"The Queen-Regent, and she alone, is the fountain of authority. If you kidnap and sequester her within the Carlist lines, you will certainly paralyse the government of Madrid. Especially you may prevent the sweeping away of the monasteries—which, I take it, is at the bottom of all this pother, though for the life of me I cannot see what concern the matter is of yours. But to carry off the Princess would profit you nothing. Isabel Segunda is but a child, and will not come of age for many years. Your friend the Abbot would gain nothing by her captivity. But the Queen-Regent were a prize indeed!"
After he had spoken thus freely, Rollo continued to muse, and the Sergeant to watch him. The latter had a great opinion of this young man's practical ability.
"If he had had but the fortune to be born poor—and in Andalucia, he might have been one day as great as I!" was the opinion of this modest Sergeant. And indeed he spoke but the words of truth and soberness. For it was the opinion of nine out of ten of his countrymen that he, José Maria of Ronda, was the greatest man of all time.
"Well," said Rollo at last, "let us go up and talk a little to my friends and El Sarria. I think I see a way of inducing her Royal Highness to accompany us. But it will require some firmness, and even a certain amount of severity."
The Sergeant nodded with grim appreciation.
"It is a pity with women," he said philosophically, "but sometimes, I know, it is the only way."
"The severity I speak of," continued Rollo, not regarding his words, "will mostly fall to the lot of the Señor Muñoz. But we may chance to work on the lady's feelings through him."
The Sergeant gave Rollo a quick glance, in which was discernible a certain alertness of joy. The Sergeant also did not love his grandeeship, the Duke of Rianzares.
So these two went abreast up the great staircase, and found the Princess Isabel already playing joyously with Etienne, John Mortimer joining clumsily in as best he could. Concha had vanished, and La Giralda was nowhere to be seen.
"The rogue is in no haste to visit her mother after her night adventure!" said the Sergeant in a low tone, as Rollo and he stood watching the scene from the doorway.
"Nor I," admitted Rollo with a smile, "yet see the lady we must!"
"And shall!" said the Sergeant.
Yet in spite of the unpleasant interview which lay before him, Rollo could not help smiling at the game that was going forward in the upper hall.
"Sur le pont d' Avignon,Tout le monde y passe,"
"Sur le pont d' Avignon,Tout le monde y passe,"
chanted Etienne.
"Tout le monde y passe!" chorused the little Princess, holding out her hands.
John Mortimer made a confused noise in his throat and presently was compelled to join the circle and dance slowly round, his countenance meantime suggestive of the mental reserve that such undignified proceedings could only be excused as being remotely connected with the safe shipment of a hundred hogsheads of Priorato.
"The children walk like this,And the ladies walk like that——"
"The children walk like this,And the ladies walk like that——"
There was no help for it. Etienne and the Princess first mimicked the careless trip of the children, and then, with chin in the air and lift of imaginary furbelow, the haughty tread of the good dames of Avignon as they took their way homeward over that ancient bridge.
But suddenly arrested with both hands in the air and his mouth open, John Mortimer looked on in confusion and a kind of mental stupor. He was glad that no one of his nation was present to see him making a fool of himself. The next moment Isabel had seized his hand, and he found himself again whirling lumpishly round to the ancient refrain:—
"Sur le pont d' Avignon,Tout le monde y passe!"
"Sur le pont d' Avignon,Tout le monde y passe!"
The little Queen's merry laugh rang out at his awkwardness, and then seeing Rollo she ran impetuously to him.
"Come you and play," she cried, "the red foreigner plays like a wooden puppet. And where is that darling little page-boy from Aranjuez?"
"That I cannot tell," quoth Rollo, smiling, "but here comes his sister!"
A moment after Concha entered the room talking confidentially to La Giralda. She was now dressed in her own girlish costume of belted blouse, blackbasquiñapleated small after the Andalucian manner, and the quaint and prettyrebozothrown coquettishly back from the finest and most bewitching hair in Spain.
The little Isabel went up to Concha, took her by the hand, perused her from head to foot, and then remarked with deep feeling—
"You are very well, Señorita, but—I liked your brother better!"
It was not, however, so simple a matter as Rollo supposed to obtain an audience with the Queen-Regent of Spain. Her daughter, willing, but by no means eager to see her mother, had at last been taken up to her room by one of the serving-men, whose faithfulness during the night had been so greatly stimulated by La Giralda's declared intention of shooting either of them who should fail from his post for an instant.
To the same gold-laced functionary, upon his return, Rollo made his request.
"Tell her Majesty that those gentlemen who last night defended the palace, wish to be admitted into her presence in order that they may represent to her the danger of remaining longer in a house exposed alike to the attacks of bloodthirsty villains and to the ravages of the plague."
"Her Majesty, being otherwise engaged, is not at present able to receive the gentlemen," was the civil but unsatisfactory answer brought back.
Rollo stood a moment fuming, biting his thumb-nail as he had a fashion of doing when thinking deeply. Then he asked a sudden question—
"Where is El Sarria?"
"Without on the terrace—doing a little sentry duty on his own account," said the Sergeant. "I told him that the gipsies, being walkers in darkness, had gone off for at least twelve hours, and that there was no use in any further vigilance till nightfall, should it be our ill-fortune to spend another night in this place. But" (here the Sergeant shrugged his shoulders very slightly, as only an Andalucian or a Frenchman can), "well—our excellent Don Ramon is the best and bravest of men. But it is a pity that he has not room here for more than one idea at a time!"
And Sergeant Cardono tapped his brow with his forefinger.
"I do not know," said Rollo, smiling, "if the one idea is a good one, it may carry a man far! But that matters nothing now. Let these two friends of mine, Don Juan and M. de Saint Pierre, take his place on the terrace. We have a difficult part to play upstairs, and we want only men of your nation or mine—men neither easily excited nor yet too over-scrupulous!"
He added the last words under his breath.
And so, on pretext that it was time El Sarria should be relieved, a few minutes thereafter John Mortimer and Etienne found themselves pleasantly situated on the broad terrace looking out on the dry fountains and the glittering waterfalls of La Granja, while El Sarria solemnly mounted the stairs to hold audience with his young leader.
No great talker was El Sarria at any time, and now he had nothing to say till Rollo informed him why he wanted his help. Then he was ready to do everything but talk—go to the world's end, fight to the death, give up all except Dolóres (and risk even her!) that he might do the will of his chief. El Sarria was not good at fine ethical distinctions, but he understood obedience prompt and unquestioning, through and through and up and down.
Rollo did not directly reveal his intentions to his followers, nor did he take Concha into his confidence. He had not even spoken another word to her, but a glance had passed between them, and Concha was satisfied. It had told her much—that he loved her, that his heart held her to be the best-beloved thing the sun shone on—that there were dangers and difficulties before them, but that whatever happened neither would look back nor take their hands from the plough. Yes, oh too wise sceptic, it was indeed a comprehensive glance, yet it passed as swiftly as when in a placid lake a swallow dips his wing in full flight and is off again with the drops pearling from his feathers.
"I wish you to follow me, gentlemen," he said slowly. "Bring your arms. If her Majesty the Queen-Regent of Spain will not see us, perhaps we may fare better with the Queen's Consort! I for one intend that we shall!"
