, knowing how Pilar loved the noble brown beast, and how she had counted on possessing him. But, if I had had my wits about me, I might have guessed last night how matters stood. Dick had told me then that, in the impromptu scene between Carmona and the O'Donnels, with Seville railway station for the stage,“the name of Vivillo had unfortunately come up.”Now, Dick explained that Carmona had caught at the girl's hasty words, had written his agent at theganaderíainstructing him not to part with the bull at any price, no matter how far negotiations had gone with Colonel O'Donnel. A day or two later the agent was directed by telegram to send Vivillo immediately to Madrid, as the Duke had offered him as a gift for the great show of the royal bull-fight. This news had come to Pilar at Granada in an ill-spelled, but well-meaning letter from Mateo, theganadero.“It was sheer spite,”went on Dick,“and Pilar was broken-hearted. If she hadn't blurted out Vivillo's name in a temper, the bull might have been safe. Carmona wouldn't have interested himself, as he trusts his agent in all business matters. It's true several of the grandee owners of bull-farms have been asked togiveeach a picked bull for the royal fight, which is expected to be the grandest affair of the generation; but Carmona could as well have given another instead of Vivillo.”“It's like him,”I said.“Poor Pilar!”“She's simply ill. But queerly enough, she hasn't given up hope yet—or hadn't when she wrote, and enclosed an invitation-ticket she'd contrived to get for me. She begged me to come if I could, and‘see her through,’though I haven't the vaguest notion what she means. All I know is, she and the Cherub have been doing everything they could till the last minute to make an exchange of bulls. The dear old chap rushed off to Madrid, as I said, to stir up the police in your affair; and Pilar hoped she[pg 347]might get a chance to see Lady Monica, and ask what the dickens she meant by throwing you over. But any spare time the two had, I guess they've put in for Vivillo. They bought a fine Muira bull, at a tiptop price, and offered it to the authorities in exchange for Vivillo, who has been at pasture for the last ten days, recruiting after being boxed up for his long railroad journey. Whether Carmona had a hand in that part or not, anyhow nothing could be done.”“And Pilar is going to see her pet die!”I exclaimed.“I can't understand the Cherub allowing that,”said Dick.“I went to a bull-fight with him the day after I got back to Seville. Jove, it was a sickener, though there were some fine moments, I admit; and I can understand how Spaniards, brought up to understand every stroke, every move, think it fine sport. But it isn't sport for amateurs, and I haven't been able to swallow beef since; feel as if I'd been on visiting terms with it. Last touch of horror, each bull having a name. Great Scott! how would it feel to be as intimate as that with sheep and chickens, so you could speak of frying Lottie for breakfast, or grilling Maud with peas for lunch? Of course, the royal bull-fight will be wonderful—something only seen when a Spanish king marries—but I hate the thought of Pilar being there.”“Her father'll be with her,”I tried to console him.“No, he won't. His seat's in a box. Hers has been given inTendidoNumber 9, a space set apart for thesenoritas de la aristocraciato sit together, in smart dresses and mantillas, as if they were part of the show.”“Perhaps Monica will be there,”I said quickly.“Not she. The Duke and Duchess of Carmona and the Duke's fiancée and her mother will be in a box next the royal bride and bridegroom; Pilar heard that, and wrote me. You see, they're in high favour at Court now, and Carmona's ambition will be satisfied at last. The new Duchess is to be a lady-in-waiting, and take up her duties when the King and Queen come back from their honeymoon.”[pg 348]“She never will take them up as Duchess of Carmona,”said I.“Car ready,”announced Ropes, who had made record time in changing an inner tube, and was panting with his exertions.But where was San Cristóbal to-day—on this day of all others, when his services were needed? We had not gone half a mile when there came a whizz, and a grinding noise which meant a broken chain. Ropes grew pale and bit his lip. In his overpowering anxiety for me he was losing nerve.“Never mind mending it here,”I said.“Tighten up the axle, and go on with one sprocket only. We can get into the town that way, and find a machine-shop.”We did find one; but we were kept a full hour in Aranjuez; nor could we make good going afterwards as we approached the capital. The road was covered with vehicles, and packed as we neared Madrid; for every soul not bidden to the great bull-fight wished to see the favoured ones who were, and to applaud the King and Queen who by their splendid courage two days before had won double popularity.It was almost beyond endurance to be caught in the pack, and to know that there was no way out, except to move with the throng; nevertheless, it had to be endured. And time went on.We had hoped to run into some hole or corner as near as might be to the royal entrance of the Plaza de Toros, before the crowd began to pour in; but an hour struck as we crept into the great sunlit plaza—four o'clock; the time appointed for the pageant to begin.

[pg 324]XXXVIIIThe FountainThe delicate fretwork of the walls was blurred in twilight when I waked from heavy, irresistible sleep.I felt dull, but could trace no other bad effect from the drug. Indeed, I fancied that I was stronger; and very slowly, with occasional rests, I got upon my feet and began to crawl about the room.There was very little furniture, but what there was, was good, and of a graceful Moorish design which suited the wall decoration, and the horseshoe shape of the window. This had an elaborate lattice of wood, which let in plenty of air, as there was no glass; but outside were six stout bars of iron, and the lattice was securely fastened. I stared through the pattern of wood into a very small but charmingpatio, paved with brick and tiles, and having in the centre a fountain, with a shallow basin. Feathery plumes of water played over a few low palms in great blue and white pots of Triana ware, but as I looked the plumes shrank almost to nothing, then ceased to wave. The fountain was asleep for the night.Supporting myself with a hand on the wall, I got to the room of the marble bath. There, the window was but a foot square, and was set high in the wall. On a low, carved bench, lay the clothing I had worn on the night of my visit to the gypsy's cave. I sat down, and explored the pockets. What money I had had—six or seven hundred pesetas, so far as I could remember—was gone; so was my gold watch, and the revolver I had so gaily carried as a sure means of self-protection.[pg 325]“Gypsy perquisites,”I said to myself, but the sight of the clothes brought back the past so vividly that I could see myself bidding good-bye to Dick at the railway station. Loyal, resourceful old Dick! Why had he not found his friend in all this time, while my hands were growing white and thin?Surely there must have been some hue or cry, when I did not appear either at the villa or the hotel? A man cannot vanish off the face of the earth, I told myself, and leave no trace. I longed for the man with thecapuchato come back, so that I could ask him more questions, even though I could put no faith in his answers; but he did not appear again that night. I slept after a time, a sleep of exhaustion; and when I waked in broad daylight, I found a glass of milk on a small Moorish stand by the bed.I could not bear to drink it, lest the same drug should make me sleep as before. But how regain strength without food? And evidently I was to have this or none.For a time I waited, hoping that my“good friend”would come, and that, if I told him I disliked milk, he would give me something else, not so easy to mix with a drug. At last, however, I grew faint. Perhaps, I thought, the milk was innocent this time. I drank, and the same heaviness overcame me. So, through most of the day I slept, and raged against myself when I awoke.Again, a full glass stood by the bedside, but I would not drink. Many hours of dozing had left me wakeful; and my eyes were wide open when, an hour or two after dawn, the door in the outer room was softly unlocked.He had not forgotten hiscapucha, though he must have expected to find me asleep. In his hand was a glass of milk, but when he had seen that I lay awake, he saw also that the other glass had not been touched.I was neither hungry no thirsty, I said in excuse. And I could not rest because I was not comfortable. It had got upon my nerves, I explained, to feel my hair long on my neck and my face unshaven. Would my host get in a barber?The man reflected for a moment, and then said that he would[pg 326]do his best as a barber. At present, and until his vow had been accomplished, he did not go out, except after nightfall, and therefore could not ask anyone to come to the house.The instant he had turned his back, I slipped off the bed, so that I might be ready to stagger as well as I could from my alcove, and pounce upon him when he had the door open; for I believed that I was strong enough now to have some chance. But his hearing must have been keen, for he turned, and told me not to exert myself. What—I was only getting up so as to be ready when he came back with shears and razor? I need not trouble. He would do all while I was in bed; and he would wait until he had seen me return there.He was master of the situation, and knew it. I was obliged to give him his way; and afterwards he was so quick in getting to the door that, in my weak state, I could not have reached him in time.When he came back, however, I was ready. Waiting just inside the door, as it was cautiously opened I threw myself upon him. But I had overestimated my strength, and underestimated his. Quick and lithe as a leopard, the old man wound himself round me, and for a moment we struggled together for the mastery, I thinking of the razor he had promised to bring, and hoping to get it. If I could do that, I should be able to keep him at bay, without any violence, save threats.Once, I had almost got him down, or he let me fancy it; but with a sudden twist he caused me to lose my balance, which was none too steady. I slipped on the tiled floor, and had half saved myself when a quick push sent me staggering back. Instantly thecapuchawas on the other side of the door, a bolt slid into place, and the key turned in the lock.Rage gave me a brief spurt of strength. I caught up the carved wooden bench in the bathroom, and dashed it furiously again and again against a panel of the door. But the strong wood did not even crack under my blows.As hour after hour passed, and I was left alone, from time to[pg 327]time I renewed my efforts, with no result except that eventually I broke the bench. Then I tore at the lattice of the window, thrusting my fingers through, and trying vainly to pull the woodwork to pieces. Though the iron bars on the outside would prevent my escaping into thepatio, I thought, if the lattice were broken, shouts might be heard more easily.At last, when I had been obliged to give up hope, I pressed my face against the close pattern of the woodwork and yelled lustily, till my voice failed. But my own shouts were the only sounds I heard, save distant church bells, and the singing of subterranean waters, silent only at night when the fountain went to sleep. It would be all but impossible, I had to admit, for anyone outside to judge the direction of a cry, coming through a screened window surrounded on all sides by high house walls.Darkness fell; and I grew so hungry that I would gladly have drunk the milk left since morning. I tasted it, and found it spoiled by the heat, for the day had been warm. In disgust I threw it away, but when all that night had gone and part of the next day, I regretted my fastidiousness.Frequent draughts of water from the room of the marble bath gave me an occasional fillip, but a man recovering from congestion of the brain or some such malady, following the breaking of his head, cannot live long on water; and it was clear that my host, disgusted with my“ingratitude,”intended to punish me cruelly or to put an end to me by starvation.When the second night closed in, I made up my mind that he had decided upon my death. Perhaps, if I had been docile, when the time fixed by his employer had expired, he might have chosen to set me free, trusting that I believed his story. But seeing that I did not believe it, that I would spare no effort, no trick, which might enable me to escape while my presence in the outside world was still highly undesirable, the man had probably crushed all humane feeling for his prisoner. Since no one had sought me, living, in his house, it was unlikely that I should be sought for there when dead.[pg 328]I was at the window, as I told myself these things, looking out into thepatio, where the palms, and the shell which was the upper basin of the fountain, were faintly definable in starlight. Robbed of my watch, the only way I had of calculating time after nightfall was by the silence which came about an hour after sunset. Then the gurgling voice of hidden water (which sang underground in this secludedpatioas everywhere in the Albaicín, and on the Alhambra hill) abruptly ceased, after a distant ringing which I took to be that of the bell in the Torre de la Vela, regulating the irrigation of all the country round. At this same moment the diamond plumes of the fountain invariably fell, and disappeared, not to wave again until the morning sun was up.I was always sorry when the fountain died, for it was the sole companion of my captivity, my one dim pleasure watching its nymph-like play. And to-night the dead silence of thepatioseemed the lull before my own death.It must have been, I thought, somewhere about ten o'clock when I heard a new sound in the court, slight, elusive, but distinct. Chink—chink—like metal on stone, as if a troll were mining underground. The old man was taking time by the forelock, I said grimly to myself, getting ready a place in some cellar to lay me away when I should be finished. I should last some days yet; but it took time to do these things well. At the hotel they had told me how a year or two ago, in destroying an old house in the Albaicín to build a new one on the sight, workmen had come across the skeletons of two French grenadiers neatly sealed up in a wall of stone, where they had kept guard since the time of the Peninsular War. Probably a night or two had been needed for the making of their niche.Chink—chink! Yes, the old wretch must be at work in a cellar. The noise certainly came from underground; and it was not as agreeable to my ears as the tinkle of the vanished fountain. I wished the hour would come for the water to leap up and drown that other stealthy sound.Suddenly, as I turned a wistful gaze on the alabaster shell[pg 329]dimly glimmering among the low palms, to my astonishment it seemed to totter. I thought that it must be a mere illusion of weary eyes, or that the effect was created by a cloud obscuring the starlight. But again the white shell moved against the dark green background, this time swaying from side to side.Could there be an earthquake, so slight that I did not feel the shock? Even as I asked myself the question, the shell of the fountain was loosened from its support, and fell into the main basin, now almost empty. The water-lilies and their green pads which floated sparsely there muffled the sound of the crash, but there was a noise of breaking. The slabs of coloured mosaic which paved the lower basin upheaved, as if the earth beneath were bursting, and scattered from side to side, falling over the crushed lines. Thenthrougha ragged black aperture rose the head and shoulders of a man.The metallic sound had stopped; but from somewhere in the house there came the slamming of a door.The head and shoulders, motionless now, were sharply defined against the scattered heap of white fragments, like the bust of a man modelled in black marble. Someone whistled softly, and the tune was,“The Girl I Left Behind Me.”“Dick!”I called through the close wooden lattice.“Hurrah!”he answered; and the black marble bust became a full length statue of a man.How he had found me, how he had come, I did not know; but there he was, and the gate of life had not closed upon me after all. Dick was out of the jagged hole in the basin, and half across thepatio, when a door, which I had always seen shut, burst open to let out a stream of light, and the figure of the old man I knew so well, leaped on him.I was weak, and for a moment I turned sick, thepatiowith its broken fountain, and the forms of the men in a halo of yellow light, whirling before my eyes as if there were indeed an earthquake. Then the mist cleared, and like a rat in a cage I watched the fight which meant life or death for more than one of us.[pg 330]There was nocapuchanow to cover the grey-streaked head and venerable beard. Once I caught a glimpse of a profile sharp as a hawk's. The old man had come out of the house with a Toledo sword-stick, such as the King and his friend had used with the brigands, and as he saw the enemy he had to deal with, he had thrown away the bamboo stick. The long, thin blade glittered in the same light that showed me Dick, armed with an iron crowbar, formidable and threatening.If it had been a scene in a play, and I in the audience, I should have applauded, for there was something in me which cried out that it was a fine picture. But Dick's life and mine were in the balance.

