"'Old Carlos is a crusty churl,But Isabel's a sweet young girl!'"
"'Old Carlos is a crusty churl,But Isabel's a sweet young girl!'"
The Queen bowed, with however a little frown upon her face. She was never quite sure whether her Prime Minister was laughing at her or not. Then she returned to the subject of Rollo.
"You have some employment of a sort suited to the taste of this adventurous young man?" she went on. "I understand and sympathise with his desire not to return to the wars in the North."
"There is the little matter of the suppression of the monasteries," returned Mendizábal, "to take effect (as your Majesty doubtless remembers) on the twentieth of the month. It is already the sixth. There may be some slight trouble where the orders are strong. I propose that we send this distinguished young Scottish soldier (whose noble father I had the honour of knowing somewhat intimately) to Valencia or the Baleares with vice-regal powers. We have great need of such men at such a time."
Rollo gasped and bowed his head. The crimson rose to his cheek. To be a Governor with almost regal powers and soldiers at his beck, to hold a turbulent province quiet under his hand! How he wished there were no such thing as "honour" anywhere, keeping him by mere iteration and irritancy to the resolution his conscience had extorted from him.
Mendizábal thought the young man only doubtful of his capacity, and patted him on the shoulder with fatherly tolerance and encouragement.
"You will do very well," he said kindly, "we will give you a free hand, full powers, and as many soldiers as you want. Besides, the Carlists have been some while in these regions, and we have not been able to get our own men. Now you can look them up!"
Then Rollo, suddenly finding words, spoke his mind fully and freely.
"I cannot go," he said; "at least, not till I have fulfilled a sacred duty which lies heavily upon me. I took up a charge. I have not fulfilled it. I cannot serve the Queen-Regent till I have laid down that which I undertook, and to the person who charged me with the mission!"
The Queen stared at the bold young man, but the Prime Minister understood better.
"It is his point of honour," he explained to Maria Cristina; "those of his nation cannot help it. It is in the blood and in the gloomy creed which they profess—a sour and inconvenient religion in which there is no confession."
"No confession!" cried the Queen, casting up her hands in horror, "no absolution! How then can they go on living from day to day?"
"Much like other people," said the Premier, smiling; "they repent, and then—repent of their repentances!"
"And is this young man not a Christian?" cried the Queen. "Is he also of this dark and gloomy superstition—what was it that you called the heresy?"
"I am indeed a Presbyterian," said Rollo, smiling; "at least, my father was, and I also when any one contradicts me. For the rest I am, I fear, but an indifferent Christian!"
"Ah," murmured the Queen with a reflective sigh, "then even heretics may have their uses. In that case it will be easier for you to oppress—I mean to argue with and convince the holy friars of the righteous intentions of the government with regard to them!"
"Well," said Mendizábal, quickly, desirous of diverting the conversation from a dangerous subject, "off with you, sirrah! Go satisfy that Calvinistic conscience of yours! But first kiss her Majesty's royal hand. Let no one spoil your beauty, and return betimes to the post which we will keep open for you!"
Rollo did as he was bidden. He kissed the hand of the Queen, who was graciously pleased to give his fingers a slight pressure as hers rested a moment in his. For the handsome face and high bearing of Rollo Blair had been working their usual way with Maria Cristina.
The Prime Minister, noting a slight movement of theportièrecurtains, bustled Rollo off lest he should lose his favour with the Power Behind the Throne. But, pausing a moment at the door, he whispered in his ear—"Have you any objection to telling me the name of the person from whom you had this commission? I promise you upon my sacred honour that you shall have no cause to repent your frankness. Neither you nor he shall suffer on account of my knowledge—no, not if it were Don Carlos himself."
"His name is Don Baltasar Varela, Prior of the Abbey of Montblanch!" said Rollo, after a moment's hesitation.
"I understand," said Mendizábal, with an inscrutable expression. "Nevertheless, I will keep my word."
There remained Concha to be dealt with. Ah, yes, and also his companions El Sarria, Mortimer, and Etienne. Only—they did not count. What man does count when the one woman is in the question? Friends of a lifetime are skipped like the historical introduction of an exciting romance, through whose pages battle, murder, and sudden death play gaily at leap-frog and devil-take-the-hindmost.
Yes, Rollo owned it, Concha mattered. There was no blinking the fact. It would be bitter almost as death for him to tell her that he must once more leave her to take his life in his hand, upon a mere point of honour. She might not understand. Like his friends she might denounce his purpose as arrant quixotry and folly. Well, that would certainly make it harder—but even then he would carry it through.
He found them seated in the lodgings which Rollo had secured for Concha and La Giralda in a house that looked upon the Puerta del Sol. Opposite, but upon the same staircase and landing, lodged El Sarria, who, if it would have given any pleasure to Rollo, would have slept all night outside his sweetheart's door.
Etienne, Mortimer, and Rollo himself had rooms on the other side of the great square. But upon Rollo's return all were now assembled in Concha's sitting-room, as had grown to be their easy custom. Concha needed no chaperon, and if the straiterconvenancesrequired one, was there not La Giralda with her myriad wrinkles busied about the pots in the little adjacent kitchen or seated with her knitting in the window-seat like a favoured guest? For it was in this simple fashion that these six people had come to dwell together. And as he entered, the heart of the young man smote him sore.
Alas! that he, Rollo Blair, whom these had followed loyally, questionless, as clansmen follow their chief through mirk midnight and the brazen glare of noon, should now come among these faithful hearts like a mute with the bowstring, to put an end to all this comradeship and true comity!
All knew in a moment that there was something in the air, for though Concha offered to prepare a cigarette with her own fingers, Rollo declined it and sat down among them heavy and sad. It was some time before he could bring himself to speak.