Without offering any further explanation, Rollo turned and marched steadily but not hastily to the chamber door of Señor Muñoz, Duke of Rianzares. The liveried servant who was approaching with a jug of hot water (the younger of La Giralda's charges on the previous night), called out to them that they could not at that moment see his Excellency. He was, it appeared, in the act of dressing. With the coming of the morning light these two gentlemen of the bed-chamber had resumed the entire etiquette of the Spanish court, or at least such modified forms of it as, a little disarranged by altitude and the portent of an informal and (as yet) unauthorised Prince Consort, prevailed at La Granja.
But Rollo would have nothing of all this. Enough time had been wasted. He merely moved his head a hair's-breadth to the side, and the young man in gold lace, a most deservingvalet-de-chambre, found himself looking down at the curved edge of El Sarria's sword-bayonet, whose point touched his Adam's apple in a suggestive manner. He promptly dropped the silver pipkin, whereupon the shaving-water of the Duke slowly decanted itself over theparqueteriefloor. A portion scalded the valet's finely shaped leg, yet he dared not complain, being in mortal fear of the sword-bayonet. But in spite of the danger, his mind ran on the question whether the skin would accompany the hose when he had an opportunity to remove the latter in order to examine his injuries.
Rollo knocked on the Duke's door with loud confident knuckles, not at all as the gentleman with the shaving-water would have performed that feat.
Whereupon, inclining his ear, he heard hasty footsteps crossing the floor, and, suspecting that if he stood on any sort of ceremony he might find the door bolted and barred in his face, Rollo turned the handle and quietly intruded a good half of a bountifully designed military riding-boot within the apartment of the Duke.
So correctly had he judged the occupant's intentions that an iron bolt was actually pushed before Don Fernando discovered that his door would not close, owing to an unwonted obstruction.
"Your Excellency," cried Rollo, in a stern voice, "we desire to speak with you on a question which concerns the lives of all within this castle. Being unable to obtain an interview with her Majesty the Queen-Regent, we make bold to request you to convey our wishes and—our intentions to her!"
"I am dressing—I cannot see you, not at present!" cried a voice from within.
"But, Señor, see you we must and shall," said Rollo, firmly; "in half a minute we shall enter your apartment, so that you have due notice of our intention."
For this Rollo of ours had an etiquette of his own applicable even to circumstances so unique as obtained at the Castle of La Granja—which, had the occurrences we describe not been the severest history, might justly have been called the chiefest of all "Chateaux en Espagne."
Watch in hand Rollo stood, absorbed in the passage of the thirty seconds of which he had given notice, and had not the Sergeant suddenly dashed the chamber door open, the young Scot's foot would certainly have been crushed to a jelly. For by this act the excellent Duke of Rianzares was disclosed in the very act of dropping a ponderous marble bust of his wife's grandfather upon the young man's toes.
After that, of course, there was no more ceremony with Señor Muñoz. He was immediately relieved of his weapons, ordered to the farther side of the room away from all possible avenues of escape, and further guarded by the Sergeant, who bent upon him a stern and threatening brow.
Then Rollo began to develop his intentions in a loud clear voice. For if, as he suspected, Maria Cristina chanced to be within earshot, it might save an explanation in duplicate if she should hear at first hand what he was now about to communicate to her consort.
On either side of the young man were his two aides, the Sergeant and Ramon Garcia, the first gaunt, tough, and athletic, of any age between thirty and sixty, courage and invincible determination written plainly on his brow, and in his eyes when as now he was angered, the Angel of Death himself standing like a threat. On the other side stood Don Ramon Garcia, gigantic in stature, deep-chested and solemn, driven by fate to actions of blood, but all the same with the innocent heart of a little child within his breast.
"Señor Muñoz," said Rollo, speaking sharp and sudden, "let me introduce these gentlemen to your notice. They are two of the most famous men in all Spain and worthy of your acquaintance. This on my left is Señor Don José Maria, late of the town of Ronda, and this on my right is Don Ramon Garcia, better known as El Sarria of Aragon!"
For the first time the colour slowly forsook the handsome but somewhat florid countenance of the Duke of Rianzares. He was, as his valet had truly said, engaged at his toilet, and it is certainly difficult to look impressive in a flowered dressing-gown. Being Spaniards and therefore gentlemen, El Sarria and the Sergeant bowed slightly at Rollo's introduction, and stood waiting. Rollo, noways loth, continued his speech.
"Your Excellency is now aware of the names of two of those whom you may thank for your safety. I myself, to whom the Queen-Regent owes the recovery of her daughter, am a Scottish gentleman of good birth. My companions below are severally the Count de Saint Pierre, a French nobleman of ancient family, and Don Juan Mortimer, an English merchant of unchallenged probity.
"Here therefore are five men who have defended the Queen-Regent with their lives, and who now judge it to be necessary for her and the Princess that they should put themselves immediately under our protection and leave this place of instant and terrible danger!"
"The Queen will not be dictated to by any combination of men whatsoever," the Duke answered; "she has resolved to remain at La Granja, and therefore nothing can move her!"
Rollo bowed gracefully, but there was a dangerous glitter in his eye which might have warned his opponent.
"Your Excellency," he went on, with great calmness, "we look confidently for your voice and interest in this matter. You will have the goodness to introduce us into the presence of the Queen-Regent. You are at liberty to announce our intentions and prepare her Majesty for a visit!"
A quick light flashed over the indifferent and dogged countenance of Señor Muñoz. The hope of escape was written there as plainly as if printed in Roman characters across his brow. But for this also Rollo had made provision.
"Guard that inner door," he cried to El Sarria; and the giant moved swiftly to his post, motioning away the gentleman-in-waiting as one might displace a dog from a cushion. Then Rollo stepped briskly into the corridor, set his hand to his mouth and called a single word aloud.
"Concha!"
And the girl stood before him almost ere his voice had ceased to echo along the corridors. Silent she waited his pleasure. For this time it was not Rollo, upon whose love for her the new sun had risen, who called her, but Colonel Rollo Blair, the chief of the expedition of which she was no insignificant part.
"You are armed?" he queried, as she followed him within the door and her quick eyes took in the scene.
The girl nodded a little resentfully. Surely it was a superfluous question. An Andalucian maiden, whose lover's life is in danger every hour, always goes armed. But of course it was Rollo's duty as an officer to make certain. All the same he might have known.Shewould.
"Then," said Rollo, firmly, "you will accompany this gentleman to the apartments of the Queen-Regent. You will permit him ten minutes' private conversation with her Majesty in your presence. You will then accompany him back. During his absence he is not to lay his hand upon any weapon, have any personal contact with the Queen, or open any drawer, cabinet, or case-of-arms. Also he is to return with you as soon as you inform him that the time allotted is at an end. Here is my watch!"
"And if theSeñorshould refuse to comply with any of these demands?" suggested Concha.
"He will not refuse," answered Rollo; "but if the thing should happen, why, you have full discretion! You understand?"
Concha nodded, and her lips, ordinarily so sweet and yielding, grew firm with determination. She understood. So also did Muñoz.
"You do not need to say more," she said clearly; "I am an Andalucian."
Rollo turned to Muñoz. Not being a Spaniard, he thought it necessary to make the matter yet more clear.
"You have heard," he said; "treachery will do you no good, and may indeed suddenly deprive her reigning Majesty of the inestimable consolations of your companionship. Be good enough to accompany this young lady, sir. In ten minutes I shall expect your return with a favourable answer. Permit them to pass, Don Ramon!"