The delicate fretwork of the walls was blurred in twilight when I waked from heavy, irresistible sleep.

I felt dull, but could trace no other bad effect from the drug. Indeed, I fancied that I was stronger; and very slowly, with occasional rests, I got upon my feet and began to crawl about the room.

There was very little furniture, but what there was, was good, and of a graceful Moorish design which suited the wall decoration, and the horseshoe shape of the window. This had an elaborate lattice of wood, which let in plenty of air, as there was no glass; but outside were six stout bars of iron, and the lattice was securely fastened. I stared through the pattern of wood into a very small but charmingpatio, paved with brick and tiles, and having in the centre a fountain, with a shallow basin. Feathery plumes of water played over a few low palms in great blue and white pots of Triana ware, but as I looked the plumes shrank almost to nothing, then ceased to wave. The fountain was asleep for the night.

Supporting myself with a hand on the wall, I got to the room of the marble bath. There, the window was but a foot square, and was set high in the wall. On a low, carved bench, lay the clothing I had worn on the night of my visit to the gypsy's cave. I sat down, and explored the pockets. What money I had had—six or seven hundred pesetas, so far as I could remember—was gone; so was my gold watch, and the revolver I had so gaily carried as a sure means of self-protection.

[pg 325]“Gypsy perquisites,”I said to myself, but the sight of the clothes brought back the past so vividly that I could see myself bidding good-bye to Dick at the railway station. Loyal, resourceful old Dick! Why had he not found his friend in all this time, while my hands were growing white and thin?

Surely there must have been some hue or cry, when I did not appear either at the villa or the hotel? A man cannot vanish off the face of the earth, I told myself, and leave no trace. I longed for the man with thecapuchato come back, so that I could ask him more questions, even though I could put no faith in his answers; but he did not appear again that night. I slept after a time, a sleep of exhaustion; and when I waked in broad daylight, I found a glass of milk on a small Moorish stand by the bed.

I could not bear to drink it, lest the same drug should make me sleep as before. But how regain strength without food? And evidently I was to have this or none.

For a time I waited, hoping that my“good friend”would come, and that, if I told him I disliked milk, he would give me something else, not so easy to mix with a drug. At last, however, I grew faint. Perhaps, I thought, the milk was innocent this time. I drank, and the same heaviness overcame me. So, through most of the day I slept, and raged against myself when I awoke.

Again, a full glass stood by the bedside, but I would not drink. Many hours of dozing had left me wakeful; and my eyes were wide open when, an hour or two after dawn, the door in the outer room was softly unlocked.

He had not forgotten hiscapucha, though he must have expected to find me asleep. In his hand was a glass of milk, but when he had seen that I lay awake, he saw also that the other glass had not been touched.

I was neither hungry no thirsty, I said in excuse. And I could not rest because I was not comfortable. It had got upon my nerves, I explained, to feel my hair long on my neck and my face unshaven. Would my host get in a barber?

The man reflected for a moment, and then said that he would[pg 326]do his best as a barber. At present, and until his vow had been accomplished, he did not go out, except after nightfall, and therefore could not ask anyone to come to the house.

The instant he had turned his back, I slipped off the bed, so that I might be ready to stagger as well as I could from my alcove, and pounce upon him when he had the door open; for I believed that I was strong enough now to have some chance. But his hearing must have been keen, for he turned, and told me not to exert myself. What—I was only getting up so as to be ready when he came back with shears and razor? I need not trouble. He would do all while I was in bed; and he would wait until he had seen me return there.

He was master of the situation, and knew it. I was obliged to give him his way; and afterwards he was so quick in getting to the door that, in my weak state, I could not have reached him in time.

When he came back, however, I was ready. Waiting just inside the door, as it was cautiously opened I threw myself upon him. But I had overestimated my strength, and underestimated his. Quick and lithe as a leopard, the old man wound himself round me, and for a moment we struggled together for the mastery, I thinking of the razor he had promised to bring, and hoping to get it. If I could do that, I should be able to keep him at bay, without any violence, save threats.

Once, I had almost got him down, or he let me fancy it; but with a sudden twist he caused me to lose my balance, which was none too steady. I slipped on the tiled floor, and had half saved myself when a quick push sent me staggering back. Instantly thecapuchawas on the other side of the door, a bolt slid into place, and the key turned in the lock.

Rage gave me a brief spurt of strength. I caught up the carved wooden bench in the bathroom, and dashed it furiously again and again against a panel of the door. But the strong wood did not even crack under my blows.

As hour after hour passed, and I was left alone, from time to[pg 327]time I renewed my efforts, with no result except that eventually I broke the bench. Then I tore at the lattice of the window, thrusting my fingers through, and trying vainly to pull the woodwork to pieces. Though the iron bars on the outside would prevent my escaping into thepatio, I thought, if the lattice were broken, shouts might be heard more easily.

At last, when I had been obliged to give up hope, I pressed my face against the close pattern of the woodwork and yelled lustily, till my voice failed. But my own shouts were the only sounds I heard, save distant church bells, and the singing of subterranean waters, silent only at night when the fountain went to sleep. It would be all but impossible, I had to admit, for anyone outside to judge the direction of a cry, coming through a screened window surrounded on all sides by high house walls.

Darkness fell; and I grew so hungry that I would gladly have drunk the milk left since morning. I tasted it, and found it spoiled by the heat, for the day had been warm. In disgust I threw it away, but when all that night had gone and part of the next day, I regretted my fastidiousness.

Frequent draughts of water from the room of the marble bath gave me an occasional fillip, but a man recovering from congestion of the brain or some such malady, following the breaking of his head, cannot live long on water; and it was clear that my host, disgusted with my“ingratitude,”intended to punish me cruelly or to put an end to me by starvation.