"You who are all my friends," he said, "my best and only friends—listen to me. I will hide nothing from you. I have come directly from the Queen. She and Mendizábal have offered me a high position, and one in which we might all have kept together in great content, if such had been your desire. Yet for the present I cannot accept it. I am not a free man. For it lies on my soul that the Abbot of Montblanch trusted us three when we had neither aim nor end in life. He gave us both of these. He fitted us out for our mission. For me he did much more. He made me an officer in the army of Don Carlos, though Heaven knows Don Carlos was no more to me than any other stupid fool—I crave your pardon, Etienne! I forgot your relationship."
"Say on," cried Etienne, gaily, flipping his cigarette ash with his little finger, "do not consider my feelings. All my cousins are stupid fools! I have always said so."
"Well, then," said Rollo, "to this man, who among other things gave us each other's friendship, and" (here he reached out his hand to take Concha's) "who gave me this——"
He was silent for some moments, still holding the girl's hand, while her eyes were doubtless lovely as moonlit waters, could any man have seen them. But no man did, for the fringed lashes remained resolutely, if somewhat tremulously, downcast.
"Well, then, I cannot leave this man to think me a mere common traitor. No, not if it loses me life and—all. I have failed in my mission. Not only so, but by the irony of fate I have fought against his friends and been saved by his enemies."
"We were saved by Concha Cabezos there, I tell you," said John Mortimer, who thought all this mere rant. "Let the old priest alone, Rollo. Marry the girl you want to marry, and take a good job when it is offered to you. You may not get a second chance of either. And that is a plain man's mind upon the matter, whether you want it or not!"
Sadly but determinedly Rollo shook his head.
"No, John," he said, "that I cannot do. I were bankrupt for life in my own esteem if I did not go straight to the Prior, frankly explain our failure, resign my commission into his hands, and offer him any other service in my power. I think I see my way to one even now!"
"My advice," said Etienne, suddenly striking in, "is to let my good uncle continue in his mistake a little longer, if indeed any mistake there be. You use a delicacy he would have been the last to use with you. I do not believe the old fox would have cared a straw if all our throats had been cut, so that we had served his turn. Depend upon it, we three were the poorest kind of pawns in his game. If I am not greatly mistaken Cabrera and Elio were only his prancing knights, and Don Carlos, my dear cousin, the stupid old king who is of no use except to get himself checkmated."
"And who," said Rollo, smiling for the first time, "may the Queen be upon this little family chessboard?"
"There is indeed rather a superabundance of Queens, as we have seen," said Etienne, "but he who pushes about all the pieces is doubtless the petticoated old rogue himself. Baltasar Varela has been at the bottom of every plot these thirty years, and if anything goes wrong, he will be the first to skip over the mountains! Take a friend's advice, Rollo"—here the honest fellow grasped his friend's hand hard—"send your explanations and unused commissions to my respected relative by post. For me, I would not go within fifty miles of him for all the revenues of Montblanch twice told!"
"Well, El Sarria, what say you? They are all against me, you see!" said Rollo, mournfully, adding after a moment, "as indeed I knew they would be!"
As usual the ex-outlaw had little to say, and was deplorably shy as to saying it.
"Señor," he said after a long pause, "you have doubtless your own point of honour. I had one once which very nearly cost myself and another a lifetime of misery. Let the señor weigh the matter well and often before he runs a like risk!"
"That also is against me!" said Rollo, smiling; "Concha, you have heard all the others—what do you say?"
Concha rose and stood beside him. She put her arm gently on his shoulder so that her hand touched his cheek.
"I understand, if they do not!" she said. "I understand all. You are right. Go!"
So Rollo set forth, and with him there also journeyed to the north Etienne—first, because he was tired of Madrid, second, because he was returning to France, thirdly (and privately), because the village of Sarria and a certain green garden lattice were to be found on the route thither; John Mortimer, because if Rollo were bound to see the Prior, perhaps after all something might be done about thePriorato; El Sarria, because night and morning, noon and midnight, he prayed with his face towards that Convent of the Holy Innocents where Dolóres and her babe waited for him; La Giralda, because she might as well go northward as in any other direction; and Concha—but it is superfluous to say why Concha was going.
Nevertheless Rollo insisted that since he was solely responsible, he alone should adventure the anger of the Prior, though indeed any or all of the others would readily have accompanied him to Montblanch.
But the young Scot felt acutely how perversely, and like a cross-grained jade, Fate had treated him. He knew also that appearances were against him and in what fashion his actions might have been misrepresented to the Prior. Being singularly little given to suspicion, Rollo was not greatly affected by Etienne's estimate of his uncle. Besides, there was the information concerning the approaching suppression of the convents to be communicated, in such a form that it might be of use to the Abbot and brethren of Montblanch, and yet do no injury to those through whom he had come into possession of the secret.
In due time, therefore, after leaving Madrid the party arrived at the village of Sarria. For, being possessed of all manner of governmental passes and recommendations, they travelled rapidly and luxuriously considering the difficult and troublous times. At Sarria, Rollo, looking out eagerly northward to where above the horizon the peaks of Montblanch pushed themselves up blue and soft like a row of ragged and battered ninepins, paused only to assure himself of the well-doing of Dolóres Garcia and her son under the roof of the good Sisters in the Convent of the Holy Innocents. There were also a few arrangements to be made—and his will. Which last did not take long time. It contained only one clause: "I leave all of which I die possessed to my betrothed wife Concha Cabezos of Seville.—Rollo Blair."
The arrangements were these—Concha remained to assist Don Ramon, who had once more assumed the position of a property-holder and man of authority among his townsfolk, to open out and prepare his house for the reception of Dolóres. That little wife and mother, in spite of her new joy, continued delicate in health, though (needless to say) the nuns had given her the very best possible nursing. But those who saw the meeting of husband and wife knew that now she would have a better chance of recovery than all the bitter tisanes and laborious simples of the Sisters' store-cupboard had afforded her.