But the consort of the Queen-Regent Maria Cristina fingered his chin uncertainly without moving, and Rollo's brow darkened ominously, while the Sergeant began to look hopeful. Neither were in the mood to put up calmly with any further refusal or hesitation.
"I am quite willing—nay, even anxious to oblige you," said Muñoz; "I would gladly undertake the commission, but—but——!"
He stopped as if searching for words, still, however, rubbing his chin.
"But what?" thundered Rollo. The blood of all the Blairs was rising.
"Well, to put the matter plainly, I have never appeared before her Majesty in this condition before. You would not have me go as I am?"
"In what condition?" cried the Scot in great astonishment.
"Unshaven, and with my hair undressed. That idiot there"—pointing to the trembling valet—"spilt the water just when you came in."
"Nay," laughed Rollo, much relieved that there was to be no shedding of blood, "indeed you must forgive him for that. El Sarria there is entirely to blame. And on this occasion I trust that her Most Catholic Majesty will pardon the informality of your appearance. You can point out to her that you come, not on your own part, but as the ambassador of others who were somewhat over-earnest in persuading you. I am sure that my two friends here will share with me the very serious responsibility of your unshaven chin."
"That I shall not fail to represent to her Majesty," said the Duke, bowing imperturbably.
And without any further objections he went out, followed by Concha. And that young lady with all the dignity of responsibility swelling in pride under the crossed folds of herrebozo, did not vouchsafe even so much as one glance to Rollo, but passed her commanding officer with eyes like those of a rear-rank man on parade, fixed immovably on the broad back of Señor Muñoz. As soon as they were alone, however, she moved up alongside, fingering her pistol-butt significantly. For this little Concha was quite resolved to use her discretion to the uttermost should any treachery be intended—aye, or even the appearance of it.
During their absence the remaining quartette in the chamber of Don Fernando Muñoz held their ground without a word of mutual converse. Rollo stared out of the window and listened eagerly to the slamming of doors and the far-away murmur of voices in the direction of the royal apartments. Ramon, like the natural fine gentleman he was, fixed his eyes on the Persian rugs which strewed the polished floor and awaited orders. But Sergeant Cardono, unconditioned by any such fine scruples, regarded with undisguised contempt mingled with pity the gold and ivory fittings of the ducal dressing-table, the plated lamps, the gilt candelabra, the Dresden china shepherdesses holding out ash-trays, and all the varied elegancies which the affection and gratitude of a Queen had provided for the tobacco-seller of Torrejon de Ardoz, who, like our own Shakespeare, was said to have held many a steed outside his father's door for a meagre dole of pence. For thus by merit, diverse in kind it is true, do the really great soar above the insignificance of their birth.
Thus in a straining silence, acute almost to breaking point, they waited. Yet something of the epic's argument came to them even at that distance—a shrill woman's voice vehemently debating, then a bass mutter of masculine argument, a quick stamp, distinctly feminine, upon the floor, then the slamming of a door, and on the back of that the sound of returning footsteps.
"The Queen refuses to receive you, I am sorry to inform you, gentlemen," said the Duke. "That I did my best this lady will bear me witness. But having had no opportunity of private conference with her Majesty, I was unable (as indeed I anticipated) to effect anything."
Rollo turned to Concha without wasting words on his former ambassador.
"Return to the Queen's chamber," he said, "and inform her Majesty that we will wait her pleasure here for other ten minutes. And if by the end of that time we are not honoured with a visit from her Majesty, we shall (most reluctantly and with all respect) be compelled to shoot Señor Fernando Muñoz, whose person we hold as a hostage for her Majesty's complaisance in the affair we have undertaken. We can waste no more time."
Concha's lips became more rigid than ever. They looked as if they never would, should, or could be kissed. Juno herself, passing sentence upon the object of great Jove's latest admiration, could not have appeared more inflexibly stern.
But she only saluted, turned on her heel like a drill-sergeant, and marched out by the side door.
In these trying circumstances the Duke of Rianzares displayed an unexpected and wholly admirable calm. He leaned against the mantelpiece, glanced once at the ormolu timepiece with the address of a Paris maker below the winding-holes, and fell again to fingering his unshaven chin. He then turned quickly toward the trembling valet, who regarded him with eyes which seemed to apologise for such unprecedented circumstances.
"There would have been time to shave me even yet," he said, "only that you were fool enough to spill the shaving-water."
Then, as if relinquishing hope, he sighed again and fell listlessly to regarding himself in the mirror. He was a handsome man, even with an unshaven chin that showed over a dressing-gown with yellow flowers on a purple ground. Also the pulses of the tobacco-seller's son of the Ardozestancomust have been urged by a pretty equal-beating heart, to enable him to take matters so calmly.
The Sergeant muttered to himself once or twice as if making mental note of an important fact which he desired to remember.
"All dandies are not cowards," was what he was saying.
Five, six, seven, eight of the ten slow minutes passed away, and beyond a glance at the clock and a more absorbing interest in the furze on his chin, Señor Muñoz had not moved. The seconds hand upon the clock on the mantelshelf was crawling round its miniature dial for the ninth time with vast apparent deliberation, when a noise was heard from the direction of the Queen's apartments.
There was a rapid gabble of tongues, a scurry of footsteps, the hissing rustle of stiff silken skirts along narrow passages, and a voice which exclaimed more and more shrilly, "The murderers! The cowards! Surely they will never dare! Have they forgotten that I am a Queen?"
And with these words Maria Cristina of Naples burst like a whirlwind into the room. Her long black hair streamed down her back. Her little daughter followed, a comb still in the hand with which she had been struggling to take the place of the lost Doña Susana, who, as before related, had gone to visit her relations.
After these two Concha followed, in appearance calm and placid as the windless Mediterranean on a day of winter.
Upon his mistress's entrance the Duke threw himself upon one knee. The rest of the company bowed with grace or awkwardness according to their several abilities, but the Queen-Regent did not heed them. She flew instantly to her husband and raised him in her arms.
"Fernando," she cried, "what is this I hear? Did they threaten to kill you if I would not grant them an interview? Well, here I am. Let them slay me instead. What have you to say to me, gentlemen and cowards? What I have to say to you is that I hope you may not live to repent having used such compulsion with a woman and a Queen."
Again Rollo bowed very low, and was about to speak when the Queen interrupted.
"And as for this hussy," she cried, turning upon Concha, "if I had my way she should be indicted for witchcraft and burnt alive at the stake as in the good times of the Holy Office. Yet you, Fernando, for whom I daily risk my life, you defended her—yes, defended her to my very face!"
"Beloved and most honoured," said the Duke, soothingly, "I did but suggest that it would be better to convert the girl—to make a good Christian of her——"
"Yes—yes," cried the Queen, stamping her foot, "but did you not add that in that case you would like to be her Father-Confessor?"
"Certainly I did not, most gracious one," answered her husband, soothingly, "you wholly mistook my meaning. All that I said was no more than that many might be anxious to obtain the office of Father-Confessor, being, as it were, eager to take the credit for the restoration of so notable a penitent."
But Rollo had small patience with the bickerings of royal lovers at such a time.
"I must crave your Majesty's strict and instant attention," he said, suddenly dropping all ceremony. "I will only detain you for a moment if, as I anticipate, I receive your consent to what I have the honour of proposing to you."