When the second night closed in, I made up my mind that he had decided upon my death. Perhaps, if I had been docile, when the time fixed by his employer had expired, he might have chosen to set me free, trusting that I believed his story. But seeing that I did not believe it, that I would spare no effort, no trick, which might enable me to escape while my presence in the outside world was still highly undesirable, the man had probably crushed all humane feeling for his prisoner. Since no one had sought me, living, in his house, it was unlikely that I should be sought for there when dead.

[pg 328]I was at the window, as I told myself these things, looking out into thepatio, where the palms, and the shell which was the upper basin of the fountain, were faintly definable in starlight. Robbed of my watch, the only way I had of calculating time after nightfall was by the silence which came about an hour after sunset. Then the gurgling voice of hidden water (which sang underground in this secludedpatioas everywhere in the Albaicín, and on the Alhambra hill) abruptly ceased, after a distant ringing which I took to be that of the bell in the Torre de la Vela, regulating the irrigation of all the country round. At this same moment the diamond plumes of the fountain invariably fell, and disappeared, not to wave again until the morning sun was up.

I was always sorry when the fountain died, for it was the sole companion of my captivity, my one dim pleasure watching its nymph-like play. And to-night the dead silence of thepatioseemed the lull before my own death.

It must have been, I thought, somewhere about ten o'clock when I heard a new sound in the court, slight, elusive, but distinct. Chink—chink—like metal on stone, as if a troll were mining underground. The old man was taking time by the forelock, I said grimly to myself, getting ready a place in some cellar to lay me away when I should be finished. I should last some days yet; but it took time to do these things well. At the hotel they had told me how a year or two ago, in destroying an old house in the Albaicín to build a new one on the sight, workmen had come across the skeletons of two French grenadiers neatly sealed up in a wall of stone, where they had kept guard since the time of the Peninsular War. Probably a night or two had been needed for the making of their niche.

Chink—chink! Yes, the old wretch must be at work in a cellar. The noise certainly came from underground; and it was not as agreeable to my ears as the tinkle of the vanished fountain. I wished the hour would come for the water to leap up and drown that other stealthy sound.

Suddenly, as I turned a wistful gaze on the alabaster shell[pg 329]dimly glimmering among the low palms, to my astonishment it seemed to totter. I thought that it must be a mere illusion of weary eyes, or that the effect was created by a cloud obscuring the starlight. But again the white shell moved against the dark green background, this time swaying from side to side.

Could there be an earthquake, so slight that I did not feel the shock? Even as I asked myself the question, the shell of the fountain was loosened from its support, and fell into the main basin, now almost empty. The water-lilies and their green pads which floated sparsely there muffled the sound of the crash, but there was a noise of breaking. The slabs of coloured mosaic which paved the lower basin upheaved, as if the earth beneath were bursting, and scattered from side to side, falling over the crushed lines. Thenthrougha ragged black aperture rose the head and shoulders of a man.

The metallic sound had stopped; but from somewhere in the house there came the slamming of a door.

The head and shoulders, motionless now, were sharply defined against the scattered heap of white fragments, like the bust of a man modelled in black marble. Someone whistled softly, and the tune was,“The Girl I Left Behind Me.”

“Dick!”I called through the close wooden lattice.

“Hurrah!”he answered; and the black marble bust became a full length statue of a man.

How he had found me, how he had come, I did not know; but there he was, and the gate of life had not closed upon me after all. Dick was out of the jagged hole in the basin, and half across thepatio, when a door, which I had always seen shut, burst open to let out a stream of light, and the figure of the old man I knew so well, leaped on him.

I was weak, and for a moment I turned sick, thepatiowith its broken fountain, and the forms of the men in a halo of yellow light, whirling before my eyes as if there were indeed an earthquake. Then the mist cleared, and like a rat in a cage I watched the fight which meant life or death for more than one of us.

[pg 330]There was nocapuchanow to cover the grey-streaked head and venerable beard. Once I caught a glimpse of a profile sharp as a hawk's. The old man had come out of the house with a Toledo sword-stick, such as the King and his friend had used with the brigands, and as he saw the enemy he had to deal with, he had thrown away the bamboo stick. The long, thin blade glittered in the same light that showed me Dick, armed with an iron crowbar, formidable and threatening.

If it had been a scene in a play, and I in the audience, I should have applauded, for there was something in me which cried out that it was a fine picture. But Dick's life and mine were in the balance.