Etienne and John Mortimer decided to await events at the hostelry of Gaspar Perico. The former took the first opportunity of converting the silent serving-maid as far as possible to his interests by a judicious gift of some half a dozen gold pieces. Immediately thereafter, having thus protected his rear, he sought the green lattice. It had been taken down and a seven-foot wall had been built. Indeed a mason, who was at that moment engaged in laying the coping, informed him that the family had left for South America. Whereupon Etienne went back in haste and found the barefooted Abigail.
"Why did you not tell me that they were gone—before——?" he demanded angrily.
"Before what?" asked the Abigail, putting the corner of her apron to her mouth and biting it with the utmost simplicity.
"Before I gave you that money?"
"Because—why, because your Excellency never asked me!"
"And pray,Señorita," growled Etienne, waxing grimly satirical, "what did you suppose that I gave you the money for?"
The maid-servant let go the apron, put one finger to her mouth instead, and, looking down with infinite modesty, sketched with her bare toe upon the ground.
"Well?" queried Etienne, impatiently, and with a sharp rising inflection.
"Because," fluttered the little maid-of-all-work, "because I—I thought you liked me!"
Etienne turned away in a dumb rage, and the small sharp-featured Abigail got behind the back-kitchen door to dance three steps and a double shuffle all to herself.
When he had recovered his powers of speech Etienne called her the several kinds of fiend which can be defined by the French language, but this broke no bones.
"Well, dearSeñorita," she remarked very sagely, when tasked by Concha with duplicity (after the manner of Satan reproving sin), "he never asked me, and besides,thenhe would not have given me the six Napoleons!"
Which last proposition of the Abigail of Sarria would not have gained in credibility had it been supported by a Papal Bull.
On the whole Rollo could not complain of his reception at the Abbey of Montblanch. His heart had indeed been at war within him as he took his way up the long zigzags of the hill road. There was the very thorn branch which had brushed off his hat as he set forth so gladsomely with his new commission in his pocket, his comrades riding staunchly by his side, and the Abbot's good horse between his knees.
Well, he had done his best. Things, after their manner, had turned out cross-grained—that was all. He had, thank Heaven, enough of Mendizábal's generous draft left in his pocket to repay the Abbot for what he had spent upon their outfit. After returning the commission, it only remained as delicately as possible to impart the disastrous news of the coming dissolution of monasteries and the date of the assumption of all conventual property by the State.
Then he would depart. Sarria and Concha were not so far off. He began to take heart even before he reached the great gate of the Abbey.
No one could have been more cordially moved to see a long-lost brother than Don Baltasar Varela, the Abbot of Montblanch, to welcome his dear, his well-beloved Don Rollo.
And his noble nephew Saint Pierre—how fared he? Then that stolid solemn Englishman—did he know that hisPrioratohad long been shipped from Barcelona, an arrangement having been made with the Cristino custom-house?
"But the price? He has not paid it. I warrant that Mortimer knows nothing of the matter," said Rollo, excited for his friend's credit and good name.
The Abbot smiled as he answered.
"Our agent in France," he said blandly, "has received and cashed a draft from some one of the same name in England—ah, there are none like the English for business the world over! But here is a letter which has long been waiting for that young gentleman here."
"I will deliver it to him immediately, and with great pleasure," quoth Rollo.
The Abbot did not pursue the subject, but rising, said courteously, "You will excuse me for the present. You know the library. You will find my Father-Confessor there, whom I think you have met. There are also works on travel and lives of the saints in various languages, exceedingly improving to the mind. And above all you must dine with me to-night."
Thus the Abbot, with a kindness which Rollo felt deeply, put off hearing the full story of his adventures till the evening. Dinner was served in the Prior's own chamber as before, but on this occasion much more simply—indeed rather as two gentlemen might have dined at a good inn where their arrival had been expected and prepared for.
Rollo's simple heart was opened by the hospitality shown him. The beaming and paternal graciousness of Don Baltasar, the difference between what he had expected and what he found, wrung his soul with remorse for the message he had to deliver.
At last he was permitted to tell his tale, which he did from the beginning, slurring only such matters as concerned his relations with Concha. And at the end of each portion of his story the Abbot raised a finger and said smilingly to his Father-Confessor, who stood gloomily silent in the arch of the doorway, "A marvel—a wonder! You hear, Father Anselmo?"
And without stirring a muscle of his immovable countenance the ex-inquisitor answered, "I have heard, my Lord Abbot."
Then Rollo told of the plague and the strange things that had happened at La Granja, their setting out thence with the Queen-Regent and the little Princess, their safe arrival upon the spurs of Moncayo, almost indeed at the camp of General Elio. Then, with his head for the first time hanging down, he narrated the meeting with Cabrera, and that General's determination to murder the Queen-Regent and her little daughter.
"Abominations such as that no man could endure," said Rollo more than once as he proceeded to tell the tale of their delivery, of how he had despatched mother and daughter to the camp of General Elio, of their subsequent capture by Espartero, and how he, Rollo Blair, had hastened all the way from Madrid to lay the whole matter before the Prior.
"'Tis a marvellous tale, indeed, that our young friend tells—have you missed nothing?" inquired the Abbot of the Father-Confessor.
"Nothing!" said the Confessor, glaring down upon Rollo as a vulture might upon a weakly lamb on the meadows of Estramadura, "not one single word hath escaped me!"
Then Rollo delivered to the Abbot (who handed them forthwith to his reverend conscience-keeper) all his commissions and letters of recommendation. With a drooping head and a tear in his eye, he gave them up. For though he had enlisted in the Carlist cause purely as a mercenary, he had yet meant to carry out his undertakings to the letter.
When at last Rollo looked up, he found the grey eyes of the Abbot regarding him with a quiet persistence of scrutiny which perturbed him slightly.
"Have you anything more to tell me?" inquired the ecclesiastic, laying his hand affectionately on Rollo's shoulder, "you have done all that was possible for you. No man could have done more. May a continual peace abide in your heart, my son!"