At once the easily jealous woman froze into a Queen and fronted the young man with a haughty stare.
"Your Majesty," he began, "I do not dwell upon our services of the past night. They are known to you. Had it not been for my friends it is probable that no one of your party would at this moment have been left alive. Now the day is passing and you are no safer than you were last night. It is necessary, therefore, that you put yourselves unreservedly under the escort and protection of myself and my friends. We must leave La Granja at once."
"Never!" cried Maria Cristina, fiercely. "Am I, the Queen-Regent of Spain, to be thus badgered and commandeered? I have never suffered it since I left my father's house in Naples. A boy and a foreigner shall not be the first. My royal guards will assuredly be here in an hour at the latest. The roads will be cleared, and as for you, you shall be safe in prison cells, where, for your insolences, you ought to be lying at this moment."
"Then," said Rollo, gravely, "I deeply regret that I am obliged to use the only means that are open to me to fulfil my orders, and to induce your Highness to place yourself in safety."
"And pray," cried Maria Cristina, indignantly, "from whom can you have orders to place a Queen of Spain in restraint?"
In a moment Rollo realised that it was impossible for him to reveal his position as an officer of the Carlist armies, but a fortunate remembrance of some words dropped by the Abbot of Montblanch instantly gave him his cue.
"I act," he said calmly, "under the immediate direction of the Holy Father himself, at whose feet, in the Vatican of Rome, you shall one day kneel to ask pardon of your sins."
This unexpected reply seemed to agitate the Queen-Regent, who, though forced to create herself a party out of the men of liberal opinions in her realm, was at heart, like all the Bourbons, a convinced and even bigoted religionist. But Muñoz, who had hitherto been silent, stooped and whispered something in her ear.
"How am I to be convinced of that?" she cried, turning on him fiercely. "I will not believe it even from you!"
"I regret," said Rollo, "that your Highness must be compelled to believe it. Pray do me the honour of following my argument. The Holy Father judges it necessary for the peace of this realm, and your own soul's profit, that you should be placed in a situation where you may be able to act more in accordance with what he knows to be your secret desires for the welfare of the Church of which he is God's vicegerent on earth."
Rollo was glad to reflect that, in uttering these words, he was only repeating the sonorous phrases of Don Baltazar Varela when the Abbot delivered him his commission in his own chamber at Montblanch. He added of his own accord a little prayer to the recording angel that he might be guilty of no blasphemy in thus acting at second hand as an emissary of Holy Church. After all, it was entirely the Abbot's affair, and Rollo was anxious that it should so be understood above.
But the lady chiefly concerned continued obdurate. She would not budge an inch. She professed an absolute certainty that her guard would appear in a few hours, and with them her Father-Confessor, who would inform her how to reply to any genuine and authentic message from his Holiness Gregory the Sixteenth. Further than that she could not be moved.
"In that case," said the young man, "I will not conceal it from your Highness that considerable discretion has been granted to me. Your company and that of your daughter we must have upon our journey. It is our intention to place you and her in a place of safety——"
"To steal us—to kidnap us, you mean!" cried the Queen, with the utmost indignation.
"Your Majesty," continued Rollo, "I am not disputing about words. Our actions of last night will best explain our intentions of this morning. But with respect to this gentleman"—he turned to Señor Muñoz as he spoke—"I have no directions either to permit or compel him to accompany us. Yet since we must act with the greatest speed and secrecy, it is clearly impossible to leave him behind. I am compelled, therefore, to put an alternative before you, which, having had an opportunity to remark the Señor's courage, I am pained to declare. If your Majesty will consent to accompany us at once and without parley, Don Fernando may do so also. But if not, since we have not force sufficient to deal with additional prisoners on such a journey, it will be my unhappy duty to order the gentleman's instant execution."
A shriek from the Queen punctuated the close of this speech—one of the longest that Rollo had ever made. But the Queen, hardly yet believing in the reality of their threats, still held out. As for Muñoz, he said no word until Rollo abruptly ordered him to kneel and prepare for death.
"In that case," said the ex-guardsman, "permit me to put on a decent coat. A man ought not to die in a dressing-gown. It is not soldierly!"
Rollo bade the valet bring his master what he wanted, and presently the Duke of Rianzares, in his best uniform coat, found himself in a position to die with credit and self-respect.
But so unexpected was the nerve and resolution of the Queen that it was only when the Duke had been bidden kneel down between the halves of a French window which opened out upon a balcony that Cristina, flinging dignity finally to the winds, fell upon his neck and cried to her captors, "Take me where you wish. Do with me what you will. Only preserve to me my beloved Fernando."
Rollo turned away with a sudden easing of his heart and no little admiration. He was glad that the strain was over, and besides, he would rather have led the forlornest of hopes than have played twice upon a woman's fears for her lover. But at his back he heard the Sergeant whisper across to El Sarria, who, entirely unmoved, was uncocking his piece with much deliberation, "'Tis a deal more than she would have done for herfirstwell-beloved Fernando!"
In less than an hour the whole party was well on its way. The Queen-Regent was mounted on a white mule, which had been brought in from the hill pastures above El Mar. Behind came Piebald Pedro's donkey, with a basket-chair strapped upon its back for the little Princess, who was in high glee, holding Concha's hand and singing for gladness to be done with La Granja. The Sergeant and El Sarria walked one on either side of Señor Muñoz, who, by suggestion of Rollo, had assumed a coat less decorative than that in which he had proposed to make his exit from life.
In addition to the Queen's mule and the donkey, the Sergeant led a horse which was presently to be mounted by Muñoz, so soon, that is, as the rest of the party should regain the steeds they had left behind at the deserted farmhouse on the hill. But till that time it was judged most safe that the Queen's consort should walk between Ramon Garcia and the Sergeant. Rollo, with a wandering eye towards Concha and the Queen, walked and talked with Etienne and John Mortimer, whom of late the joint compulsions of love and war had compelled him somewhat to neglect.
But these good fellows bore no malice, though certainly Etienne grew a little red when Rollo, with the frankness that distinguished his every word and action, launched into enthusiastic praise of the nobility, courage, fidelity, and every other virtue characteristic of La Señorita Concha.
"In addition to which she is very pretty!" added Etienne, significantly.
Rollo stopped with the semi-indignant air of a horse pulled up short in full career. But in a moment he had recovered himself.
"Yes," he said doggedly, "sheisvery pretty!"
"Not that you are a man to care for beauty. You never were!" persisted Etienne, with a side look at Mortimer. "You have always said so yourself, you know!"
"No! I never did care!" Rollo agreed a little hastily. "But yonder is the farmhouse. I wonder if we shall find our horses as we left them."
Here Etienne laughed sardonically for no reason at all.
"I am in hopes that they will be fed and refreshed," continued Rollo, imperturbably; "we must let them have a feed of corn, too, before they start."
La Giralda, who had been leading the Queen's white mule, at that moment gave up her post to Concha, and fell back in order to whisper something to the Sergeant.
"Ah," said he aloud, as soon as he had listened to her, "that is well thought on. La Giralda and I have a little business of our own to attend to which may occupy us a few minutes. With your leave, Colonel, we will go on ahead and arrange matters for the Queen's reception. From what La Giralda tells me, it may be as well to avoid entering the house."