[pg 331]XXXIXDay After To-morrowThe pair stood eyeing each other like two fencers, Dick with the crowbar raised, and pointing at his heart the blade which would pierce it when the Spaniard dared advance an inch.I longed to shout“Fling the crowbar at his head!”But if Dick's eye released the eye of his opponent he was a dead man, I must not risk distracting him for the fraction of a second.It seemed an hour, though it could not have been a minute when, as if my thought had winged to his brain, the thick iron bar whirled through the air, and struck the old man full upon the forehead. The Toledo blade dropped from his hand, and he fell back without a cry, his head inside the open door.“Is he dead?”I called.Dick bent over the limp body; but, after a long moment, he was up again, waving a big, old-fashioned key.“No,”he answered.“Heart beating. Bad penny. He'll be all right. This the key of spider's parlour?”“I think so,”I said.“Dick, you're just in time to keep me from giving in. I'm starved.”He stooped and picked up the crowbar.“Old brute! I've a mind to finish him!”he exclaimed.“You don't mean that,”I said.“But look for something to tie him up with. He may come to himself before we're off.”“I guess I'll just tote him along with me,”said Dick.“Safe bind, safe find.”Gathering up the long body as if it had been the form of a[pg 332]sleeping child, Dick disappeared into the house. I knew that he was looking for the door of my cage, and presently—for the first time with pleasure—I heard the slipping back of the bolt and turning of the key.Already I was at the door, opening it for Dick to come in with his heavy burden.“Here's the bed,”I said, and Dick laid his burden down, not too gently. Then I think the next thing we did was to shake hands.“Blessed old man!”exclaimed Dick, a little unsteadily.“What a beastly business.”“It's a mystery,”I said.“And how you got to me—”“Conduit,”said Dick,“But I'll tell you all about that, and everything. Got no electric light here?”“Nothing but starlight. For Heaven's sake, tell me about Monica!”“She's all right,”said Dick.“Not a Duchess yet, if that's what worries you. Look here, if this place has been good enough to box you up in all this time, it's good enough to keephimin—”(He nodded towards the alcove.)“He lives alone here, without servants; I've found out all that, with a lot more; and his master—guess you know who—is in Madrid; so when this chap comes to himself he can try how he likes your quarters. They seem rather nice ones, judging from what I can see; but Carmona always does himself well.”“Is this Carmona's house?”I asked.“You bet it is. Little private sort of place he keeps ready when he wants to amuse himself in some way which his mother and Monica and other people mightn't approve of in Dukes. This old Johnny's a combination of caretaker and physician in ordinary to his grace. But let's get out of this. I can't give you a marble bath or Moorish decorations at my hotel, but I shouldn't wonder if you'd prefer the accommodation; and after that conduit business I need a‘wash and brush up’as much as you do. Why, old man, what's the matter? Not going to crack up, are you?”[pg 333]“I'm all right,”I said;“but I haven't had anything to eat since the day after I saw you off, except milk, and none of that for the last two days.”“Great Scott! you're joking. We parted five weeks ago!”The words gave me a shock in spite of the stubble on my chin and the whiteness of my hands. Dick had his wet arm round my shoulders, and we were at the door, which he was about to lock, and I startled him by caving in a little at the knees.“See here,”he said, hanging on to my arm as if he were afraid I should vanish in thin air,“we won't wait to dine at my hotel. We'll nose round a bit in this old Johnny's larder. You must be bucked up before you go out into the street. Oh, it's safe enough. The old brute's a hermit—for his own reasons or Carmona's. Nobody comes near the house, and we can take our own time. While you're eating you shall hear everything I've got to tell.”He locked and bolted the door, and helped me down the stairs, up which I must have been carried unconscious; perhaps by the gypsy, assisted by the master of the house.Below stairs the place was dark save for the light which had streamed out into thepatiowith the opening door. It came from a good-sized room evidently intended for a kitchen, but also used by the solitary tenant as a dining-room. It had a window opening on the court; this, however, was not only covered with heavy shutters, but protected by a curtain as well, and ventilation came through an adjoining room from a window that looked on another small court.Evidently my gaoler had been interrupted in the midst of his supper, and hearing a noise in thepatiohad stopped only long enough to snatch up a sword-stick. On the table was a simple meal of cold meat, salad, goats'-milk cheese, and fresh fruit; but to my starved eyes it seemed a feast. There was also a bottle half-full of red Spanish wine; and I did not wait for Dick's suggestion to sit down. I must get back my strength if I were to be of any use to Monica or myself, and I hardly listened to[pg 334]Dick's warning that a starved man must not satisfy his first hunger.“Eat slowly, and not too much,”he said, with anxious eyes on my face, which must have been frightful, though he was too tactful to make comments. As I obeyed, he told me his story, briefly and disjointedly, as the points came back to him.“Didn't hear from you,”he said,“and began wondering what was up. Wired twice; no answer; was a bit taken up with my own affairs just then, I'm afraid. Yes, I mean Pilar. After five days, wired the landlord. He answered you'd left with a friend. I thought that queer, and set out for Granada by next train, Ropes with me. At the Washington Irving I found both my telegrams to you and a letter. Landlord said he got a note from you, dated Motril, telling him you'd met a friend and gone off unexpectedly in his automobile. You enclosed more than enough money to pay bill and tips, and asked him to have your luggage packed and kept till your return, which might be in a few days or not for some time. Naturally, he hadn't worried; and as he'd destroyed the letter, I couldn't tell if it was your handwriting.“Well, I thought youmighthave rushed off suddenly on account of some lark of Carmona's; but I soon found out he was still in Granada, slowly getting better; and the guests hadn't gone. By the way, I called, but nobody in the house was seeing visitors. Ropes discovered that your car was in a stable down in the town, where you'd left it, without saying for how long. He and I were getting scared, and I went to the police, but didn't dare give your real name without your permission, especially as the authorities had a kind of prejudice against it. Fired off my best Spanish, though, and insinuated that Carmona wasn't very fond of you; but when I began hinting that it might be convenient for his plans that you should disappear, they wouldn't take me seriously, were polite, and all that, promised to look you up, as if you were a stray kitten, but intimated that most people who vanished had private reasons for doing so.“After that, I didn't expect them to find out anything, and[pg 335]they did their best not to disappoint me. I saw that if anybody was going to do the Sherlock Holmes' act, it must be Ropes and me. We sat tight at the Washington Irving, and looked around; but at the end of a fortnight no one was any wiser than at the beginning. Then what should happen but the dear old Colonel and Pilar popped down to see if they could help. Oh, and I forgot to tell you that meanwhile the people at Carmona's palace had cleared out. They'd gone back to Seville again by train; and what should happen but the Colonel and Pilar met Carmona face to face in the station.”“Not Monica?”I broke in.“No. I suppose the others had got into a carriage; he was lingering behind to give a valet directions about luggage. And then there was a scene. Pilar told me all about it. Carmona bowed; and before the Cherub could pull the little girl away, as he tried, seeing danger in her eye, she gave the Duke a piece of her mind. Said he was a villain, or some kind words of that sort. He retorted by saying to her father that he could make a lot of trouble for Cristóbal if they didn't take care. Pilar said they could accuse him of worse things than he could them; and somehow or other, in an evil moment, the subject of Corcito, a grey bull Carmona was once nasty about, came up. Then, before she knew what she was doing, Pilar flashed out the name of Vivillo, the beast she wanted to buy, you know. And from that minute the fat was in the fire as far as she was concerned. But about that later. What with you and the bull, she was in a dreadful state of mind when she got here, poor child. However, she put on her thinking cap, and said she,‘Try the gypsies. See if they don't know something.’“That was enough for me. I took a sudden fancy to Captain Pepe, the chief of the gypsies, and went every night to see a dance in his cave. But I soon saw he was straight; and they weren't a bad lot of people in the colony. The nasty ones he kicked out, and they had to hustle for themselves. Captain Pepe told me about one fellow, Juan Castello, who'd got himself disliked,[pg 336]though he was a nailer with the guitar; and when he said the chap had a sister who had a fine position in the house of a titled person, because she was the best seamstress in the country, I pricked up my ears. You can bet, after I'd heard the titled person was Carmona, I turned my attention to Mr. Castello, dropped in on him one day, named a big price, and asked him to give me lessons on the guitar. He didn't mind if he did, and we got quite friendly. I spent several evenings in his cave, where one night I heard a dog howling, as if it was mighty sick, behind a red curtain.”“That red curtain!”I exclaimed.“I shouldn't be where I am now, or have a scar on the back of my head, if I'd looked behind it.”“By Jove! Well, I got some idea of that sort. Castello said the dog belonged to a gentleman in Granada, who lived all alone in the Albaicín, and kept this beast as a watch-dog; but he was afraid it was going mad, and told Castello to shoot it. However, it was a valuable animal, and Castello was undertaking to cure it for his own benefit. Already it was better, and the owner talked of buying it back if it recovered. The old gentleman was coming up to see the dog that very evening, perhaps, Castello said; and being evidently proud of a respectable acquaintance, he went on talking about him, I encouraging him all I could, because any friend of his might prove interesting to me.“The minute I heard the chap was a kind of herb doctor, and sometimes treated grand people, I nearly jumped off my seat; for you know why Carmona was supposed to come to Granada?”I nodded.“Well, Castello was in with this doctor in a way, for he was engaged by him to fetch herbs and flowers from the mountains—like the Manzanilla, for instance, which only begins to grow at an elevation of twelve thousand feet. Castello believed that the old fellow could make poisons too, as well as antidotes; and said I to myself, 'Maybe that little dagger in the cathedral was[pg 337]specially prepared, eh?' Which would account for Carmona hurrying off to Granada after it had found the wrong billet.“Anyhow, I said I'd like to see the dog, so I was taken behind the red curtain into Mr. Castello's bedroom, and on a shelf lay a revolver which might have been twin to the one you bought in Madrid.”“It was still more nearly related,”said I.“Well, I thought so, but wasn't sure enough to call on the police. I went away when I'd said nice things about the sick dog; but I didn't go far. I hung around till Castello's visitor had been and gone, and then followed him to the door of this house. Such a mild, intelligent looking, well-dressed old gentleman, the herb doctor was; but I guess I needn't describe him to you!“Next day I bought some things at a baker's not far from here, and buttered up the shopkeeper, saying his store was too good for the neighbourhood. Of course he told me he had rich customers, and it was jolly lucky I'd been fagging up Spanish for Pilar's sake, or I should have missed a lot, right there. I soon got him on the subject of the herb doctor, his best client, who, though supposed to be well-off, and living in a good house, did all his shopping himself and kept no servants. Nobody knew much about him, except what he said of himself; that he could set bones, and was able to make as much money as he liked, selling his herb medicines to great personages. Who were the great personages? The baker couldn't tell; but the doctor had lived in his present house for years, after taking it when in a bad state of repair, and having it done up inside by workmen he brought from Madrid. From that day on, no one the baker knew had ever been invited in, though he'd heard stories of veiled ladies, and sounds of music at night.“At that, the thought jumped into my mind that maybe the house was Carmona's, a little secret plaything of his. And I remembered reading about a famous old palace in the Albaicín with an underground way to the Alhambra. Why shouldn't there be such a way from Carmona's palace to the doctor's[pg 338]house? And what a convenient place it would be to keep a troublesome person.”“Or to kill one,”I amended.“I thought of that; but I hoped. People don't commit murder when their blood is cool if they can get what they want cheaper. I went again to the police, said I believed that my friend was detained against his will in the house of Doctor Molina. But when they wanted my reasons I couldn't give any to convince them. They thought I was mad, and refused to search. I was afraid they'd warn the old chap to look out for a crazy American, so I hurried up and took matters into my own hands.“I wasn't sure enough of anything to jump on the man outside his own door and do the burglar act openly, lest the police should jump onme, and I should be laid by before I'd found you. But about that time I began to have water on the brain; or rather, I got possessed with the idea of sneaking into houses by means of conduits; and no wonder, when the whole Albaicín is honeycombed with watercourses, gluddering and gurgling from morning till night.“In the next street to this, there's a Moorish house of much the same sort, being torn down. They were selling old tiles to curiosity dealers one day, so I strolled into thepatio. The pavement was up, and I saw how the conduit ran underneath and supplied the fountain. That was instructive. Opposite this place of Molina's is a mill. I found out how the miller got his water, and that after it turned his wheel, it poured in this direction, being turned off every night about nine. At the miller's the conduit is open, only guarded by a rail; and I developed a taste for making sketches and taking photographs—tourist in search of the picturesque; miller got used to seeing me about, while I made myself familiar with the landscape. Then I bought a crowbar and a little electric lamp. The bar I hid under my coat; and when I was ready to shed the garment, Ropes put it on. I guess it was a looser fit for him than that conduit was for me, and there were twelve feet of conduit; good long strait-jacket, but I've been in it[pg 339]a lot of times now, and feel quite at home. You see, the job couldn't be done in one go, for I had to make the hole under the fountain bigger, and I've been tinkering away for nearly a week, o' nights when the water was stopped. And if I'd come up at last, like a demon in a pantomime, to find I'd had my trouble for my pains, I can't say what I should have turned my wits to next.”“Does Pilar know?”I asked.“She and the Colonel went off in a hurry to Madrid just before I took the job on. They thought they could influence the police at headquarters, which was their principal reason for going; though they had one or two others besides. But see here, you've got the story pat now, and you're looking a thousand per cent. more healthy than when you sat down at this table ten minutes ago. Poor old Ropes, who always hangs about keeping guard, will be mighty glad to see you; but before we open the door and walk out as if we owned the house, let's have a look round. There may be something which will give me a chance to say‘I told you so!’to the police.”Refreshed with wine, and such scanty rations as Dick had allowed, I walked steadily enough into the adjoining room, while Dick carried a lamp. There were no such gorgeous decorations here, as in the suite I had reluctantly occupied. A modern bed stood in one corner. There were shelves on the wall, fitted with glass doors which protected jars and bottles. On a large table lay an outfit for chemical experiments, and on another some yellow flowers half buried in green leaves. In the window was a modern desk, and Dick at once began to rummage among the few papers in the pigeon-holes. There was nothing, however, which seemed to bear upon our affairs, with the exception of a telegraph form, which I seized upon. It was dated June first, and had been sent from a Madrid office. There was no signature, but there was a hint of something secret in the three words it contained.“Day after to-morrow.”Dick and I stared at the paper, as if we expected the meaning of the message to spring up to our eyes.[pg 340]“My name's not Richard D. Waring if Carmona's signature oughtn't to be tacked on to that,”he said.“Now, we've something to go upon, for a beginning. This telegram will be traced to the sender before I'm many hours older; we can trust our dear old Cherub for that.”“Day after to-morrow,”I repeated.“What's going to happen day after to-morrow, that Carmona should have wired to this man?”“I should say it was his way of letting Molina know that the cage door could open.”“But why day after to-morrow? He—”I broke off suddenly, and it seemed that my heart would stop beating.“Dick,”I began again, in a queer voice that did not sound like my own,“is Monica—”I could not finish the sentence. But Dick understood.“Forgive me,”he said.“I saw you weren't strong enough to bear it at first. I wanted you to eat, and then—I'd have kept it back a bit longer if I could, just till I got you to the hotel. She's going to marry him—on the third of June, Heaven knows why, though Pilar vows the girl can't be to blame, and that they've made her believe somehow she's sacrificing herself for your sake.”“What day is this?”I asked.“The first. The Royal Wedding was yesterday, and a terrible bomb explosion, in which the King and Queen had a narrow escape, and—but come, Ramón, I want to get you to the hotel.”“I'm not going to the hotel,”I said.“I'm going to Madrid, to stop Carmona's marriage.”

The pair stood eyeing each other like two fencers, Dick with the crowbar raised, and pointing at his heart the blade which would pierce it when the Spaniard dared advance an inch.

I longed to shout“Fling the crowbar at his head!”But if Dick's eye released the eye of his opponent he was a dead man, I must not risk distracting him for the fraction of a second.

It seemed an hour, though it could not have been a minute when, as if my thought had winged to his brain, the thick iron bar whirled through the air, and struck the old man full upon the forehead. The Toledo blade dropped from his hand, and he fell back without a cry, his head inside the open door.