"My Father," said Rollo, laying a strong constraint upon himself, "I have indeed a thing to tell that is hard and painful. The monasteries throughout all Spain are to be suppressed on the twentieth day of this month by order of the Madrid Government."
As the words passed his lips, the bland expression on Don Baltasar's face changed into one of fierce hatred and excitement. There was forced from his lips that sharp hiss of indrawn breath which a man instinctively makes as he winces under the surgeon's knife.
Then almost instantly he recovered himself.
"Well," he said, "we cannot save the Abbey, we cannot save the Holy Church from this desecration. I have cried 'Pater mi, si possibile est, transeat a me calix iste!' But now I say 'Verumtamen non sicut ego volo, sed sicut tu!'"
Then with a curious change of countenance (the difference between a priest's expression at the altar and in the sacristy when things have gone crossly) he turned to Rollo.
"Nevertheless," he said, "I do not deny that to you we owe all thanks and gratitude. Perhaps some day you shall be repaid!"
When Rollo looked round the saturnine priest had disappeared. His host and he were alone. The Abbot poured out the coffee.
"You will take some of our famousliqueur," he said, calmly and graciously as ever. "The receipt has been in the possession of the Abbey for well-nigh a thousand years."
It seemed a pity that so many things which had lasted a thousand years should come to an end on the twentieth day of the month. Meantime, however, he imitated the nonchalance of the Abbot. Theliqueurwas not to be despised.
Rollo held out his glass scarcely knowing what he did. The Abbot poured into it a generous portion of the precious fluid. It was of the keen cold green known to painters as viridian—the colour of turnip leaves with the dew on them.
Don Baltasar drew a glass towards him across the table.
"I am no winebibber," he said, "my vows do not allow of it. But I will give you a toast, which, if you permit me, I will drink with you in the pure wine of the flint."
Rollo rose to his feet, and stood looking at the Prior out of his steadfast blue eyes. They touched their glasses ceremoniously, the elder, however, avoiding the gaze of the younger.
"May you be rewarded, not according to your successes, but according to your deserts!" said Don Baltasar.
They drank, and Rollo, astonished by the strange bitter-sweet taste of theliqueur, could only stammer, "I thank you, Prior. Indeed, you are over kind to me. I only wish I had had—better news—better news to bring you!"
And then, somehow, it appeared to the young man that a kind of waving blackness in wreaths and coils like thick smoke began to invade the room, bellying upwards from the floor and descending from the roof. He seemed to be sinking back into the arms of the Father-Confessor Anselmo, who grimaced at him through the empty eye-sockets and toothless jaws of a skull. There were at least fifty abbots in the room, and a certain hue of dusky red in the shadows of the window curtains first made him shudder to the soul and then affected him with terror unutterable. Finally chaos whirled down darkling and multitudinous, and Rollo knew no more.
When the young man came to himself he was in altogether another place. He lay flat on his back, with something hard under his head. His face seemed cold and wet. The place, as his eyes wandered upward, was full of shifting shadows and uncertain revealings of cobwebby roof-spaces filled with machinery, huge wheels and pulleys, ropes and rings and hooks, on all of which the blown light of candles flickered fitfully.
To one side he could dimly perceive the outlines of what seemed like a great washerwoman's mangle. He remembered in Falkland town turning old Betty Drouthy's for hours and hours, every moment expecting that Peggy Ramsay would come in, basket on arm, the sweetest of Lady Bountifuls, to visit that venerable humbug, who had all her life lived on too much charity and who died at last of too much whiskey. Strange, was it not, that he should think of those far-off days now?
His head, too, was singing and thumping even as poor Betty's must have done many a morning after Rollo had paid her for the privilege of turning the mangle, and Peggy Ramsay secretly bestowed half-a-crown out of her scanty pocket-money upon her, because—well, because she was a widow and everybody spoke ill of her.
After a while Rollo began to see his surroundings more clearly. Some one was sitting at a great table covered with black cloth. A huge crucifix swung over his head—upon it a figure of the Safety of the World, startlingly realistic.
"Who has brought me here?" he said aloud, uncertain whether or not he still dreamed. His voice sounded in his own ears harsh and mechanical.
Then Rollo tried to lift a hand in order to wipe his brow. He could move neither the right nor the left. Both appeared to be fastened firmly to some band or ring let into a framework of wood.
Then he heard a voice from the figure seated under the black crucifix.
"Bring forward the traitor! He shall learn the great mystery!"
Rollo felt himself slowly lifted on to his feet, or rather the entire wooden oblong to which his limbs were lashed was erected by unseen forces. He could discern the breathing of men very close to his ear.
"Listen," said the voice from the tribunal. "You, Rollo Blair, have not only betrayed the sacred cause of the blessed King Carlos, but, what is ten thousand times worse, you have been a traitor to Holy Church, in her battle against much wickedness in high places."
"Who charges me with these things?" cried Rollo, giving up a vain struggle for freedom.
"Out of your own mouth are you condemned," came the answer. "I who speak have heard your confession."
Then Rollo knew that Anselmo, the dark confessor, was his accuser and judge. His executioners he had yet to make acquaintance with. The voice from the tribunal went on, level and menacing.
"The Abbot of Montblanch may forgive a traitor and he will. He may make and unmake pacts with a heretic if it please him. As for me, my conscience shall be clean as were those of blessed San Fernando, of Gimenez, of holy Torquemada, and of the most religious San Vicente Ferrar. Die you shall, as every traitor ought. But since I would not send an immortal soul quick to hell, I offer you this opportunity to be reconciled to Holy Church. I bid you disavow and utterly abhor all your treacheries and heretic opinions!"