So when the Queen-Regent, with Concha in attendance and the little Isabel riding demurely alongside on her diminutive donkey, delighting in the unexpected excursion, arrived at the farm, they found that a large barn and granary, cool, airy, and with a roof of stone arched like the vaults of a fortress, had been prepared for them. The horses of the party had been fed and watered. Cloaks had been unstrapped and laid on piles of straw for the ladies to rest upon—that is, for her Majesty the Queen Maria Cristina—Concha being one of the comity, and little Isabel dancing everywhere after her as her inseparable tyrant and slave. For with the easy and fortunate memory of childhood, Isabel had ceased even to mention the nurse who had been with her ever since her birth, or at most remembered her only when she happened to be tired or hurt or sleepy. Indeed, she learned in a wondrously short space to run to Concha with all her troubles. So constant was the companionship of these two that it was with the utmost difficulty, and after several failures, that Rollo managed to exchange even a word with his sweetheart.
"You have been very brave," he whispered. "I should have failed but for you!"
Concha blushed hot with swift pleasure, but on this occasion her usual readiness of speech seemed to have deserted her, and she stood silent like a tongue-tied maid, greedy for the first time in her life of her own praise.
Before either could speak again, the Sergeant was back to report that La Giralda and he had dinner ready for the party.
"You must not expect much," he said; "there is little available for the pot which may with safety be cooked."
But indeed in such weather there was need for nothing better than thearroz con pollo—the chicken with rice, together with the abundantgazpacho, for the first of which he had found the materials in the store-chamber and barn-yard of the deserted farmhouse.
"Also there is an abundance of vegetables in the garden—when you get them separated from the weeds, that is," he explained; "the clear air of these heights has enabled them to keep their flavour to perfection."
He did not add that he had also seen in that same garden a mound of newly-dug earth, under which lay, beside her little daughter, a mother as loving and more faithful than that Queen-Mother for whose sake they were risking their lives.
The Sergeant's hurriedly prepared lunch was a prodigious success.
The great folk partook as heartily as any, and (perhaps owing to their extreme youth) thepollostasted much more tender than could have been expected, considering the fact that the Sergeant had found them industriously pecking and scratching in the dust of the farmyard upon his arrival, and that, while he dug the grave, he had sent La Giralda to drive them into a wood-shed, where presently they were captureden masse.
Rollo ate but little, for he was intensely excited. He had succeeded beyond expectation so far, and now he was beginning to see his way past all entanglements to the successful accomplishment of his mission. His plan was to proceed by unfrequented paths, such as were, however, perfectly familiar to his adjutant Sergeant Cardono, along the northern slopes of the Guadarrama till he should be able to look out across the fertile plain of the Duero towards the mural front of the Sierra de Moncayo.
Thence by forced marches across the valley, undertaken at night, he might hope in two stages at most to put his charges under the care of General Elio, the immediate representative of Don Carlos, who had established his headquarters there. Small wonder that Rollo grew excited. The worst seemed over—the myriad adventures, the perilous passes, the thousand enemies. Now the plains lay before him, and—Concha loved him.
If only this weight of responsibility were once off his mind—ah, then!
Poor Rollo! And indeed poor humankind in general! How often the wind falls to a breeze, heat-tempering, grateful, which comes in fits and starts, not severe enough to chill, yet long enough to cool the body weary of the summer heats, with a sense of grateful relief.
And it is precisely in the teeth of such a gentle-breathing, cheek-fanning earth-wind that the thunderstorm comes riding up overhead, its flanks black and ragged with rain and fierce spurts of hail, and in the midst of all the white desolating lightnings zigzagging to the ground.
The town of Aranda lay to the left, perched high above them on the slopes of the Sierra de Moncayo. Rollo looked past the crumbling grey turrets of the little fortalice and over the juniper-and-thyme covered foot-hills to the red peaks of the Sierra. From the point at which they stood Moncayo fronted them like a lion surprised at the mouth of his lair, that raises his head haughtily to view the rash trespassers on his domain.
The lower slopes of the mountain were tawny-yellow, like the lion's fell, but from the line at which the scant mane of rock-plants ceased, Moncayo shone red as blood in the level rays of the setting sun.
"There, there!" thought Rollo, "I have it almost in hand now. Beyond that flank lie Vera and the headquarters of General Elio!"
They were riding easily, debouching slowly and in single file out of one of the many defiles with which the country was cut up. The Sergeant and Rollo were leading, when, as they issued out upon the opener country, suddenly they heard themselves called upon peremptorily to halt, at the peril of their lives.
"Whom have we here? Ah, our highly certificated Englishman! And in his company—whom?"
The speaker was a dark-haired man of active figure and low stature, whose eyes twinkled in his head. He was dressed in the full uniform of a Carlist general. About him rode a brilliant staff, and from behind every rock and out of every deep gully-cleft protruded the muzzle of a rifle, with just one black eye peering along it from under the white Basqueboinaor the red one of Navarre.
And for the third time Rollo Blair, out upon his adventures, had come face to face with General Don Ramon Cabrera of Tortosa.
Yet it was with glad relief in his heart that Rollo instantly rode up to Cabrera, and having saluted, thus began his report, "I have the honour, General, to report that I have been fortunate enough to induce her Majesty the Queen-Regent of Spain and her daughter the young Queen Isabel to place themselves under my protection. I am proceeding with them to the headquarters of General Elio according to my instructions; and if it be at all convenient, I should be glad of an additional escort, that I may be able to bring my charges safely within the lines of Vera!"
The brow of General Cabrera had been darkening during this speech, and at the close he burst out with an oath.
"I know no such person as the Queen-Regent of Spain. I have heard of a certain light-o'-love calling herself Maria Cristina, widow of the late King Fernando the Seventh. And if this be indeed the lady and her brat, we of the true opinion owe you, Don Rollo, a debt of gratitude which shall not be easily repaid. For she and hers have troubled the peace of this country much and long. Of which now, by San Nicolas, there shall be a quick end!"
As he spoke he ran his eyes along the line to where Muñoz rode behind his mistress.
"And the tall gentleman with the polished whiskers? Who may he be?" he cried, a yet more venomous fire glittering in his eyes.
"That, General Cabrera," said Rollo, quietly, "is his Excellency the Duke of Rianzares."
"At last,estanco-keeper!" cried Cabrera, riding forward as if to strike Muñoz on the face. "I, Ramon Cabrera of Tortosa, have waited a long time for this pleasure."
Muñoz did not answer in words, but, as before, preserved his imperturbable demeanour. His half contemptuous dignity of bearing, which had irritated even Rollo, seemed to have the power of exciting Cabrera to the point of fury.
"Colonel," he cried, "I relieve you of your charge. You have done well. I am the equal in rank of General Elio, and there is no need that you should convoy this party to his camp. I will assume the full charge—yes, and responsibility. By the Holy St. Vincent, I promised them twenty for one when they slew my mother in the Square of the Barbican. But I knew not from how evil a vine-stock I should gather my second vintage. A poor commandant's wife from a petty Valentian fort was the best I could do for them at the time. But now—the mother of Ramon Cabrera shall be atoned for in such a fashion as shall make the world sit dumb!"
While Cabrera was speaking Rollo grew slowly chill, and then ice-cold with horror.