“Is he dead?”I called.

Dick bent over the limp body; but, after a long moment, he was up again, waving a big, old-fashioned key.

“No,”he answered.“Heart beating. Bad penny. He'll be all right. This the key of spider's parlour?”

“I think so,”I said.“Dick, you're just in time to keep me from giving in. I'm starved.”

He stooped and picked up the crowbar.

“Old brute! I've a mind to finish him!”he exclaimed.

“You don't mean that,”I said.“But look for something to tie him up with. He may come to himself before we're off.”

“I guess I'll just tote him along with me,”said Dick.“Safe bind, safe find.”

Gathering up the long body as if it had been the form of a[pg 332]sleeping child, Dick disappeared into the house. I knew that he was looking for the door of my cage, and presently—for the first time with pleasure—I heard the slipping back of the bolt and turning of the key.

Already I was at the door, opening it for Dick to come in with his heavy burden.

“Here's the bed,”I said, and Dick laid his burden down, not too gently. Then I think the next thing we did was to shake hands.

“Blessed old man!”exclaimed Dick, a little unsteadily.“What a beastly business.”

“It's a mystery,”I said.“And how you got to me—”

“Conduit,”said Dick,“But I'll tell you all about that, and everything. Got no electric light here?”

“Nothing but starlight. For Heaven's sake, tell me about Monica!”

“She's all right,”said Dick.“Not a Duchess yet, if that's what worries you. Look here, if this place has been good enough to box you up in all this time, it's good enough to keephimin—”(He nodded towards the alcove.)“He lives alone here, without servants; I've found out all that, with a lot more; and his master—guess you know who—is in Madrid; so when this chap comes to himself he can try how he likes your quarters. They seem rather nice ones, judging from what I can see; but Carmona always does himself well.”

“Is this Carmona's house?”I asked.

“You bet it is. Little private sort of place he keeps ready when he wants to amuse himself in some way which his mother and Monica and other people mightn't approve of in Dukes. This old Johnny's a combination of caretaker and physician in ordinary to his grace. But let's get out of this. I can't give you a marble bath or Moorish decorations at my hotel, but I shouldn't wonder if you'd prefer the accommodation; and after that conduit business I need a‘wash and brush up’as much as you do. Why, old man, what's the matter? Not going to crack up, are you?”

[pg 333]“I'm all right,”I said;“but I haven't had anything to eat since the day after I saw you off, except milk, and none of that for the last two days.”

“Great Scott! you're joking. We parted five weeks ago!”

The words gave me a shock in spite of the stubble on my chin and the whiteness of my hands. Dick had his wet arm round my shoulders, and we were at the door, which he was about to lock, and I startled him by caving in a little at the knees.

“See here,”he said, hanging on to my arm as if he were afraid I should vanish in thin air,“we won't wait to dine at my hotel. We'll nose round a bit in this old Johnny's larder. You must be bucked up before you go out into the street. Oh, it's safe enough. The old brute's a hermit—for his own reasons or Carmona's. Nobody comes near the house, and we can take our own time. While you're eating you shall hear everything I've got to tell.”

He locked and bolted the door, and helped me down the stairs, up which I must have been carried unconscious; perhaps by the gypsy, assisted by the master of the house.

Below stairs the place was dark save for the light which had streamed out into thepatiowith the opening door. It came from a good-sized room evidently intended for a kitchen, but also used by the solitary tenant as a dining-room. It had a window opening on the court; this, however, was not only covered with heavy shutters, but protected by a curtain as well, and ventilation came through an adjoining room from a window that looked on another small court.

Evidently my gaoler had been interrupted in the midst of his supper, and hearing a noise in thepatiohad stopped only long enough to snatch up a sword-stick. On the table was a simple meal of cold meat, salad, goats'-milk cheese, and fresh fruit; but to my starved eyes it seemed a feast. There was also a bottle half-full of red Spanish wine; and I did not wait for Dick's suggestion to sit down. I must get back my strength if I were to be of any use to Monica or myself, and I hardly listened to[pg 334]Dick's warning that a starved man must not satisfy his first hunger.

“Eat slowly, and not too much,”he said, with anxious eyes on my face, which must have been frightful, though he was too tactful to make comments. As I obeyed, he told me his story, briefly and disjointedly, as the points came back to him.

“Didn't hear from you,”he said,“and began wondering what was up. Wired twice; no answer; was a bit taken up with my own affairs just then, I'm afraid. Yes, I mean Pilar. After five days, wired the landlord. He answered you'd left with a friend. I thought that queer, and set out for Granada by next train, Ropes with me. At the Washington Irving I found both my telegrams to you and a letter. Landlord said he got a note from you, dated Motril, telling him you'd met a friend and gone off unexpectedly in his automobile. You enclosed more than enough money to pay bill and tips, and asked him to have your luggage packed and kept till your return, which might be in a few days or not for some time. Naturally, he hadn't worried; and as he'd destroyed the letter, I couldn't tell if it was your handwriting.

“Well, I thought youmighthave rushed off suddenly on account of some lark of Carmona's; but I soon found out he was still in Granada, slowly getting better; and the guests hadn't gone. By the way, I called, but nobody in the house was seeing visitors. Ropes discovered that your car was in a stable down in the town, where you'd left it, without saying for how long. He and I were getting scared, and I went to the police, but didn't dare give your real name without your permission, especially as the authorities had a kind of prejudice against it. Fired off my best Spanish, though, and insinuated that Carmona wasn't very fond of you; but when I began hinting that it might be convenient for his plans that you should disappear, they wouldn't take me seriously, were polite, and all that, promised to look you up, as if you were a stray kitten, but intimated that most people who vanished had private reasons for doing so.

“After that, I didn't expect them to find out anything, and[pg 335]they did their best not to disappoint me. I saw that if anybody was going to do the Sherlock Holmes' act, it must be Ropes and me. We sat tight at the Washington Irving, and looked around; but at the end of a fortnight no one was any wiser than at the beginning. Then what should happen but the dear old Colonel and Pilar popped down to see if they could help. Oh, and I forgot to tell you that meanwhile the people at Carmona's palace had cleared out. They'd gone back to Seville again by train; and what should happen but the Colonel and Pilar met Carmona face to face in the station.”

“Not Monica?”I broke in.

“No. I suppose the others had got into a carriage; he was lingering behind to give a valet directions about luggage. And then there was a scene. Pilar told me all about it. Carmona bowed; and before the Cherub could pull the little girl away, as he tried, seeing danger in her eye, she gave the Duke a piece of her mind. Said he was a villain, or some kind words of that sort. He retorted by saying to her father that he could make a lot of trouble for Cristóbal if they didn't take care. Pilar said they could accuse him of worse things than he could them; and somehow or other, in an evil moment, the subject of Corcito, a grey bull Carmona was once nasty about, came up. Then, before she knew what she was doing, Pilar flashed out the name of Vivillo, the beast she wanted to buy, you know. And from that minute the fat was in the fire as far as she was concerned. But about that later. What with you and the bull, she was in a dreadful state of mind when she got here, poor child. However, she put on her thinking cap, and said she,‘Try the gypsies. See if they don't know something.’

“That was enough for me. I took a sudden fancy to Captain Pepe, the chief of the gypsies, and went every night to see a dance in his cave. But I soon saw he was straight; and they weren't a bad lot of people in the colony. The nasty ones he kicked out, and they had to hustle for themselves. Captain Pepe told me about one fellow, Juan Castello, who'd got himself disliked,[pg 336]though he was a nailer with the guitar; and when he said the chap had a sister who had a fine position in the house of a titled person, because she was the best seamstress in the country, I pricked up my ears. You can bet, after I'd heard the titled person was Carmona, I turned my attention to Mr. Castello, dropped in on him one day, named a big price, and asked him to give me lessons on the guitar. He didn't mind if he did, and we got quite friendly. I spent several evenings in his cave, where one night I heard a dog howling, as if it was mighty sick, behind a red curtain.”

“That red curtain!”I exclaimed.“I shouldn't be where I am now, or have a scar on the back of my head, if I'd looked behind it.”

“By Jove! Well, I got some idea of that sort. Castello said the dog belonged to a gentleman in Granada, who lived all alone in the Albaicín, and kept this beast as a watch-dog; but he was afraid it was going mad, and told Castello to shoot it. However, it was a valuable animal, and Castello was undertaking to cure it for his own benefit. Already it was better, and the owner talked of buying it back if it recovered. The old gentleman was coming up to see the dog that very evening, perhaps, Castello said; and being evidently proud of a respectable acquaintance, he went on talking about him, I encouraging him all I could, because any friend of his might prove interesting to me.

“The minute I heard the chap was a kind of herb doctor, and sometimes treated grand people, I nearly jumped off my seat; for you know why Carmona was supposed to come to Granada?”

I nodded.

“Well, Castello was in with this doctor in a way, for he was engaged by him to fetch herbs and flowers from the mountains—like the Manzanilla, for instance, which only begins to grow at an elevation of twelve thousand feet. Castello believed that the old fellow could make poisons too, as well as antidotes; and said I to myself, 'Maybe that little dagger in the cathedral was[pg 337]specially prepared, eh?' Which would account for Carmona hurrying off to Granada after it had found the wrong billet.

“Anyhow, I said I'd like to see the dog, so I was taken behind the red curtain into Mr. Castello's bedroom, and on a shelf lay a revolver which might have been twin to the one you bought in Madrid.”

“It was still more nearly related,”said I.

“Well, I thought so, but wasn't sure enough to call on the police. I went away when I'd said nice things about the sick dog; but I didn't go far. I hung around till Castello's visitor had been and gone, and then followed him to the door of this house. Such a mild, intelligent looking, well-dressed old gentleman, the herb doctor was; but I guess I needn't describe him to you!