"I am sorry enough for my sins, God knows, if so be I must die," said Rollo, making a virtue of necessity; "but I have done no treacheries. And as for heresy—I have none too much religion of any sort. If you can help me to more and better, I shall be grateful, without being too particular as to creed. But my father lived and died a good Presbyterian, and so, Heaven helping me, shall I!"
The gloomy monk rose at these words, made the gesture of washing the hands, and then, turning about, kissed the wood of the black crucifix.
"Lay the young man on the rack," he said; "when he is ready to recant and be reconciled, you know where to find me!"
The two executioners of Anselmo's will were clad in black robes from head to foot, even their hands being hidden. A tall pointed mask with eye-holes alone revealed anything human underneath, as, panting with the exertion, the men raised Rollo to the level of the huge table with the double rollers beneath. Then he felt his hands and feet one by one deftly loosened and refastened. The frame was slipped from underneath him, and Rollo found himself stretched on the rack.
Then calmly seating themselves on a raised shelf close to his head, his two executioners removed their tall black hoods, apparently in order that they might wipe their beaded brows. But that they had a further purpose was immediately apparent.
With infinite surprise Rollo recognised Luis Fernandez and his brother Tomas. Luis smiled evilly as his ancient enemy rolled his head in his direction.
"Yes," he said, "I told you my turn would come. I only wish that we had also the pleasure of the company of your friend the outlaw, Ramon Garcia. But after all, that great maundering oaf would never have spoilt my plans but for your cursed interference. Twice, thrice, I had him trapped as surely as a sheep in a slaughter-pen with the butcher's knife at his throat. And then you must needs come in my way. Well, every dog has his day, and now this day I shall square all reckonings."
Fernandez waited for Rollo to reply, but though his Scots instinct was to give back defiance for defiance, he held his peace. After a pause the ex-miller of Sarria rolled a cigarette and continued serenely between the puffs.
"Now listen," he said, "this is my revenge. I have had to pay blood for it, but now it is mine. For this I sold myself to the monks, truckled to them, fetched and carried for them. To poor mad Anselmo, with his antiquated inquisition and holy office, I became a bond-slave. I knew you would come back hither, and now I can do with you as I will. How much the Prior knows or suspects of this pleasant subterranean retreat I am unable to determine. At any rate you cannot expect that he will be very much delighted with your performances. But, mark you, it is I, and not he, who will rack your body till you weep and howl for mercy. I have studied these dainty instruments. I alone put them in order—I, Luis Fernandez, whose home you broke up, whose house you burnt down to the bare blackened walls, whom you made desolate of the love of woman——"
"Nay," cried Rollo, hot on a sudden as El Sarria himself—"the love of Dolóres Garcia never was yours—no, nor ever would have been in a thousand years!"
"It would—I tell you!" responded Fernandez, as fiercely. "I know these soft, still, easy-tempered women. They cannot do without a shoulder to lean upon. In time she would have loved me—aye, and better than ever she did that hulking man-mountain of a Garcia! Do you hear that?"
Rollo heard but did not reply.
"So this is my sweet revenge," Fernandez continued. "The good Father-Confessor prates of heretics and times for repentance. But he is mad—mad—mad as Don Quixote, do you understand? I, Luis Fernandez, am not mad. But if you have any reason for desiring to live—live you shall—on my terms. All I ask is that you answer me one question, or rather two—as the price of your life."
Only Rollo's eyes looked an interrogation. For the rest he held his peace and waited.
"Tell me where you have hidden Dolóres Garcia—and at what hour, and in what place Ramon, her husband, lays him down to sleep! If you declare truthfully these two things, I promise to leave you with three days' water and provisions, and to provide for your liberation at the end of that time. If not, I bid you prepare to die, as the men died who have lain where you lie now!"
Rollo's answer came like the return of a ball at tennis.
"Señor Don Luis," he said, "if I had ten Paradises from which to choose my eternal pleasures, I would not tell you! If I had as many hells from which to select for you the tortures of the damned, I would not speak a word which might aid such a villain in his villany! Let it suffice for you to know that Dolóres Garcia is now where you will never reach her, and as for her husband—why, you cowardly dog, asleep or awake, sick or well, you dare not venture within a mile of him! Nay, I doubt greatly if you dare even face him dead!"
Fernandez rose and motioned his brother to the handle which turned the great wooden wheel at Rollo's feet. Then the young man lay very still, listening to the dismal groaning of the ungreased bearings and wondering almost idly what was about to happen to him.
"God in Heaven, he is here! I tell you I heard him cry! Do you think I do not know his voice? I will tear up the floor with my fingers, if you do not make haste!"
It was Concha who spoke or rather shouted these words along the rabbit-warren of passages which ran this way and that under the Abbey of Montblanch.
But it had been through Ezquerra and La Giralda that the dread rumour of danger to Rollo had first come to Sarria. The gipsies have strange ways of knowledge—mole-runs and rat-holes beneath, birds of the air to carry the matter above. Some servitor in the Monastery, with a drop of black blood in him, had heard a word let fall by Don Tomas Fernandez in his cups. The brothers, so he boasted, would not now have long to wait. The cherry had dropped into their mouths of its own accord—thus Don Tomas, half-seas-over, averred—or at least his confessorship would shake the bough and the fruit would come down with a run. This silly Tomas also knew who was to have Rollo's horse when all was over—atostadonot met with every day.
It was enough—more than enough. From Sarria to Espluga in Francoli Concha raged through the villages like fire through summer grass. The Abbey—the Friars, the accumulated treasure of centuries, the power of pit and gallows, of servitude and Holy Office—all these were to end on the twentieth of the month. Meantime a man was being tortured, done to death by ghouls—a friend of El Sarria, a friend of José Maria—nay, the saviour of two Queens and the beloved of generals and Prime Ministers! Would they help to save him? Ah, would they not!
Other rumours came up, thick and rank as toadstools on dead wood. There was such-an-one of the village of Esplena, such-an-other of Campillo in the nether Francoli—they refused the Friars this, that, and the other! Well, did not they enter the Monastery walls, never to be heard of more?