"Sir," he said, his voice suddenly hoarse and broken, "surely you do not realise what you are saying. These ladies are under my protection. They have committed themselves to my care under the most sacred and absolute pledges that their lives shall be respected. The same is the case with regard to Señor Muñoz. It is absolutely necessary that I should place them all under the care of General Elio as the personal representative of the King!"
"I have already told you, sir," cried Cabrera, furiously, "that I am of equal rank with any Elio or other general in the armies of Don Carlos. Have not I done more than any other? Was it not I who carried my command to the gates of Madrid? Aye, and had I been left to myself, I should have succeeded in cutting off that fox Mendizábal. Now, however, I am absolutely independent, owing authority to no man, save to the King alone. It is mine to give or to withhold, to punish or to pardon. Therefore I, General Ramon Cabrera, having sworn publicly to avenge my mother, when, where, and how I can, solemnly declare that, as a retaliation, I will shoot these three prisoners to-morrow at sunrise, even as Nogueras, the representative of this woman who calls herself Queen-Regent of Spain, shot down my innocent mother for the sole crime of giving birth to an unworthy son! Take them away! I will hear no more!"
Thus in a moment was Rollo toppled from the highest pinnacle of happiness, for such to a young man is the hope of immediate success. He cursed the hour he had entered the bloodthirsty land of Spain. He cursed his visit to the Abbey of Montblanch, and the day on which he accepted a commission from men without honour or humanity. He was indeed almost in case to do himself a hurt, and both Concha and the Sergeant watched him with anxious solicitude during the remainder of the afternoon as he wandered disconsolately about the little camp, twirling his moustache and clanking Killiecrankie at his heels with so fierce an air, that even Cabrera's officers, no laggards on the field of honour, kept prudently out of his way.
The royal party had been disposed in a small house, a mere summer residence of some of thebourgeoisfolk of Aranda, and there, by an unexpected act of grace and at the special supplication of the Sergeant, La Giralda had been permitted to wait upon them.
The beauty of Concha was not long in producing its usual effect upon the impressionable sons of Navarre and Guipuzcoa. But the Sergeant, whoseprestigewas unbounded, soon gave them to understand that the girl had better be left to go her own way, having two such protectors as Rollo and El Sarria to fight her battles for her.
To the secret satisfaction of all the Sergeant did not resume his duties in the camp of Cabrera. The troop to which he belonged had been left behind to watch the movements of the enemy. For Cabrera had barely escaped from a strong force under Espartero near the walls of Madrid itself, by showing the cleanest of heels possible. Cardono, therefore, still attached himself unreproved to the party of Rollo, which camped a little apart. A guard of picked men was, however, placed over the quarters of the royal family. This Cabrera saw to himself, and then sullenly withdrew into his tent for the night to drinkaguardienteby himself, in gloomy converse with a heart into whose dark secrets at no time could any man enter. It is, indeed, the most charitable supposition that at this period of his life Ramon Cabrera's love for a mother most cruelly murdered had rendered him temporarily insane.
Deprived of La Giralda, and judging that Rollo was in no mood to be spoken with, Concha Cabezos took refuge in the society of El Sarria. That stalwart man of few words, though in the days of her light-heartedness quite careless of her wiles, and, indeed, unconscious of them, was in his way strongly attached to her. He loved the girl for the sake of her devotion to Dolóres, as well as because of the secret preference which all grave and silent men have for the winsome and gay.
"This Butcher of Tortosa," she said in a low voice to Ramon Garcia, "will surely never do the thing he threatens. Not even a devil out of hell could slay in cold blood not the Queen-Regent only, but also the innocent little maid who never did any man a wrong."
El Sarria looked keenly about him for possible listeners. Concha and he sat at some distance above the camp, and El Sarria was idly employed in breaking off pieces of shaly rock and trying to hit a certain pinnacle of white quartz which made a prominent target a few yards beneath them.
"I think he will," said Ramon Garcia, slowly. "Cabrera is a sullen dog at all times, and the very devil in his cups. Besides, who am I to blame him—is there not the matter of his mother? Had it been Dolóres—well. For her sake I would have shot half a dozen royal families."
"The thing will break our Rollo's heart if it cannot be prevented," sighed Concha, "for he hath taken it in his head that the Queen and her husband trusted themselves to his word of honour."
Ramon Garcia shook his head sadly.
"Ah, 'tis his sacred thing, that honour of his—his image of the Virgin which he carries about with him," he said. "And, indeed, El Sarria has little cause to complain, for had it not been for that same honour of Don Rollo's, Dolóres Garcia might at this moment have been in the hands of Luis Fernandez!"
"Aye, or dead, more like," said Concha; "she would never have lived in the clutches of the evil-hearted! I know her better. But, Don Ramon, what can we, who owe him so much, do for our Don Rollo?"
"Why—what is there to do?" said Ramon, with a lift of his eyebrows. "Here in the camp of Cabrera we are watched, followed, suspected. Do you see that fellow yonder with the smartly setboina? He is a miller's son from near Vitoria in Alava. Well, he hath been set to watch that none of us leave the camp unattended. I will wager that if you and I were to wander out fifty yards farther, yonder lad would be after us in a trice!"
"Ah!" said Concha, in a brown study. "Yes—he is not at all a bad-looking boy, and thinks excessively well of himself—like some others I could mention. Now, El Sarria, can you tell me in which direction lies Vera, the headquarters of General Elio?"
"That can I!" said El Sarria, forgetting his caution. And he was about to turn him about and point it out with his hand, when Concha stopped him.
"The miller's son is craning his neck to look," she whispered: "do not point. Turn about slowly, and the third stone you throw, let it be in the direction of Vera!"
El Sarria did as he was bid, and after the third he continued to project stones Vera-wards, explaining as he did so—"Up yonder reddish cleft the road goes, a hound's path, a mere goat's slide, but it is the directest road. There is open ground to the very foot of the ascent. Many is the time I have ridden thither, God forgive me, on another man's beast! Then cast him loose and left him to find his way home as best he could. There are good hiding-places on the Sierra de Moncayo, up among the red sandstone where the caves are deep and dry, and with mouths so narrow and secret that they may be held by one man against fifty."
Concha did not appear to be greatly interested in El Sarria's reminiscences. Even guileless Ramon could not but notice her wandering glances. Her eyes, surveying the landscape, lighted continually upon the handsome young Vitorian in the redboina, lifted again sharply, and sought the ground.
At this El Sarria sighed, and decided mentally that, with the exception of his Dolóres, no woman was to be trusted. If not at heart a rake, she was by nature a flirt. And so he was about to leave Concha to her own devices and seek Rollo, when Concha suddenly spoke.
"Don Ramon," she said, "shall we walk a few hundred yards up the mountain away from the camp and see if we are really being watched?"
El Sarria smiled grimly to himself and rose. The stratagem was really, he thought, too transparent, and his impression was strengthened when Concha presently added, "I will not ask you to remain if you would rather go back. Then we will see whom they are most suspicious of, you or I. A girl may often steal a horse when a man dares not look over the wall."
In the abstract this was incontestable, but El Sarria only smiled the more grimly. After all Dolóres was the only woman upon whose fidelity one would be justified in wagering the last whiff of a goodcigarillo. And as if reminded of a duty El Sarria rolled a beauty as he dragged one huge foot after another slowly up the hill in the rear of Concha, who, her love-locks straying on the breeze, herbasquiñaheld coquettishly in one hand, and the prettiest toss of the head for the benefit of any whom it might concern, went leaping upwards like a young roe.
All the while Rollo was sitting below quite unconscious of this treachery. His head was sunk on his hand. Deep melancholy brooded in his heart. He rocked to and fro as if in pain. Looking down from the mountain-side Ramon Garcia pitied him.
"Ah, poor innocent young man," he thought, "doubtless he believes that the heart of this girl is all his own. But all men are fools—a butterfly is always a butterfly and an Andaluse an Andaluse to the day of her death!"
Then turning his thoughts backward, he remembered the many who had taken their turn with mandolin and guitar at therejasof Concha's window when he and Dolóres lived outside the village of Sarria; and he (ah, thrice fool!) had taken it into his thick head to be jealous.
Well, after all this was none of his business, he thanked the saints. He was not responsible for the vagaries of pretty young women. He wondered vaguely whether he ought to tell Rollo. But after turning the matter this way and that, he decided against it, remembering the dire consequences of jealousy in his own case, and concluding with the sage reflection that there were plenty of mosquitoes in the world already without beating the bushes for more.
But with the corner of an eye more accustomed to the sun glinting on rifle barrels than to the flashing eyes of beauty, El Sarria could make out that the Vitorian in the redboinawas following them, his gun over his shoulder, trying, not with conspicuous success to assume the sauntering air of a man who, having nothing better to do, goes for a stroll in the summer evening.
"'Tis the first time that ever I saw a soldier off duty take his musket for a walk!" growled El Sarria, "and why on the Sierra de Moncayo does the fellow stop to trick himself out as for afesta?"
Concha looked over her shoulder, presumably at El Sarria, though why the maiden's glances were so sprightly and her lips so provokingly pouted is a question hard enough to be propounded for the doctorial thesis at Salamanca. For Ramon Garcia was stolid as an ox of his native Aragon, and arch glances and pretty gestures were as much wasted on him as if he chewed the cud. Still he was not even in these matters so dull and unobservant as he looked, that is, when he had any reason for observing.
"Here comes that young ass of Alava," he murmured. "Well, he is at least getting his money's worth. By the saints favourable to my native parish, the holy Narcissus and Justus, but theburrois tightening his girths!"
And El Sarria laughed out suddenly and sardonically. For he could see the lad pulling his leathern belt a few holes tighter, in order that he might present his most symmetrical figure to the eyes of this dazzling Andalucian witch who had dropped so suddenly into the Carlist camp from the place whence all witches come.
Concha and El Sarria sat down on an outcrop of red sandstone rock, and gazed back at the prospect. There below them lay the camp and the house in which was imprisoned the reigning branch of the royal family of Spain. A couple of sentries paced to and fro in front. A picket had established itself for the night in the back courtyard. Beyond that again stood the tent in which the General was at present engaged in drinking himself from his usual sullen ferocity into unconsciousness.
A little nearer, and not far from their own camp-fire, at which the Sergeant was busily preparing the evening meal, sat Rollo, sunk in misery, revolving a thousand plans and ready for any desperate venture so soon as night should fall. Concha gave a quick little sigh whenever her eye fell on him. Perhaps her conscience pricked her—perhaps not! With the heart of such a woman doth neither stranger nor friend intermeddle with any profit.
The sauntering Vitorian halted within speaking distance of the pair.
"A fine evening," he said affably. "Can you give me a light for my cigarette?"
It was on the tip of El Sarria's tongue to inquire whether there were not plenty of lights for his cigarette back at the camp-fires where he had rolled it. But that most excellent habit, which Don Ramon had used from boyhood, of never interfering in the business of another, kept him silent.
"Why should I," he thought, "burn my fingers with stirring this young foreigner'solla? Time was when I made a pretty mess enough of my own!"
So without speech he blew the end off hiscigarilloand handed it courteously to the Carlist soldier.
But Concha had no qualms about breaking the silence. The presence of a duenna was nowise necessary to the opening of her lips, which last had also sometimes been silenced without the intervention of a chaperon.
"A fine evening, indeed," she said, smiling down at the youth. "I presume that you are a foot soldier from the musket you carry. It must be a fine one from the care you take of it! But as for me, I like cavaliers best."
"The piece is as veritable a cross-eyed old shrew as ever threw a bullet ten yards wide of the mark," cried the Alavan, tossing his musket down upon the short elastic covering of hill-plants on which he stood, and taking his cigarette luxuriously from his lips. "Nor am I an infantry-man, as you suppose. Doubtless theSeñoritadid not observe my spurs as I came. Of the best Potosi silver they are made. I am a horseman of the Estella regiment. Our good Carlos the Fifth (whom God bring to his own!) is not yet rich enough to provide us with much in the way of a uniform, but a pair of spurs and aboinaare within reach of every man's purse. Or if he has not the money to buy them, they are to be had at the first tailor's we may chance to pass!"
"And very becoming they are!" said Concha, glancing wickedly at the youth, who sat staring at her and letting his cigarette go out. "'Tis small wonder you are a conquering corps! I have often heard tell of the Red Boinas of Navarre!"
"I think I will betake me down to the camp—I smell supper!" broke in El Sarria, curtly. He began to think that Mistress Concha had no further use for him, and, being assured on this point, he set about finding other business for himself. For, with all his simplicity, Ramon Garcia was an exceedingly practical man.
"The air is sweet up here; I prefer it to supper," said Concha. "I will follow you down in a moment. Perhaps this gentleman desires to keep you company to the camp and canteen."
But it soon appeared that the Vitorian was also impressed by the marvellous sweetness of the mountain air, and equally desirous of observing the changeful lights and lengthening shadows which the sun of evening cast, sapphire and indigo, Venetian red and violet-grey, among the peaks of the Sierra de Moncayo. When two young people are thus simultaneously stricken with an admiration for scenery, their conversation is seldom worth repeating. But the Señorita Concha is so unusual a young lady that in this case an exception must be made.
Awhile she gazed pensively up at the highest summits of the mountain, now crimson against a saffron sky, for at eventide Spain flaunts her national colours in the very heavens. Then she heaved a deep sigh.
"You are doubtless a fine horseman?" she cried, clasping her hands—"oh, I adore all horses! I love to see a man ride as a man should!"
The young man coloured. This was, in truth, the most open joint in his armour. Above all things he prided himself upon his horsemanship. Concha had judged as much from his care of his spurs. And then to be mistaken for an infantry tramper!
"Ah," he said, "if theSeñoritacould only see my mare La Perla! I got her three months ago from the stable of a black-blooded National whose house we burnt near Zaragoza. She has carried me ever since without a day's lameness. There is not the like of her in the regiment. Our mounts are for the most part meregarronsof Cataluña or Aragonese ponies with legs like the pillars of a cellar, surmounted by barrels as round as the wine-tuns themselves."
At this Concha looked still more pensive. Presently she heaved another sigh and tapped her slender shoe with a chance spray of heath.
"Oh, I wish——" she began, and then stopped hastily as if ashamed.
"If it be anything that I can do for you," cried the young man, enthusiastically, "you shall not have to wish it long!"
As he spoke he forsook the stone on which he had been sitting for another nearer to the pretty cross-tied shoes of Andalucian pattern that showed beneath the skirts of Concha'sbasquiña.