“Next day I bought some things at a baker's not far from here, and buttered up the shopkeeper, saying his store was too good for the neighbourhood. Of course he told me he had rich customers, and it was jolly lucky I'd been fagging up Spanish for Pilar's sake, or I should have missed a lot, right there. I soon got him on the subject of the herb doctor, his best client, who, though supposed to be well-off, and living in a good house, did all his shopping himself and kept no servants. Nobody knew much about him, except what he said of himself; that he could set bones, and was able to make as much money as he liked, selling his herb medicines to great personages. Who were the great personages? The baker couldn't tell; but the doctor had lived in his present house for years, after taking it when in a bad state of repair, and having it done up inside by workmen he brought from Madrid. From that day on, no one the baker knew had ever been invited in, though he'd heard stories of veiled ladies, and sounds of music at night.

“At that, the thought jumped into my mind that maybe the house was Carmona's, a little secret plaything of his. And I remembered reading about a famous old palace in the Albaicín with an underground way to the Alhambra. Why shouldn't there be such a way from Carmona's palace to the doctor's[pg 338]house? And what a convenient place it would be to keep a troublesome person.”

“Or to kill one,”I amended.

“I thought of that; but I hoped. People don't commit murder when their blood is cool if they can get what they want cheaper. I went again to the police, said I believed that my friend was detained against his will in the house of Doctor Molina. But when they wanted my reasons I couldn't give any to convince them. They thought I was mad, and refused to search. I was afraid they'd warn the old chap to look out for a crazy American, so I hurried up and took matters into my own hands.

“I wasn't sure enough of anything to jump on the man outside his own door and do the burglar act openly, lest the police should jump onme, and I should be laid by before I'd found you. But about that time I began to have water on the brain; or rather, I got possessed with the idea of sneaking into houses by means of conduits; and no wonder, when the whole Albaicín is honeycombed with watercourses, gluddering and gurgling from morning till night.

“In the next street to this, there's a Moorish house of much the same sort, being torn down. They were selling old tiles to curiosity dealers one day, so I strolled into thepatio. The pavement was up, and I saw how the conduit ran underneath and supplied the fountain. That was instructive. Opposite this place of Molina's is a mill. I found out how the miller got his water, and that after it turned his wheel, it poured in this direction, being turned off every night about nine. At the miller's the conduit is open, only guarded by a rail; and I developed a taste for making sketches and taking photographs—tourist in search of the picturesque; miller got used to seeing me about, while I made myself familiar with the landscape. Then I bought a crowbar and a little electric lamp. The bar I hid under my coat; and when I was ready to shed the garment, Ropes put it on. I guess it was a looser fit for him than that conduit was for me, and there were twelve feet of conduit; good long strait-jacket, but I've been in it[pg 339]a lot of times now, and feel quite at home. You see, the job couldn't be done in one go, for I had to make the hole under the fountain bigger, and I've been tinkering away for nearly a week, o' nights when the water was stopped. And if I'd come up at last, like a demon in a pantomime, to find I'd had my trouble for my pains, I can't say what I should have turned my wits to next.”

“Does Pilar know?”I asked.

“She and the Colonel went off in a hurry to Madrid just before I took the job on. They thought they could influence the police at headquarters, which was their principal reason for going; though they had one or two others besides. But see here, you've got the story pat now, and you're looking a thousand per cent. more healthy than when you sat down at this table ten minutes ago. Poor old Ropes, who always hangs about keeping guard, will be mighty glad to see you; but before we open the door and walk out as if we owned the house, let's have a look round. There may be something which will give me a chance to say‘I told you so!’to the police.”

Refreshed with wine, and such scanty rations as Dick had allowed, I walked steadily enough into the adjoining room, while Dick carried a lamp. There were no such gorgeous decorations here, as in the suite I had reluctantly occupied. A modern bed stood in one corner. There were shelves on the wall, fitted with glass doors which protected jars and bottles. On a large table lay an outfit for chemical experiments, and on another some yellow flowers half buried in green leaves. In the window was a modern desk, and Dick at once began to rummage among the few papers in the pigeon-holes. There was nothing, however, which seemed to bear upon our affairs, with the exception of a telegraph form, which I seized upon. It was dated June first, and had been sent from a Madrid office. There was no signature, but there was a hint of something secret in the three words it contained.“Day after to-morrow.”

Dick and I stared at the paper, as if we expected the meaning of the message to spring up to our eyes.

[pg 340]“My name's not Richard D. Waring if Carmona's signature oughtn't to be tacked on to that,”he said.“Now, we've something to go upon, for a beginning. This telegram will be traced to the sender before I'm many hours older; we can trust our dear old Cherub for that.”

“Day after to-morrow,”I repeated.“What's going to happen day after to-morrow, that Carmona should have wired to this man?”

“I should say it was his way of letting Molina know that the cage door could open.”

“But why day after to-morrow? He—”I broke off suddenly, and it seemed that my heart would stop beating.“Dick,”I began again, in a queer voice that did not sound like my own,“is Monica—”I could not finish the sentence. But Dick understood.

“Forgive me,”he said.“I saw you weren't strong enough to bear it at first. I wanted you to eat, and then—I'd have kept it back a bit longer if I could, just till I got you to the hotel. She's going to marry him—on the third of June, Heaven knows why, though Pilar vows the girl can't be to blame, and that they've made her believe somehow she's sacrificing herself for your sake.”

“What day is this?”I asked.

“The first. The Royal Wedding was yesterday, and a terrible bomb explosion, in which the King and Queen had a narrow escape, and—but come, Ramón, I want to get you to the hotel.”

“I'm not going to the hotel,”I said.“I'm going to Madrid, to stop Carmona's marriage.”