Given the ignorant prejudices of villagers, the hopes of plunder awakened by a lawless time and an uncertain government, Concha a prophetess volleying threats and promises—and what wonder is it that in an hour or two a band of a thousand men was pouring through the gates of the great Abbey, clambering over the tiles, and with fierce outcries diving down to the deepest cellars! But from gateway to gateway not a brother was found. All had been warned in time. All had departed—whither no man knew.
El Sarria, by his reputation for desperate courage, for a while kept the mob from deeds of violence and spoliation. But still Rollo was not found.
Concha, pale of face and with deep circles under her eyes, ran this way and that, her fingers bleeding and bruised. In her despair she flung herself upon one obstacle after another, calling for this door and that to be forced. And strong men followed and did her will without halt or question.
But of all others it was the cool practical John Mortimer who hit upon the trail. He remembered how, on their first visit to Montblanch, Rollo himself, at a certain place near the door of the strong-room in which the relics were kept, had declared that he heard a sound like a groan. And there in that very place Concha was driven wild by hearing, she knew not whence, the voice of her lover. It seemed to her that he called her by name.
Men ran for crowbars and forehammers. The floor was forced up by mere strength of arm. The dislodging of a heavy stone gave access to an underground passage, and men swarmed down one after the other, El Sarria leading the way, a bar of iron like a weaver's beam in his hand.
The searchers found themselves in a strange place. The vaulting which they had broken through so rudely, enabled them to scramble downward amongst great beams and wheels to a raised platform covered with moth-eaten black. The groaning which Concha had heard was stilled, but as El Sarria held up his hand for silence they could hear something scuffling away along the dark passages like rats behind a wainscot.
Without regarding for the moment something vague and indefinite which lay stretched out on a strange mechanism of wood, El Sarria darted like a sleuth-hound on the trail up one of the passages into which he had seen a fugitive disappear. It was no long chase. The pursued doubled to the right under a low archway. The dim passage opened suddenly upon a kind of gallery, one side of which was supported on pillars and looked out upon the great gulf of air and space on the verge of which the Monastery was built.
The quarry came into view as they reached the sunlight, dazzled and blinking—a smallish lithe man, running and dodging with terror in his eyes. But he was no match for his pursuer, and before he had gained the end of the gallery, the giant's hand closed upon the neck of his enemy.
Then Luis Fernandez, knowing his hour, screamed like a rabbit taken in a snare.
And through the manifold corridors of the Abbey, and up from underground, rang the dread cry "Torture!" "They have been torturing him to death in their accursed dungeons! Kill! Kill! Death to the Friars wherever found!"
For the blind mouths of down-trodden villages, long dumb, had at last found a universal tongue.
Ramon Garcia looked once only into the face which glared up at him. In that glance Luis Fernandez read his fate. Without a word of anger or any sound save his own footsteps, El Sarria walked to the nearest open arcade of the gallery and threw his enemy over with one hand, with the contemptuous gesture of a man who flings carrion to the dogs.
Luis Fernandez fell six hundred feet clear and scarce knew that he had been hurt.
"God grant us all as merciful a death!" cried Concha; "little did he deserve it!"
They untied Rollo from the trestle work of the rack which the miller of Sarria had used to gratify his revenge. At first he could not stand on his feet. His hands trembled like aspen leaves, and he had perforce to sit down and lean his head against Concha's shoulder.
"Nay, do not weep, little one," he said, "I am not hurt. You came in time! But" (here he smiled) "another turn of that wheel and I would have told them all!"
Meanwhile the hammers were clanging multitudinous. At the sight of Rollo's pale drawn face the populace went wild. Their mad clamour rose to heaven. All that night the great Abbey of Montblanch, with its garniture of stall and chapel, carven reredos and painted picture, went blazing up to the skies.
At such times men knew no half measures, drew no fine distinctions. For, especially in Spain, revolutions are never yet effected with a spray of rose-water. The great Order of our Lady of Montblanch which had endured a thousand years, perished in one day because of the vengeance of Luis Fernandez and the madness of the priest Anselmo.
Meanwhile, in the sacristy of a little chapel by the gate, safe from the spoilers' hand, but lit irregularly by the bursting flames, and to which the wild cries of the iconoclasts penetrated, Concha sat nursing Rollo.
From time to time he would doze off, awaking with a start to find his hand clasped in that of his betrothed. Her ear was very near his lips, and when he wandered a little she soothed him with the tender croonings of a mother over a sick child, moaning and cooing over him with inarticulate love, her hands a hundred times lifted to caress him, but ever fluttering aside lest they should awake the beloved from his repose.
"Who is it?" he said once, more clearly than usual, yet with remains of fear in his eyes very pitiful to see.
"It is I—Concha!"
Ah, how soft, how tender at such times a woman's voice can be! The wind in the barley, the dove calling her mate, the distant murmur of a sheltered sea—these are not one-half so sweet. The angels' voices about the throne—they are not so human. Children's voices at play—they have known no sorrow, no sin. They are not so divine.
"It is I—Concha!"
"Ah, beloved, do not leave me—they may come again!"
"They cannot. They are dead!"
Keen as the clash of rapiers, triumphant as trumpets sounding the charge, rang the voice that was erstwhile so soft, so tender.
"All the same, do not leave me! I need you, Concha!"
Who would have believed that this swift and resolute Rollo, this firebrand adventurer of ours, would have been brought so low—or so high. But his words were better than all sweet singing in the ears of Concha Cabezos. She clasped his hand tightly and smiled. She would have spoken but could not.
"Ah—I knew you would not leave me!" he murmured, turning a little towards her. "It was foolish to ask!"
Then he was silent for a moment, and as she settled his head more easily on an extemporised pillow, he glanced towards the closed shutters of the little sacristy.