"Ah, how I love horses!" murmured Concha; "doubtless, too, yours is of my country—of the beautiful sunny Andalucia which I may never see again!"
"The mare is indeed believed by all who have knowledge to have Andalucian blood in her veins," answered the Alavan.
Concha rose to her feet impulsively.
"Then," she said, "I must see her. Also I am devoured with eagerness to see you ride."
She permitted her eyes to take in the trim figure of the Vitorian, who had also risen to his feet.
"Do go and bring her," she murmured; "I will take care of your musket. You need not be a moment, and—I will wait for you!"
A little spark kindles a great fire in a Spanish heart, and the young man, counting the cost, rapidly decided that the risk was worth running. The horses of the Estella regiment were picketed in a little hollow a few hundred yards behind the main camp. It was his duty to watch these two strangers, of whom one had already gone back to the camp, while as to the other—well, Adrian Zumaya of the province of Alava felt at that moment that he could cheerfully devote the rest of his life to watching that other.
In a moment more he had laid down his musket at Concha's feet, and set off as fast as he could in the direction of the horses, keeping well out of sight in the trough of a long roller of foot-hill until he was close to the cavalry lines, and could smell the honest stable-smell which in the open air mingled curiously with those of aromatic thyme and resinous juniper.
In five minutes he was back, riding his best and sitting like a Centaur.
Concha's eyes glistened with pleasure, and she ran impulsively forward to pat the cream-coloured mare, a clean-built, well-gathered, workmanlike steed.
Now the young man was very proud of the interest this pretty Andalucian girl was showing in his equipment and belongings to the exclusion of those of his comrades. Perhaps he might have been less pleased had he known that the young lady's interest extended even to the gun he had left behind him, the charge of which she had already managed to extract with deft and competent fingers.
"La Perla she is called," he cried with enthusiasm, "and sure none other ever better deserved the name! I wish we of the camp possessed a side-saddle that theSeñoritamight try her paces. She has the easiest motion in the world. It is like riding in a great lady's coach with springs or being carried in a Sedan-chair. But she is of a delicate mouth. Ah, yes—if theSeñoritamounted, it would be necessary to remember that she must not bear hard upon the reins. Then would La Perla of a certainty take the bit between her teeth and run like the devil when Father Mateo is after him with a holy water syringe!"
Concha smiled as the young fellow dismounted, flinging himself off with the lithe grace of youth and constant practice.
"You forget," she said, "I also am of the Province of Flowers. Do not be afraid. La Perla and I will not fall out. A side-saddle—any saddle! What needs Concha Cabezos with side-saddle when she hath ridden unbroken Andalucian jennets wild over the meadows of Mairena, with no better bridle than their manes of silk and no other saddle than their glossy hides, brown as toasted bread!"
As she made this boast Concha patted La Perla's pretty head, who, recognising a lover of her kind, muzzled an affectionate nose under the girl's arm.
"Oh, how I wish I could try you," she cried, "were it but for a moment—darling among steeds, Pearl of Andalucia!"
"La Perla is very gentle," suggested the young cavalier of Alava, as he thought most subtly. "With me at the mare's head theSeñoritamight safely enough ride. But for fear of interruption let us first proceed a little way out of sight of the camp."
They descended behind the long ridge till the camp was entirely hidden, and as they did so the heart of the young Vitorian beat fast. They think plentifully well of themselves, these young men of Alava and Navarre. And this one felt that he would not disgrace the name of his parent city.
"Only for a moment,Señorita, permit me—there! TheSeñoritagoes up like a bird! Now wait till I take her head, and beware of jerking the rein hastily on account of the delicacy of the little lady's mouth. So, La Perla,—gently and daintily! Consider, jewel of mares, what a precious burden is now on thy back!"
"A moment, only a moment!" cried Concha, her hands apparently busy about her hair, "this rebozo is no headgear to ride in. What shall I do? A handkerchief is not large enough. Ah,Cavallero, add to your kindness by lending me yourboina! I thank you a thousand times! There! Is that so greatly amiss?"
And she set the redboinadaintily upon her hair, pulling the brim sideways to shade her eyes from the level evening sun, and smiled down at the young man who stood at her side.
"Perfect! Beautiful!" cried the young Vitorian, clasping his hands. "The sight would set on fire the heart of Don Carlos himself. Ah, take care! Bear easily on that rein. Stop, La Perla! Stop! I beseech you!"
And he started running with all his might. Alas, in vain! For the wicked Concha, the moment that he had stepped back to take in the effect of the redboina, dropped a heel (into which she had privately inserted half an inch of pin, taken from her own headgear), upon the flank of La Perla. The mare sprang forward, with nostrils distended and a fierce jerk of the head. Concha pulled hard as if in terror, and presently was flying over the plain towards the cleft on the shoulder of Moncayo beyond which lay the camp of General Elio.
The young Carlist stood a moment aghast. Then slowly he realised the situation. Whereupon, crying aloud the national oath, he ground his heel into the grass, snatched at his gun, kneeled upon one knee, took careful aim, and clicked down the trigger. No report followed, however, and a slight inspection satisfied him that he had been tricked, duped, made a fool of by a slip of a girl, a girl with eyes—yes, and eye-lashes. He leaped in the air and shouted aloud great words in Basque which have no direct equivalents in any polite European language, but which were well enough understood in the stone age.
However, he wasted no time foolishly. Well he knew that for such mistakes there was in Cabrera's code neither forgiveness nor, indeed, any penalty save one. Adrian Zumaya of the province of Alava was young. He desired much to live, if only that he might meet that girl again at whose retreating figure he had a moment before pointed an empty gun barrel. Ah, he would be even with her yet! So, wasting no time on leave-taking, he bent low behind the ridge, and keeping well in the shelter of boulder and underbrush, made a bee-line for the cliffs of Moncayo, where presently, in one of the caves of which El Sarria had spoken, he counted his cartridges and reloaded his rifle, with little regret, except when he wished that the incident had happened after, instead of before supper.
However, he had in reserve a hand's-breadth of sausage in his pocket, together with a fragment of most ancient and rock-like cheese. These, since no better might be, he made the best of, and as the sun sank and the camp below him grew but a blur in the gloom, he washed them down with the water which percolated through the roof of the cave and fell in great drops, as regularly as a pendulum swings, upon the floor below. These he caught in his palms and drank with much satisfaction. And in the intervals he execrated the Señorita Concha Cabezos, late of Andalucia, with polysyllabic vehemence.
But ere he curled himself up to sleep in the dryest corner of the cave, he burst into a laugh.
"In truth," he said, "she deserves La Perla. For a cleverer wench or a prettier saw I never one!"
The young man's last act before he laid himself down in his new quarters had been to take from his coat the circular disc with the letters "C. V.," the badge of the only Catholic, absolute, and legitimate king. Then, approaching the precipice as nearly as in the uncertain light he dared, he cast it from him in the direction of the Carlist lines.
"Shoot whom you will at sunrise, queen or camp-wench, king or knave," he muttered, "you shall not have Adrian Zumaya of Vitoria to put a bullet through!"
So easily was allegiance laid down or taken up in these civil wars of Spain. And that night it was noised abroad through all the camp that young Zumaya of the Estella regiment of cavalry had taken his horse and gone off with the prettySeñoritawhom he had been set to watch.