[pg 341]XLThrough the NightDick looked at me with indulgent sympathy, as if I were a child.“It's after eleven o'clock at night,”he said.“The train for Madrid went two hours ago, and—”“Did you say Ropes was waiting for you outside?”I asked.“Yes.”“And my car's still in the garage where I put it?”“Yes; but you're not in a fit state for a journey. If you could see yourself—”“Oh, I know I'm a nightmare apparition,”I cut in;“but when I'm shaved and—”“The trip would kill you.”“It would kill me not to take it.”We looked at each other for a moment, then Dick said—“All right. Come on. I know what you feel. But what about that old reprobate upstairs?”“I'll wait for you here while you take up some food and leave it in the room. We can't waste time in Granada on his account. I'll tell my story, and you can tell yours to the police in Madrid, after I—after I've done what I'm going there to do.”“How long a drive is it?”Dick asked resignedly.“It's about two hundred and seventy miles. If we can start by one or two, bar accidents we ought to be in Madrid by noon.”“The royal bull-fight's to-morrow,”answered Dick.“Although the wedding's next day, and the invitations have been out a fortnight, Carmona and Lady Monica are bound[pg 342]to be there, as it's a royal invitation show; that means a command.”“Very well,”said I.“Since it may be as difficult to reach her in Madrid as in Seville and Granada, I shall wait outside the entrance to the bull-ring, and as she's about to go in, she shall see me and hear the whole truth. Don't look as if you thought it would do no good, Dick; if she's promised to marry Carmona in spite of all, it's because he has made her think he can ruin me if she refuses. Pilar's instinct is right, I know; and now for the first time I understand why Carmona didn't denounce me to the police as Casa Triana, when Monica refused to keep her engagement with him, as I'm sure she did. No doubt he told her lies—that I could be imprisoned—for years, perhaps. And his wounded hand—what an opportunity for him! Ah! he wouldn't waste it. He'd make her believe I stabbed him in the cathedral that night. How plausible! And as he's been very ill, can't you imagine what her fears for me must have been? Dick, I regard her coming marriage as a proof of love, not of indifference.”“I'm ready to agree with you,”said Dick.“But you're risking your life to prove it.”“Nonsense,”I answered.“The thought that I'm free, that I'm going to her, and that at last I have Carmona in my hand, will give me strength enough to get through.”Dick raised his eyebrows, but did not answer. He was collecting bread and meat on a plate, to leave for the man upstairs.Five minutes later we were out of the house and in the street. In front of the miller's premises Ropes was walking up and down. He did not say much when he saw that Dick had a companion; but as he wrung the hand I held out to him, I heard him breathing hard, and he swore under his breath when he saw my face by the light of a street lamp.It was the look on his which made me realize, as Dick's persuasions had not, that I must delay long enough to be made again into some semblance of a sane man. An hour more before getting[pg 343]on the road would not endanger success, though it would try my patience. A quarter of a mile's walk to the garage was a sharper test of my strength than I would confess; but when Ropes had roused the watchman, filled the good old Gloria with petrol, and started her up the hill, the rush of pure night air gave me life.At the hotel, we walked in without waking the dozingconcièrge. Dick made me free of his things; and when, between us, we had finished my toilet, he admitted that I was not as appalling an object as he had thought. He changed his wet clothes, left a note for the landlord, and it was not yet two o'clock when we started, Ropes driving, Dick with me in the tonneau.“To Madrid, top speed, quickest way,”was the word; and I hoped for a non-stop run, or as near it as possible.The quickest way was by Jaen, a road which none of us knew, and the starlit sky was obscured by dark clouds which heralded a summer thunder-storm. As Ropes steered across the Vega towards that gap in the mountains which is the door of the north, there came a waterspout of rain on the roof. Thunder drowned the purr of the motor, and a flash of lightning every other moment dimmed the flying circle of our acetylenes. There had been rain more than once of late, and this deluge made the road, already bad, soft and greasy as an outworn sponge. The Gloria waltzed and slipped in a mass of brown porridge, but Ropes knew that we were to drive against time, and, throwing caution to the wind, tore through the treacherous mud as if to win the cup in a great race.We flung Granada behind us, dashing in among the foothills of the mountains, mounting a slippery defile, with the rain like whips lashing our faces. Orchards flashed by; there was a rock tunnel, where the lights shone fiercely on rough-hewn stone, and the thrum of the motor became a roar.Out again, and still up, the beams from our lamps shooting across vineyards, plantations of figs and pomegranates, and striking silver from the curves of the Guadalbullon River. A[pg 344]glimpse of an old castle commanding a dark gorge, and we were at Jaen; then, presently, the road became familiar, for we had travelled it before. At this very corner we had stopped to ask the way of men who carried strange implements like fire-extinguishers, for this was Bailen; but now, instead of receiving our first glimpse of Andalucía, we were leaving it behind.Eighty miles out of two hundred and seventy we had come, though the pace had not been good. Still the rain was ceasing, and we could make up for lost time, as country traffic had not begun yet.La Carolina, Santa Elena; the road was mounting for the well-remembered defile of Despeñaperros. Hoot! went the siren, screaming along the face of tremendous cliffs, and a louder shriek rang as if an echo. A line of fire down in the gorge meant the train from Madrid to Seville. It glittered like a string of stars drawn across a spider's-web viaduct, then vanished into a tunnel, while we swept on towards the plains of La Mancha, Ropes crouched like a goblin over his wheel.Rain again, blurring villages, and sweeping through the stone streets of a town: fields once more, and at last Manzanares. There Dick insisted that we should stop for food, lest strength fail me when I should need it most; but I could not bear to go back to thefondaI knew, to see the pretty girls there look at my pale face with shocked eyes, perhaps to have them question me about the“white and gold angel.”It was eight o'clock when we got away from the café, where we had spent some twenty minutes; and the road was no longer clear. We were obliged to moderate our speed, and lost more time than we could afford getting on to Aranjuez.“Do your best now, Ropes,”I was saying, when the Gloria—for once perverse—burst a tyre with a loud explosion. Ropes threw me a rueful look.“I'd hoped to get through without trouble, sir,”he said,“but the car's lain up for more than five weeks, and there was no time last night to look her over.”[pg 345]“You've done splendidly,”I assured him.“I'll get out with Mr. Waring and stretch my legs.”I was glad to walk, and still more glad to feel that instead of being exhausted as Dick had prophesied, strength seemed coming back. As we strolled up and down, so sure was I of Dick's sympathy that I began to talk about my hopes and fears. He did not disappoint me, but once or twice he answered absent-mindedly, with a far-off look in his eyes, and suddenly, with a pang of remorse, I remembered that I had not once referred to the progress of his love affairs. My own had preoccupied me to the exclusion of everything outside, and I had spoken of Pilar's only in connection with Monica.Anathematizing myself aloud as an ungrateful and ungracious brute, I asked if Pilar had made up her mind.“You needn't blame yourself,”he said.“All this time she's kept me on tenter-hooks, because, though she admitted liking me, she couldn't reconcile her heart with her conscience. I got the dear old Cherub's blessing, and flaunted it in her face; but that wasn't enough. I also argued that it was her duty to marry me and try to make me as good as herself, but she seemed to think it might work out the other way. Then you disappeared, and the last word she said was that if I found you, she'd take it as a sign that San Cristóbal wanted the match; seems he's a matchmaking saint, when he's in Spain, as well as a motoring one. So, you see, she'll have to keep her promise now; and I'll owe my happiness to you.”“I haven't come back to life in vain, then,”I said.“It will be a good moment for me, whatever happens, when I see my little sister Pilar again.”“She'll be at the royal bull-fight,”Dick sighed.“I thought she hated bull-fights—for Vivillo's sake.”“It's for Vivillo's sake she's going. She's moved heaven and earth to get invitations.”“And she's succeeded.”“Thereby hangs a tale. But I'm not going to bother you with it.”[pg 346]I insisted, urging him the more to atone for past carelessness.“Well, then,”he said with another sigh,“Vivillo's fifth bull in the royal fight to-day.”I was shocked, knowing how Pilar loved the noble brown beast, and how she had counted on possessing him. But, if I had had my wits about me, I might have guessed last night how matters stood. Dick had told me then that, in the impromptu scene between Carmona and the O'Donnels, with Seville railway station for the stage,“the name of Vivillo had unfortunately come up.”Now, Dick explained that Carmona had caught at the girl's hasty words, had written his agent at theganaderíainstructing him not to part with the bull at any price, no matter how far negotiations had gone with Colonel O'Donnel. A day or two later the agent was directed by telegram to send Vivillo immediately to Madrid, as the Duke had offered him as a gift for the great show of the royal bull-fight. This news had come to Pilar at Granada in an ill-spelled, but well-meaning letter from Mateo, theganadero.“It was sheer spite,”went on Dick,“and Pilar was broken-hearted. If she hadn't blurted out Vivillo's name in a temper, the bull might have been safe. Carmona wouldn't have interested himself, as he trusts his agent in all business matters. It's true several of the grandee owners of bull-farms have been asked togiveeach a picked bull for the royal fight, which is expected to be the grandest affair of the generation; but Carmona could as well have given another instead of Vivillo.”“It's like him,”I said.“Poor Pilar!”“She's simply ill. But queerly enough, she hasn't given up hope yet—or hadn't when she wrote, and enclosed an invitation-ticket she'd contrived to get for me. She begged me to come if I could, and‘see her through,’though I haven't the vaguest notion what she means. All I know is, she and the Cherub have been doing everything they could till the last minute to make an exchange of bulls. The dear old chap rushed off to Madrid, as I said, to stir up the police in your affair; and Pilar hoped she[pg 347]might get a chance to see Lady Monica, and ask what the dickens she meant by throwing you over. But any spare time the two had, I guess they've put in for Vivillo. They bought a fine Muira bull, at a tiptop price, and offered it to the authorities in exchange for Vivillo, who has been at pasture for the last ten days, recruiting after being boxed up for his long railroad journey. Whether Carmona had a hand in that part or not, anyhow nothing could be done.”“And Pilar is going to see her pet die!”I exclaimed.“I can't understand the Cherub allowing that,”said Dick.“I went to a bull-fight with him the day after I got back to Seville. Jove, it was a sickener, though there were some fine moments, I admit; and I can understand how Spaniards, brought up to understand every stroke, every move, think it fine sport. But it isn't sport for amateurs, and I haven't been able to swallow beef since; feel as if I'd been on visiting terms with it. Last touch of horror, each bull having a name. Great Scott! how would it feel to be as intimate as that with sheep and chickens, so you could speak of frying Lottie for breakfast, or grilling Maud with peas for lunch? Of course, the royal bull-fight will be wonderful—something only seen when a Spanish king marries—but I hate the thought of Pilar being there.”“Her father'll be with her,”I tried to console him.“No, he won't. His seat's in a box. Hers has been given inTendidoNumber 9, a space set apart for thesenoritas de la aristocraciato sit together, in smart dresses and mantillas, as if they were part of the show.”“Perhaps Monica will be there,”I said quickly.“Not she. The Duke and Duchess of Carmona and the Duke's fiancée and her mother will be in a box next the royal bride and bridegroom; Pilar heard that, and wrote me. You see, they're in high favour at Court now, and Carmona's ambition will be satisfied at last. The new Duchess is to be a lady-in-waiting, and take up her duties when the King and Queen come back from their honeymoon.”[pg 348]“She never will take them up as Duchess of Carmona,”said I.“Car ready,”announced Ropes, who had made record time in changing an inner tube, and was panting with his exertions.But where was San Cristóbal to-day—on this day of all others, when his services were needed? We had not gone half a mile when there came a whizz, and a grinding noise which meant a broken chain. Ropes grew pale and bit his lip. In his overpowering anxiety for me he was losing nerve.“Never mind mending it here,”I said.“Tighten up the axle, and go on with one sprocket only. We can get into the town that way, and find a machine-shop.”We did find one; but we were kept a full hour in Aranjuez; nor could we make good going afterwards as we approached the capital. The road was covered with vehicles, and packed as we neared Madrid; for every soul not bidden to the great bull-fight wished to see the favoured ones who were, and to applaud the King and Queen who by their splendid courage two days before had won double popularity.It was almost beyond endurance to be caught in the pack, and to know that there was no way out, except to move with the throng; nevertheless, it had to be endured. And time went on.We had hoped to run into some hole or corner as near as might be to the royal entrance of the Plaza de Toros, before the crowd began to pour in; but an hour struck as we crept into the great sunlit plaza—four o'clock; the time appointed for the pageant to begin.

Dick looked at me with indulgent sympathy, as if I were a child.

“It's after eleven o'clock at night,”he said.“The train for Madrid went two hours ago, and—”

“Did you say Ropes was waiting for you outside?”I asked.

“Yes.”

“And my car's still in the garage where I put it?”

“Yes; but you're not in a fit state for a journey. If you could see yourself—”

“Oh, I know I'm a nightmare apparition,”I cut in;“but when I'm shaved and—”

“The trip would kill you.”

“It would kill me not to take it.”

We looked at each other for a moment, then Dick said—

“All right. Come on. I know what you feel. But what about that old reprobate upstairs?”

“I'll wait for you here while you take up some food and leave it in the room. We can't waste time in Granada on his account. I'll tell my story, and you can tell yours to the police in Madrid, after I—after I've done what I'm going there to do.”

“How long a drive is it?”Dick asked resignedly.

“It's about two hundred and seventy miles. If we can start by one or two, bar accidents we ought to be in Madrid by noon.”

“The royal bull-fight's to-morrow,”answered Dick.“Although the wedding's next day, and the invitations have been out a fortnight, Carmona and Lady Monica are bound[pg 342]to be there, as it's a royal invitation show; that means a command.”

“Very well,”said I.“Since it may be as difficult to reach her in Madrid as in Seville and Granada, I shall wait outside the entrance to the bull-ring, and as she's about to go in, she shall see me and hear the whole truth. Don't look as if you thought it would do no good, Dick; if she's promised to marry Carmona in spite of all, it's because he has made her think he can ruin me if she refuses. Pilar's instinct is right, I know; and now for the first time I understand why Carmona didn't denounce me to the police as Casa Triana, when Monica refused to keep her engagement with him, as I'm sure she did. No doubt he told her lies—that I could be imprisoned—for years, perhaps. And his wounded hand—what an opportunity for him! Ah! he wouldn't waste it. He'd make her believe I stabbed him in the cathedral that night. How plausible! And as he's been very ill, can't you imagine what her fears for me must have been? Dick, I regard her coming marriage as a proof of love, not of indifference.”

“I'm ready to agree with you,”said Dick.“But you're risking your life to prove it.”

“Nonsense,”I answered.“The thought that I'm free, that I'm going to her, and that at last I have Carmona in my hand, will give me strength enough to get through.”

Dick raised his eyebrows, but did not answer. He was collecting bread and meat on a plate, to leave for the man upstairs.

Five minutes later we were out of the house and in the street. In front of the miller's premises Ropes was walking up and down. He did not say much when he saw that Dick had a companion; but as he wrung the hand I held out to him, I heard him breathing hard, and he swore under his breath when he saw my face by the light of a street lamp.

It was the look on his which made me realize, as Dick's persuasions had not, that I must delay long enough to be made again into some semblance of a sane man. An hour more before getting[pg 343]on the road would not endanger success, though it would try my patience. A quarter of a mile's walk to the garage was a sharper test of my strength than I would confess; but when Ropes had roused the watchman, filled the good old Gloria with petrol, and started her up the hill, the rush of pure night air gave me life.

At the hotel, we walked in without waking the dozingconcièrge. Dick made me free of his things; and when, between us, we had finished my toilet, he admitted that I was not as appalling an object as he had thought. He changed his wet clothes, left a note for the landlord, and it was not yet two o'clock when we started, Ropes driving, Dick with me in the tonneau.

“To Madrid, top speed, quickest way,”was the word; and I hoped for a non-stop run, or as near it as possible.

The quickest way was by Jaen, a road which none of us knew, and the starlit sky was obscured by dark clouds which heralded a summer thunder-storm. As Ropes steered across the Vega towards that gap in the mountains which is the door of the north, there came a waterspout of rain on the roof. Thunder drowned the purr of the motor, and a flash of lightning every other moment dimmed the flying circle of our acetylenes. There had been rain more than once of late, and this deluge made the road, already bad, soft and greasy as an outworn sponge. The Gloria waltzed and slipped in a mass of brown porridge, but Ropes knew that we were to drive against time, and, throwing caution to the wind, tore through the treacherous mud as if to win the cup in a great race.

We flung Granada behind us, dashing in among the foothills of the mountains, mounting a slippery defile, with the rain like whips lashing our faces. Orchards flashed by; there was a rock tunnel, where the lights shone fiercely on rough-hewn stone, and the thrum of the motor became a roar.

Out again, and still up, the beams from our lamps shooting across vineyards, plantations of figs and pomegranates, and striking silver from the curves of the Guadalbullon River. A[pg 344]glimpse of an old castle commanding a dark gorge, and we were at Jaen; then, presently, the road became familiar, for we had travelled it before. At this very corner we had stopped to ask the way of men who carried strange implements like fire-extinguishers, for this was Bailen; but now, instead of receiving our first glimpse of Andalucía, we were leaving it behind.

Eighty miles out of two hundred and seventy we had come, though the pace had not been good. Still the rain was ceasing, and we could make up for lost time, as country traffic had not begun yet.

La Carolina, Santa Elena; the road was mounting for the well-remembered defile of Despeñaperros. Hoot! went the siren, screaming along the face of tremendous cliffs, and a louder shriek rang as if an echo. A line of fire down in the gorge meant the train from Madrid to Seville. It glittered like a string of stars drawn across a spider's-web viaduct, then vanished into a tunnel, while we swept on towards the plains of La Mancha, Ropes crouched like a goblin over his wheel.

Rain again, blurring villages, and sweeping through the stone streets of a town: fields once more, and at last Manzanares. There Dick insisted that we should stop for food, lest strength fail me when I should need it most; but I could not bear to go back to thefondaI knew, to see the pretty girls there look at my pale face with shocked eyes, perhaps to have them question me about the“white and gold angel.”

It was eight o'clock when we got away from the café, where we had spent some twenty minutes; and the road was no longer clear. We were obliged to moderate our speed, and lost more time than we could afford getting on to Aranjuez.

“Do your best now, Ropes,”I was saying, when the Gloria—for once perverse—burst a tyre with a loud explosion. Ropes threw me a rueful look.

“I'd hoped to get through without trouble, sir,”he said,“but the car's lain up for more than five weeks, and there was no time last night to look her over.”

[pg 345]“You've done splendidly,”I assured him.“I'll get out with Mr. Waring and stretch my legs.”

I was glad to walk, and still more glad to feel that instead of being exhausted as Dick had prophesied, strength seemed coming back. As we strolled up and down, so sure was I of Dick's sympathy that I began to talk about my hopes and fears. He did not disappoint me, but once or twice he answered absent-mindedly, with a far-off look in his eyes, and suddenly, with a pang of remorse, I remembered that I had not once referred to the progress of his love affairs. My own had preoccupied me to the exclusion of everything outside, and I had spoken of Pilar's only in connection with Monica.

Anathematizing myself aloud as an ungrateful and ungracious brute, I asked if Pilar had made up her mind.

“You needn't blame yourself,”he said.“All this time she's kept me on tenter-hooks, because, though she admitted liking me, she couldn't reconcile her heart with her conscience. I got the dear old Cherub's blessing, and flaunted it in her face; but that wasn't enough. I also argued that it was her duty to marry me and try to make me as good as herself, but she seemed to think it might work out the other way. Then you disappeared, and the last word she said was that if I found you, she'd take it as a sign that San Cristóbal wanted the match; seems he's a matchmaking saint, when he's in Spain, as well as a motoring one. So, you see, she'll have to keep her promise now; and I'll owe my happiness to you.”

“I haven't come back to life in vain, then,”I said.“It will be a good moment for me, whatever happens, when I see my little sister Pilar again.”

“She'll be at the royal bull-fight,”Dick sighed.

“I thought she hated bull-fights—for Vivillo's sake.”

“It's for Vivillo's sake she's going. She's moved heaven and earth to get invitations.”

“And she's succeeded.”

“Thereby hangs a tale. But I'm not going to bother you with it.”

[pg 346]I insisted, urging him the more to atone for past carelessness.

“Well, then,”he said with another sigh,“Vivillo's fifth bull in the royal fight to-day.”

I was shocked, knowing how Pilar loved the noble brown beast, and how she had counted on possessing him. But, if I had had my wits about me, I might have guessed last night how matters stood. Dick had told me then that, in the impromptu scene between Carmona and the O'Donnels, with Seville railway station for the stage,“the name of Vivillo had unfortunately come up.”Now, Dick explained that Carmona had caught at the girl's hasty words, had written his agent at theganaderíainstructing him not to part with the bull at any price, no matter how far negotiations had gone with Colonel O'Donnel. A day or two later the agent was directed by telegram to send Vivillo immediately to Madrid, as the Duke had offered him as a gift for the great show of the royal bull-fight. This news had come to Pilar at Granada in an ill-spelled, but well-meaning letter from Mateo, theganadero.

“It was sheer spite,”went on Dick,“and Pilar was broken-hearted. If she hadn't blurted out Vivillo's name in a temper, the bull might have been safe. Carmona wouldn't have interested himself, as he trusts his agent in all business matters. It's true several of the grandee owners of bull-farms have been asked togiveeach a picked bull for the royal fight, which is expected to be the grandest affair of the generation; but Carmona could as well have given another instead of Vivillo.”

“It's like him,”I said.“Poor Pilar!”

“She's simply ill. But queerly enough, she hasn't given up hope yet—or hadn't when she wrote, and enclosed an invitation-ticket she'd contrived to get for me. She begged me to come if I could, and‘see her through,’though I haven't the vaguest notion what she means. All I know is, she and the Cherub have been doing everything they could till the last minute to make an exchange of bulls. The dear old chap rushed off to Madrid, as I said, to stir up the police in your affair; and Pilar hoped she[pg 347]might get a chance to see Lady Monica, and ask what the dickens she meant by throwing you over. But any spare time the two had, I guess they've put in for Vivillo. They bought a fine Muira bull, at a tiptop price, and offered it to the authorities in exchange for Vivillo, who has been at pasture for the last ten days, recruiting after being boxed up for his long railroad journey. Whether Carmona had a hand in that part or not, anyhow nothing could be done.”

“And Pilar is going to see her pet die!”I exclaimed.

“I can't understand the Cherub allowing that,”said Dick.“I went to a bull-fight with him the day after I got back to Seville. Jove, it was a sickener, though there were some fine moments, I admit; and I can understand how Spaniards, brought up to understand every stroke, every move, think it fine sport. But it isn't sport for amateurs, and I haven't been able to swallow beef since; feel as if I'd been on visiting terms with it. Last touch of horror, each bull having a name. Great Scott! how would it feel to be as intimate as that with sheep and chickens, so you could speak of frying Lottie for breakfast, or grilling Maud with peas for lunch? Of course, the royal bull-fight will be wonderful—something only seen when a Spanish king marries—but I hate the thought of Pilar being there.”

“Her father'll be with her,”I tried to console him.

“No, he won't. His seat's in a box. Hers has been given inTendidoNumber 9, a space set apart for thesenoritas de la aristocraciato sit together, in smart dresses and mantillas, as if they were part of the show.”

“Perhaps Monica will be there,”I said quickly.

“Not she. The Duke and Duchess of Carmona and the Duke's fiancée and her mother will be in a box next the royal bride and bridegroom; Pilar heard that, and wrote me. You see, they're in high favour at Court now, and Carmona's ambition will be satisfied at last. The new Duchess is to be a lady-in-waiting, and take up her duties when the King and Queen come back from their honeymoon.”

[pg 348]“She never will take them up as Duchess of Carmona,”said I.

“Car ready,”announced Ropes, who had made record time in changing an inner tube, and was panting with his exertions.

But where was San Cristóbal to-day—on this day of all others, when his services were needed? We had not gone half a mile when there came a whizz, and a grinding noise which meant a broken chain. Ropes grew pale and bit his lip. In his overpowering anxiety for me he was losing nerve.

“Never mind mending it here,”I said.“Tighten up the axle, and go on with one sprocket only. We can get into the town that way, and find a machine-shop.”

We did find one; but we were kept a full hour in Aranjuez; nor could we make good going afterwards as we approached the capital. The road was covered with vehicles, and packed as we neared Madrid; for every soul not bidden to the great bull-fight wished to see the favoured ones who were, and to applaud the King and Queen who by their splendid courage two days before had won double popularity.

It was almost beyond endurance to be caught in the pack, and to know that there was no way out, except to move with the throng; nevertheless, it had to be endured. And time went on.

We had hoped to run into some hole or corner as near as might be to the royal entrance of the Plaza de Toros, before the crowd began to pour in; but an hour struck as we crept into the great sunlit plaza—four o'clock; the time appointed for the pageant to begin.

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