"When will the morning come?" he asked wearily.
For answer Concha threw open the outer door and the new-risen sun shone full upon his pale face.
"The morning is here!" she said, with all the glory of it in her eyes.
Thus ended the princely Abbey and its inmates. And so it stands unto this day, a desolation of charred beams, desecrated altars, fire-scarred walls roofless and weed o'ergrown, to witness if I lie. Time hath scarcely yet set its least finger-mark upon it. Under the white-hot southern sun and in that dry upland air, Montblanch may remain with scarce a change for many a hundred years. Ezquerra's hammer strokes are plain on the stones. The crowbar holes wherewith El Sarria drove out the flagstones over the torture chamber—once called the Place of the Holy Office—these any man may see who chooses to journey thither on mule-back, joltingtartana, or by the plain-song office of heel-and-toe.
As to the brethren, they had had, thanks to Rollo Blair, due and sufficient warning. They mounted their white mules and rode over the mountains into France, by a secret way long settled upon and laid with friendly relays of food and equipage.
Only the Father-Confessor, the gloomy and fanatic Anselmo, was found dead in his bed, whether from the excitement of reviving his ancient functions of Inquisitor-in-Chief, or from poison self-administered was never rightly known or indeed inquired into. Men had other things to think of in those days.
His body was hastily huddled into a grave in the cloister, where, equally with those of mitred priors and nobles of twenty descents, you may see the wild roses clambering about it in the spring.
On the day which followed the great spoliation, a man limped painfully and slowly along the ravine beneath the still smouldering turrets and gables of Montblanch. From the despoiled Abbey a thin blue reek disengaged itself lazily into the air far above him. The man was following a path which passed along the side of the deep cleft. His method of advance was at once skulking and arrogant.
Thirty yards or so beneath him he saw a congregation of vultures, the national and authorised scavengers of Spain. So thickly did these unholy fowls cluster that the man, being evidently curious, was compelled to throw several stones among them, before he could induce them to move that he might catch a glimpse of their quarry.
Then having made his observation, he said, "Ah, brother Luis, you that were so clever and despised poor Tomas, giving him ever the rough word and the bitter jest, hath not that same poor Tomas somewhat the best of it now? He at least shall not be meat for vultures yet awhile. No, he will drink many good draughts yet—that is, when he hath sold the freehold of the mill and disposed of any outlying properties that are left. Luis liked red wine, I liked white—andaguardiente. Ha, ha, Luis will never again taste the flavour of theVal-de-peñashe was so fond of, and so the more will be left for Tomas!"
He stood and meditated awhile. Then he struck his pockets lugubriously. "I wish I had a cup of goodaguardientenow," he muttered. Anon his face brightened, as he looked at the dark object among the vulture folk.
"Caramba!I have it. It will help me over a difficulty. Brother Luis's pockets were always well lined. The birds have no need of golden ounces nor do they carry off silverduros. Besides, there is the key of the strong box hidden in the ravine! Ah, I remember that he carried it about his neck. These can do no good now to Luis, or indeed, for the matter of that, to any vulture alive. It were only kind and fraternal to take such things for a keepsake. I ever loved Luis. He was my favourite brother!"
So saying, Don Tomas descended slowly and painfully to the body—for indeed he had been roughly used by the mob before they brought him to El Sarria, that the outlaw might do with him as with his brother. For they wanted to see the sight.
The vultures slowly and reluctantly withdrew on heavily flapping pinions.
"Ah," meditated Tomas, as he went placidly about his gruesome business, "what a fine thing it is to be known for a man quiet and harmless. For Ramon Garcia said to me with a wave of his hand, 'There is the door! Get through it hastily and let me see your face no more!' Then to the robber crew he said, 'Without his brother, señors, this fellow is as a serpent without the fangs, harmless as a blade of grass among the stones which the goats nibble as they wag their beards.'"
So after a pause this most respectable man finished his task and went his way, jingling full pockets and pleasing himself with meditations upon the abiding usefulness of a good character and of being in all things blameless, humble, and a man of peace.
There dwells an old peasant now at Montblanch who will act as your guide for areal, and points you out the place before the great altar where Ramon Garcia, sometime called El Sarria, cast himself down. Then he shows you where the Abbot stood when he stopped the pursuit of the outlaw to his own ultimate undoing.
"Yes, Excellency," he says, in a voice like green frogs croaking in the spring, "true it is as the sermon preached last Easter Day. For these dim old eyes saw it—also the chamber of the relics I will show you, and the cloisters with the grave of the Father-Confessor Anselmo.
"And truly the devil's own work I have to keep that same reverend and undefiled, for Anselmo was a man much hated. Yet as I think unjustly, being mad and at the last not rightly responsible for his acts. But only a stout stick will convince these young demons of the village that thrice-blessed ground is not a draught-house wherein to play their evil cantrips! I declare to the Virgin I have worn out an entire plantation of saplings chasing them forth of the holy place."
Last of all (but this will cost anotherrealand is worth the money) the peasant-guide shows you the Place of the Holy Office. That black stain against the wall is where they burnt the last rack in Spain. One or two great wooden wheels with scarce a spoke remaining, loom up, imagined rather than seen, in the dusky shadows above.
"This way along a passage (take care of your honourable head!) and I will show you the window from which Luis Fernandez was cast forth like the evil spawn he was."
"And was anything ever heard thereafter of the Prior or the Brethren?" you ask, looking around on all the wasted splendour.
The old man shakes his head, but there is something in his eye which, if you are wise, causes you to slip him a piece of silver.
"Nothing more," he says, "nothing!"
Then looking about him cautiously, he adds, "But upon a certain evening near the time of sundown there came one all clad in poor garments of leather, worn and frayed. He wore a broad hat and the names of many holy places were cut on his staff—altogether such a wandering pilgrim the man was, as you may see at any fair in Spain. And very humbly the penitent asked permission of me to view the ruins. So knowing him for a pilgrim and thinking that perchance he desired to say a prayer in peace before the great altar (and also because I had no expectations of a gift), I let him go his way unattended, and so forgat about him. But when I came up out of my vegetable garden a little after sunset to close the great gate, such being the order of the Governor of the Province who pays me a yearly stipend (four duros it is, and very little, but I depend upon the generous charity of those who like your Excellency come hither!)—well, as I say, coming out of my pottage garden I remembered of this pilgrim. I went in search of him, and lo! he stood weeping in the place where the Abbot's great chair had been.
"Then looked I full in his face and all at once I knew him. It was Don Baltasar Varela—of a surety the last Abbot of Montblanch. There was no mistake. For many years I had known him as well as I knew my old dame. And through his tears he also knew that I knew him. So he said presently, 'Reveal not that I came hither, and I will give thee—this—together with my blessing!' And with one hand he gave me a golden ounce worth sixtypesetasand more in these bad times. And with the other, as I kneeled down (for I am a good Christian), he bestowed upon me his episcopal blessing with two fingers outstretched, being as you remember a bishop as well as an Abbot! Then after he had stood awhile and the sun was quite gone down, Baltasar Varela, Abbot of Montblanch—the last they say of eighty-four, went out into the darkness, weeping very bitterly."
With the after history of the Queens Maria Cristina and Isabel the Second, this historian is not concerned. Nor is it his to tell how, greatly wronged and greatly tempted, the daughter followed all too closely in the footsteps of her mother. Such things belong to history, and especially to Spanish history—which, because of its contradictions and pitiful humanities, is the most puzzling in the world. His business is other and simpler.
For a moment only he must lift the curtain, or rather a corner of it—like one who from the stage desires to see how the house is filling, or perchance to give the carpet a final tug for the characters to pair off upon and make their farewell bows.
In another southern province far enough from the village of Sarria, there is a white house with sentinels before it. They do not slouch as they walk nor lean bent-backed against a pillar when nobody is looking, as is the wont of Spanish sentries elsewhere. It is the house of the Governor of the once turbulent province of Valencia. The Governor is one General Blair, Duke of Castellon del Mar, and twice-hatted grandee of Spain, but he is still known from Murcia even to Tarragona as "Don Rollo." For he has cleared the southern countries of Carlists, put down the Red Republicans of Valencia and Cartagena with jovial good humour, breaking their heads affectionately with his stout oak staff when they rioted. They had grown accustomed to being shot in batches, and rather resented the change at first, as reflecting on their seriousness. However, they have since come to understand the firebrand General and to like him. Usually they favour him with a private message a day or two before they intend to make a revolution. Whereupon Rollo goes himself into the woods and cuts himself a new stick of satisfactory proportions.
In this manner he has survived an abdication, two dictatorships, and a restoration with undiminished credit, chiefly by holding his province easily and asking from Madrid neither reinforcements of soldiers nor of money.
His wife is not receiving to-day, but in English fashion there are a few friends who drop in for dinner,habituésof the house, beloved comrades of Don Rollo's with whom (for the Señora is the old Concha still) his wife flirts a little, chats a great deal, and gives the best advice in return for boundless admiration and delight in her beauty and wit.
"Dolóres," she says to a friend who has arrived and sits patiently folding her little hands on a sofa, "it was pretty of you to come in such a lovely gown—just to please those poor old bachelors. Here, Etienne, hold the baby, and be sure not to drop him, sir. There—what did I tell you? You have made him cry! Monster! Well, he shall be sent away, sweetest pet, that he shall! He is a buffalo of themarisma, a tiger of the jungle, an ogre out of a story book—that he is, sweetest! There, La Giralda, take the darling away! Oh, and give him—but stay—I too will come, else the little villain may howl till midnight."
She continues to talk quickly as she goes toward the door.
"What a voice—just like his father's when he is in the place of arms and the men do not please him! There—sweetest" (she goes behind the curtain), "there——!"
And, contented, the young man stills that parade voice of his into gentle murmurings like those of a bee within the bell of a flower.
Presently a tall young man comes striding in, in a plain uniform with the starred shoulder-straps of the highest rank. Behind him is a broad-chested, deep-bearded veteran, his chest blazing with decorations.
The younger man, whose hair gives promise of early threads of grey, enters with swift impetuosity, dashing a chance servitor out of the way and opening the inner door as if a gust of wind had come rioting through the corridors.
"Where is Concha?" he cries as soon as he enters.
"Here!" replies a voice, a little muffled, it is true, from a neighbouring room; "no, stay where you are! I shall be back in a moment."
"Ah, Etienne—John, how are you? Have they given you any breakfast? Etienne, any more loves? There are four pretty girls in the Plaza Villarasa. I saw them on the balcony as I rode through with the Sagunto regiment the other day——"
"Trust him for that!" comes the voice from behind the curtain.
"My Lord Duke," says Etienne in a master-of-ceremonies' voice, "so long as I am permitted daily to gaze upon the beauty of your incomparable wife, how can this heart turn from that to the admiration of any meaner object?"
"What nonsense is he talking now?" asks Concha, returning demurely. "I know at least three girls of this city of Valencia who have the best reasons for expecting M. de Saint Pierre to make proposals for the honour of their hands. But what can you expect of such a wretch?"
"Well, Master Etienne," says Rollo, "you will now have a chance to forget Mistress Concha and make some fair Castilian happy. For I must send you immediately with these despatches to Madrid. You will stay a week and return with the answers. That will give such a lady-killer ample time to bring matters to a head with the most hard-hearted of the señoritas of the capital."
"Ah," sighs Etienne, kissing a hand to Concha, as he prepares to take his leave, "your husband wrongs me. He who hath so much, misjudges me who have so little! Truly, I shall be soon able to say, turning about the old catch: