III

The Guest Who Was Not Asked

During the next two or three days I found more to do. I got Dick to introduce me to his friend Henri de la Mole, not as Christopher Trevenna, but under my own name, and when he and his sister had been interested in what they chose to think a romance, I was able to learn through them that, curiously enough, Lady Vale-Avon had arranged for her daughter to appear at the ball as Juliet.

The costume, it seemed, decided itself, because there happened to be among Lady Vale-Avon's inherited and most treasured possessions, an interesting pearl head-dress of the conventional Juliet fashion. This had been sent for from England; and if I could succeed in getting to the ball, as I fully intended to do, I should have little difficulty in identifying the head that I adored.

Had I not taken de la Mole more or less into my confidence, he would have done nothing to further my interests; but, if I really have any such power as Dick Waring hinted, I used it to enlist de la Mole upon my side. Finally he not only agreed, but offered to help me enter the Duchess of Carmona's house as one of her masked guests. He had been asked to stand at the door that night, and request each person, or in any case the man of each party, to raise his mask for an instant. This, in order to keep out reporters and intruders of all sorts; and his promise was to let me pass in unchallenged. I might count on his good offices, not only in that way, but in any other way possible, for “all the world loves a lover,” said he. And he wished me the best of luck, though he looked as if he hardly expected me to have it.

[pg 018] Probably it was foolish and conceited, but I could not resist playing up to the rÔle Dick suggested. She was to be Juliet. I would be Romeo.

By this time, no doubt, the Duchess's invited guests had their costumes well under way; I had to get mine, and the only way to have something worthy of the occasion was to go to Paris for it. I did go, and was back in Biarritz in two days.

The rest moved easily, without a hitch. The night of the ball came. I dressed and went alone, rather than drag Dick into an affair which might end disagreeably.

I did not put myself forward, but stood for a while and watched the dancers, waiting for my chance.

Carmona had arrived the day before. I had never met him, but what I had heard I did not like; and having seen him once or twice in London, at a distance, he was recognizable in a costume copied from a famous portrait of that Duke of Alba who loomed great in Philip the Second's day. Because of a slight difference one from the other, in the height of his shoulders, he was difficult to disguise; and though the arrangement of the costume was intended to hide the peculiarity, it was perceptible.

When the “Duke of Alba” had danced twice in succession with Juliet Capulet, I could bear my rÔle of watcher no longer. Besides, I knew that I had not much time to waste. For the sake of de la Mole, who had run the risk of admitting a stranger, I must vanish before the hour for the masks to fall. When I took off my cap and bowed before this white Juliet with the pearl-laced plaits of gold, she gazed at me through her velvet mask in the silence of surprise. I could not guess whether she puzzled herself as to what was under my yellow-brown wig and my mask; but at least she must know it was Romeo who begged a dance.

I did not urge my claim on such a plea, however, least it should rouse Carmona's opposition, and cause him to keep the girl from me if he could. I merely said, “The next is our dance,” risking a rebuff; but it did not come.

[pg 019] “Yes,” she said, almost timidly. It was the first time I had heard her speak, and her voice went to my heart.

The Duke stared, as though he would have stripped off my mask by sheer force of curiosity. But he had to let the girl go; and as the music began she was in my arms. I hardly dared believe my own luck. Neither of us spoke. I was lost in the sense of her nearness, the knowledge that it was the music which gave me the right to hold her thus, and that when the music died I must let her go.

But a quick thought came. If we danced the waltz through, Carmona or someone else would claim her for the next. If I could hide the girl before it was over, perhaps I might keep her for a little time. Indeed, I must keep her, if this meeting were not to end in failure; for there were things I had to say.

The conservatory was too obvious; and the shallow staircase with its rose-garlanded balusters, and its fat silk cushion for each step, would soon be invaded by a dozen couples. What to do, then? I would have given much to know the house.

“I must speak with you,” I said at last. “Where can we go?”

She did not say in return, “Do you know me, then?” or any other conventional thing. The hope in me that she had remembered well enough to guess who I was, brightened. She would not have answered a person she regarded as a stranger, as she answered me,

“There's a card-room at the end of the corridor to the left, off the big hall, where we might rest for a moment or two,” she said. “But I mustn't stop long.”

“No,” I promised. “I won't try to keep you. I ask only a few moments. I can't tell how I thank you for giving me those.”

I threw a glance round for Carmona, and saw him dancing with a stately Mary Stuart. I guessed his partner to be Lady Vale-Avon; and if I were right, it was a bad omen. She was not a woman to care for extraneous dancing, therefore she favoured Carmona in particular.

Still, for the moment he was occupied; and when his back was [pg 20]turned I whisked Lady Monica out of the ball-room, past the decorated staircase in the square hall, and to the room at the end of the corridor. There I pushed aside a portiÈre and followed her in.

She had been right; the room was unoccupied, though two or three bridge tables were ready for players. In one corner was a small sofa. The girl sat down, carefully leaving no place for me, even had I presumed; and, leaning forward, clasped her little hands nervously round her knees.

Then she looked up at me through her mask; and I did not keep her waiting.

“I've no invitation to-night,” I said. “But I had to come. I came to see you. Do you forgive me for saying this?”

“I—think so,” she answered.

“You would be sure, if you knew all.”

“I do know. At least—I mean—but of course, I oughtn't to be here with you.”

“According to convention you oughtn't. Yet—”

“I'm not thinking of conventions. But—oh, I should hate you to misunderstand!”

“I could never misunderstand.”

I snatched off my mask and stood looking down at her, knowing that my face would say what was in my heart, and not now wishing to hide the secret.

“You know,” I said, “that I've worshipped you since the first moment I saw you. It was impossible to meet you in any ordinary way, for you have no friend who would introduce to you the MarquÉs de Casa Triana. Have you ever heard that name before, Lady Monica?”

“Yes,” she answered frankly. “I heard it yesterday. From AngÈle de la Mole.”

“Her brother's a friend of my best friend.”

“I know.”

“If it hadn't been for him, I should have had great trouble in getting here to-night. Yet I would have come. Did Mademoiselle de la Mole tell you that I loved you?”

[pg 021] Lady Monica dropped her head and did not answer, but the little hands were pressed tightly together.

“I've always been proud of my name,” I said, “though it's counted a misfortune to bear it; but when I saw you, then I knew for the first time how great a misfortune it may be.”

“Why?”

“Because my only happiness can come now in having you for my wife; and even if I could win your love, you wouldn't be allowed to marry my father's son.”

“Your father may have been mistaken,” the girl faltered. “I do think he was. But he was a gloriously brave man. Even the enemies against whom he fought must respect his memory. I—I've read of him. I—bought a book yesterday. You see—I've thought about you. I couldn't help it. We saw each other only those few minutes, and we didn't even speak; yet somehow it was different from anything else that ever happened to me.”

“It was fate,” I said. “We were destined to meet, and I was destined to love you. If I thought I could make you care, that would give me a right I couldn't have otherwise; the right to try and win your love, and beat down every obstacle.”

“I could—I do care,” she whispered. “Even if I were never to see you again, I shouldn't forget. This—would be the romance of my life.”

“Angel!” I said. And then she took off her mask, with such a divine smile that I could have knelt at her feet as at the shrine of a saint.

“Isn't it wonderful?” she asked. “I didn't find out your name till yesterday, though I tried before; and we don't know each other at all—”

“Why, we've known each other since the world began. My soul had been waiting to find yours again, and found it the other afternoon, on the road to my own land. That's what people who don't understand call ‘love at first sight.’ ”

“I think it must be so; because there was never anything like that first minute when you looked at me.”

[pg 022] “If I could have known, it would have saved me sleepless nights. For now you're mine, my dearest, just as I am yours. Nothing can take you from me now.”

“Ah, I'm afraid! Even if—everything were different in your life, it would be difficult; for—there's someone else in mine already.”

“There can be no one else, since you care for me.”

“Not truly in my life. But there's someone my mother wants me to marry.”

“The Duke of Carmona.”

“You knew?”

“You see, I've thought of nothing but you; and I've learned all I could about what concerns you.”

“I don't like him, not even as a friend. He's handsome enough, but I'm sure he has a most horrible temper. I could be afraid of him. I believe I am afraid. And mother—you don't know her, but—when she makes up her mind that you're to do a certain thing, you find yourself doing it. That's one reason I was so glad when you came to-night, and said, ‘The next is our dance,’ in such a determined way. Not only did you take me away from him, but—I felt you'd try to keep me from him, in the end.”

“Try!” I echoed. “I will keep you. Trust me my darling. I've been foolish to come to Biarritz under another name. This isn't Spain; and even a Casa Triana has a right to be here. But luckily not much harm's done. Through the de la Moles I'll be presented to Lady Vale-Avon; I'll tell her that, though compared to the days when my people counted for something in the history of Spain, I'm penniless, still my father left me enough to live on and keep a wife who loves me better than she loves society. I'll tell Lady Vale-Avon that there are countries in which my name's well thought of, even in these piping times; that there I'll do something worth doing—”

“You've already done things worth doing,” the girl broke in; “splendid things.”

[pg 023] “I've done nothing yet, but I'll change that. I'll ask your mother to give me a chance—to wait—”

“No,” she insisted. “Mother would refuse, and everything would be worse than ever.”

“Darling one, they couldn't be worse. Because now, I'm doing what I oughtn't to do, although it's been forced upon me by my love. To deserve you in the faintest degree, I must be open in my dealings. I must speak to Lady Vale-Avon.”

“She'll never consent.”

“At least I shall have done the right thing. Now we've had this talk, now you know that you're all the world, and heaven besides, to me, even for your mother's sake you won't throw me over, will you?”

“No, a thousand times no. I didn't dream loving would be like this. It would kill me to give you up.”

“Then nothing can part us.”

“It makes me feel brave to hear you say so. But—you don't know mother.”

“I know myself, and I trust you.”

“I'm so young, and—I've never been allowed to have my own way. I've always given up.”

“Because you were alone, with no one to help you. Now you have me.”

“That's true. But—”

“Precious one, there's no 'but.'”

“I wish I could think so! Yet something seems to say that if you speak to mother, we shall be lost. I love you—but—do let it be kept secret for a while.”

“With what end?”

“I hardly know. Only, I've the strongest presentiment it would be best.”

“And I've the strongest conviction that not only would it be wrong, but that you wouldn't respect me if I consented.”

“I beg of you, wait at least till the royalties leave Biarritz before you tell mother, or anyone, who you are.”

[pg 024] I could not help smiling, though rather bitterly. “You've heard about my adventure in Barcelona?”

“Yes, from AngÈle. I couldn't bear it if you were to have trouble here.”

“There's no danger of that.”

“One can't tell. Circumstances which you don't foresee might seem to involve you in some plot. Oh, if you love me, wait till the royalties have gone.”

How could I refuse those soft eyes, and those little clasped hands?

I caught the hands and crushed them against my lips, the rosy fingers that smelled of orris, and the polished nails like pink jewels. As I bent over my love, the curtain which covered the doorway waved as in a gust of wind.

Quick as light, Monica snatched away her hands, but it was too late. Carmona was holding back the portiÈre for Lady Vale-Avon.

He must have been watching. He must have known that I had brought Lady Monica to this room. He must have fetched the girl's mother on purpose to find us together.

These were the thoughts in my mind as I faced the two, mask in hand.

They had seen me kissing Monica's fingers. It was useless to hope that they had not.

“Leave the room instantly, my daughter,” said Lady Vale-Avon, in a low voice. She too had taken off her mask.

It was a disastrous situation for me, and one all too difficult to carry off with dignity.

“Madame,” I said. “I am the MarquÉs de Casa Triana. I met Lady Monica some time ago, and have this moment told her that I love her. Now, I ask your consent to—”

“Casa Triana here!” exclaimed Carmona, in a tone which could have expressed no more of horror, had I been a bandit at large.

“Have no fear for your house,” I could not help sneering.

[pg 025] He gave me a look not to be forgiven a man by a man. “I have no such fear,” he said; “but there are those here whose safety is dear to me; and your name is not one which should be spoken under the same roof.”

It was thus that he chose to inform Lady Vale-Avon, if she had been ignorant of it, that I was a notorious character.

“Will you tell me,” he went on, “how you found your way into my mother's house, where no one of your name could be an invited guest?”

“There's a window,” said I, thinking to save de la Mole, “by which the world and his wife might enter.”

“I saw you, masked, in the ball-room half an hour ago.”

Half an hour ago! Perhaps he was not exaggerating. But the thirty minutes, if there had been thirty, had passed like one.

“I was there,” I admitted, “looking for Lady Monica Vale. We danced together, and I brought her here—”

“Who is this man, Duke?” Though she spoke to him, Lady Vale-Avon's eyes, cold as points of steel, pierced mine.

“A person who, whatever his intentions may be, ought not to be in Biarritz while King Alfonso's here.”

“I remember the name now. And he has come to your house, uninvited; he proposes to marry my daughter—a man whom I've never seen! You have your answer, MarquÉs de Casa Triana, if you need an answer. It is, no. Pray accept it quietly, and cease to persecute us, otherwise I must ask the Duke to act for me, as I have no husband or son. Is that enough?”

“It is not enough,” I echoed. “I love your daughter, and I trust she cares for me. I will not give her up.”

“Monica, I told you to go, and you disobey me,” exclaimed Lady Vale-Avon. “Now, I tell you to send this man away.”

“Mother—I love him,” faltered the girl. “Wait—when you've heard—when you know what he is—”

“You talk like a child, Monica,” her mother said. “You are a child. It's your one excuse; but this man, who must have [pg 26]hypnotized you, has reached years of discretion. If he will not leave the room, we must.”

“I'll go, Lady Vale-Avon,” I said, “but first let me say once more, frankly, I will never give up your daughter.” Then I looked straight at Monica. “Trust me,” I said, “as I trust you; and have courage.”

With that I bowed, and walked out at the window by which I hoped the Duke thought I had come in.

“I'm not sure,” I heard him say to Lady Vale-Avon, “that I oughtn't to inform the police. In Barcelona, six or seven years ago—”

I waited for no more.

V

A Mystery Concerning a Chauffeur

For many days after this the young King of Spain motored back and forth between San Sebastian and Biarritz to visit the lady of his love; but at last the two Princesses bade good-bye to the Villa Mouriscot, and went to Paris. Lady Vale-Avon and Monica remained; but for the moment the girl was safe from Carmona, for the Duke followed the King to Madrid.

Lovely as Monica was, is, and always will be, and genuinely in love with her as I had no doubt Carmona was, still I began to believe that Dick Waring was right, and that the Duke's desire to win Princess Ena's friend was as much for Court favour as for the girl herself. Several weeks passed, and Monica and her mother continued to be tenants of the Villa Esmeralda. They went out little, except to visit the old Duchess of Carmona, who evidently did all she could to advance her son's interests with invitations to luncheons and dinners; but try as I might I was never able to obtain an interview.

Fortunately for me, Lady Vale-Avon had seen me only in fancy dress; the costume of Romeo, with a ridiculous yellow-brown, wavy wig, upon which the “Are you willing that I should try my luck again with your mother?” I had written. “If not, will you consent to a [pg 32]runaway marriage with a man who loves you better than his life?”

Next day came an answer through Mademoiselle de la Mole.

Monica begged that I would not speak to her mother. “She fancies that you have gone away,” the girl wrote. “If you came forward I think she would wire the Duke of Carmona, for she writes to him nearly every day as it is; and she would do everything she could to make me marry him at once. Don't hate me for being a coward. I'm not, except with mother. I can't help it with her. She's different from everyone else. I heard the Duchess saying to her yesterday, that if I were to marry a grandee of Spain, I would be made a lady-in-waiting to the Queen instead of maid of honour; so I know what they're thinking of always. But while mother hopes you have given me up, and that I'm quite good, they will perhaps let me alone.

“I wish I dared write to the Princess about you; only, you see, on account of your father and that horrid accident which happened, in Barcelona, she might misunderstand you, and things would be worse than before. But if I find that mother means actually to try and force me, then I will go away with you. Otherwise, I would rather wait, for both our sakes.

“When I go back to England, there are some dear cousins of mine who might help us, but it's no use writing. I would have to see and talk to them myself. Anyway, if I were there they'd manage not to let me be married to a foreigner I hate; and you and I could go on being true to each other for a little while, until everything could be arranged.

“The worst is, mother doesn't mean to go back to England yet. That's what I'm afraid of, and that she has some plan about which she doesn't mean to talk till the last minute. But she hasn't said anything lately about visiting the Duchess of Carmona in Spain, and I hope she's giving it up. As soon as I hear anything definite I'll somehow let you know. I think I can promise that, though it may be difficult, as mother will never let AngÈle and me be alone together for a minute if she can help it. The day [pg 33]after the ball we are having a talk in my room when my mother came, and perhaps guessed I had been telling AngÈle things. Since then I haven't been allowed to go to AngÈle's; and though AngÈle comes to see me, mother always makes some excuse for being with us.”

After this letter of Monica's I had at least some idea of how matters stood; and in the circumstances there seemed nothing to do but to be near her, and to wait.

It was not until the latter part of March that the Duke of Carmona came back to his mother's villa at Biarritz.

His arrival was not announced in the local paper, nevertheless I heard of it; and the day after, Mademoiselle de la Mole sent me another letter from Monica, only a few lines, evidently written in great haste.

They were to pay the visit to the Duchess of Carmona in Seville, and were to arrive there in time for the famous ceremonies of Holy Week; that was all she knew. The time of starting was either not decided, or else it was not considered best that she should know too long beforehand.

“I'm miserable about going,” wrote the girl; “but what can I do? I used to think it would be glorious to see Spain, but now I'm frightened. I have a horrible feeling that I shall never come back. I know it's too much to ask, and I don't see how you can do it if I do ask, since I can tell you nothing of our plans; but if only, only, you could keep near me, within call, I should be safe. I suppose it's useless to hope for that? Anyway, whatever happens, I shall always love you.”

To this I wrote an answer, but AngÈle feared she might fail in getting it to her friend. The lease of Lady Vale-Avon's Biarritz villa had just expired, and the mother and daughter were moving to the Duchess of Carmona's for a few days. For some reason, the Duchess had not once invited AngÈle to come to her house since the ball. She might not be able to see Monica; and it would be very unsafe to trust to the post.

It was on the evening of the day on which I had this news [pg 34]that my chauffeur knocked at the door of our sitting-room at the hotel.

“I thought,” said he, “I'd better tell your lordship something which has just happened. It may be of importance; it may be of none.”

Now I may as well explain that Peter Ropes is no common chauffeur. He is the son of the old coachman who served my father for many years in England; was groom to my first pony; went abroad with me as handy man; was with me through most of my adventures; when I took up motoring, volunteered to go into a factory and thoroughly learn the gentle art of chauffeuring; and at this time understood an automobile, and loved it, as he understood and loved a horse; he is of my age almost to the day; and I suppose will be with me in some capacity or other till one of us dies. He has a brown face, which might have been carved from a piece of oak; the eyes of a soldier; and never utters a word more than he must.

“You said I could go to the “Well, what then, Ropes?” I asked.

“He went away, and I went after him. He didn't see me, and I don't believe he would have known me from Adam if he had. He stopped at another garage, and I thought best not to go in there. But I waited, and after a while a very dark, tall gentleman, who looked Spanish, walked into the garage. Five minutes later he and the chauffeur came out together. They parted at the entrance, [pg 35]and it was the gentleman I followed this time. He went to a large, handsome villa; and a person I met told me it was the Duchess of Carmona's house. That is the reason I thought the thing important.”

“But why, exactly?” I persisted, guessing what Ropes would say.

“Because I think the gentleman was the Duke of Carmona.”

“And if he were?”

“I've heard gossip that he's anxious to stand well with the King of Spain. It occurred to me he might have some political interest in trying to learn the real name of Mr. Trevenna, if you pardon my having such a thought. He might have sent his chauffeur to look at your car, and make a report; and if he did, whatever the reason was, it would mean no good to your lordship. I thought you ought to know, and be upon your guard, in case of anything happening.”

“Thank you,” I said. “You're right to speak, and it may be you've done me an invaluable service.”

Ropes beamed; but having said all he had to say, another word would have been a waste of good material, which he was not the man to squander.

VI

Puzzle: Find the Car

“What do you think it means?” asked Dick, when the chauffeur had gone.

“It's just struck me, it may mean that Carmona intends to slip away with his guests in his new automobile, and that he wanted to find out something about my car, what it was like, and so on, in case I got wind of the idea, and followed.”

“The identical thing struck me. He wouldn't go spying himself, but sent his chauffeur, a new importation, probably, to have a look at the Gloria and describe it. I wonder how he heard you had one.”

“Easy enough to do that. Of course he's found out somehow, perhaps through employing a detective, that Chris Trevenna and Casa Triana are one man. He can't make much use of the knowledge to bother me on this side the frontier, but—”

“Yes; a big but.”

“It seems pretty certain that his own car must have come, or be coming here, and that he means to use it going into Spain, or he wouldn't have developed this sudden interest in mine.”

“It looks like it. Now he knows, if a dark blue Gloria crosses his path, it's the car of the pursuing lover, and—”

“I was just thinking that a dark blue Gloria will not cross his path.”

“You don't mean—”

“I mean that it won't be prudent for either Casa Triana's or Chris Trevenna's car to follow his, wherever he means to go.”

[pg 037] “What, you'll give up—”

“Is it likely?”

“You're getting beyond me.”

“What I want is to stay with you, in your car.”

“Wish I had one!” said Dick.

“You're going to have the loan of one. Would a grey or a red car suit you best?”

“I see. Red, please. They say red paint dries quickest.”

We both laughed.

“Your red car must have new lamps,” I went on, “and a new number, and any other little things that can be put on in a hurry. And you'd better get a passport if you haven't one. Gentlemen touring in foreign lands are sometimes subjected to cross-questionings which might be inconvenient unless they've plenty of red tape up their sleeves.”

“I'll lay in a stock. How would you like me to be the accredited correspondent, for the Spanish wedding festivities, of a newspaper or two?”

“Rattling good idea. Could you work it?”

“Easy as falling off a log, or puncturing a tyre. I'll arrange by telegraph, London and New York.”

“Grand old chap.”

“Thanks. Better wait till I've done something. What about your part in the show?”

“A humble friend, accompanying the important newspaper correspondent in his travels.”

“That's all right. But the Trevenna business is played out.”

“A new travelling name's as easy to fit as a travelling-coat.”

“Not quite, unless you can match it with a new travelling face.”

“Luckily Carmona knows Romeo's face better than mine. And, anyhow, a motoring get-up can be next door to a disguise.”

“That's true. Behind goggles Apollo hasn't much advantage over Apollyon, and you can develop a moustache. Yes. I think we can work it as far as that goes. But one's always heard that Spanish roads are impossible.”

[pg 038] “They'll be no worse for us than for Carmona,” I argued. “Besides, most of the best known books about Spain are out of date. The King has made motoring fashionable lately, and there must have been some attempts to get the roads into passable condition.”

“I happened to hear an American who's here with a sixty horse-power Panhard, wanting to go to Seville, say to another fellow that he'd been warned he couldn't get beyond Madrid.”

“I've never bothered much about warnings in my life. I've generally gone ahead, and found out things for myself.”

“We'll continue on the same lines. And, anyhow, wherever we go, we're sure of a leader; our friend the enemy.”

It was next in order to find out whether the Duke really had brought an automobile to Biarritz; but try as we might, we could learn nothing. Inquiries were made at the railway stations, both at Bayonne and Biarritz, as to whether an automobile had lately been shipped through; but as it happened, no car of any description had arrived by rail in either direction during the last fortnight.

All the principal garages of Bayonne and Biarritz were visited also, in the hope of finding a mysterious car which might be the Duke of Carmona's; but there was not one of which we could not trace the ownership. We then sent to Bordeaux, and even to St. Jean de Luz; but in both cases our errand was vain. If Carmona had an automobile in the South of France, it was well hidden.

As for the chauffeur who had inspected my car, and afterwards met Carmona at another garage, he had disappeared, apparently, into thin air.

Nevertheless, Dick and I formed a theory that the new automobile, of which we had heard so many rumours, was actually in Biarritz; that it had been driven into the town after dark, and was now being kept by some friend of Carmona's in a private garage. And if we were right in our conjectures, we felt we might take it as a sure sign that the Duke was not only planning an important [pg 39]tour, but was not forgetting a detail of precaution which could prevent my learning his intentions.

As we could not set a watch upon the chauffeur, we set a watch upon the Duke; and it was Ropes who, with considerable relish, undertook the task. I did not wish to bring a stranger into the affair; and Ropes I could trust as I trusted myself. Therefore Ropes it was who unobtrusively dogged Carmona's footsteps from the time the Duke went out in the morning, up to the time he went in again at night.

Meanwhile, Dick took steps to become correspondent for The Daily Despatch of London, and The New York Recorder, the editors of which papers he knew personally. He spent a great deal of money in wiring long messages, but his reward was success, and, as he said, he was “proud of his job,” which he intended to carry out as faithfully as if writing impressions for newspapers were the business of his life.

Also, we got the car repainted; bought lamps of a different sort; ordered side baskets to be attached, of a red to match the new colour; had Dick Waring's monogram, in execrable taste, put on the doors; while last and most important change of all, from being number A12,901, the automobile became, illegally but convincingly, M14,317. Cunningest device of all, Ropes changed the wheel-caps of my Gloria for those of a Frenzel, as like a Gloria as a Fiat is like a MercÉdÈs; so that only an expert of much experience would know that the car was not a Frenzel.

A quick dryer was used, and in two days we were ready for anything. I still hoped for a letter from Monica, with some hints as to her mother's plans, but nothing came; and when we had had a blank day, with no news of activity in the enemy's camp, it was a relief to have Ropes arrive at the hotel in the morning just as I was dressed.

I knew the moment I saw his face that something exciting had happened.

“The Duke's gone, my lord,” he reported; “gone in a dark [pg 40]grey, covered car; I couldn't get near enough to make sure what it was, but it looks like a Lecomte. He's this moment got off.”

“Not alone?”

“No, my lord. I'll tell you exactly what took place. I was at the window in the little room I hired over a shop three days ago, in sight of the entrance gates of the Villa Isabella. It was just seven o'clock this morning when a smart, big grey car drove in, might be a forty horse, and of the Lecomte type. The chauffeur wore goggles, but his figure was like the fellow's who came the other day to our garage. About half an hour later, out slipped the car again, the Duke driving, a lady sitting beside him, two other ladies in the tonneau, the chauffeur at the Duke's feet, and a good deal of luggage on the roof. At the gate they turned as if to go to San Sebastian; and I came to let you know.”

“That's right. Get ready at once for a start, and have the car here as soon as you can.”

“Car's ready now, my lord, and so am I.”

“Good. But don't ‘my lord’ me. Now that I'm Mr. George Smith that's even more important to remember than in Trevenna days. And don't forget that the car's Mr. Waring's car.”

“I won't forget, sir.”

He was off to the garage, and I was knocking at Dick's door.

Dick was tying his necktie. “Ready to start in five minutes,” said he.

“How did you guess what was up?”

“Your face, d'Artagnan.”

“Why d'Artagnan? Haven't I a large enough variety of names already?”

“I've selected one suitable for the situation. D'Artagnan took upon himself a mission. So have you; and you'll have as many difficulties to overcome before you fulfil it, if you do, as he had.”

“Nonsense. We're starting out to keep in touch with another party of motorists.”

“In a country forbidden to one of us.”

“That one can look out for himself. If a lady in another motor [pg 41]should need someone to stand by her, we're to be on the spot to stand by, that's all.”

“Yes; that's all,” said Dick, laughing. “And all that d'Artagnan had to do was to get hold of a few diamond studs which a lady wanted to wear at a ball. Sounds simple, eh? But d'Artagnan had some fun on the way, and I'd bet the last dollar in my pile we will. Hang this necktie! There; I'm ready. Have we time for coffee and a crust?”

VII

The Impudence of Showing a Handkerchief

Fifteen minutes later we were off.

I love driving my car, as I love the breath of life, and I'm conceited enough to fancy that no one else, not even Ropes, can get out of her what I can. Still, this was not destined to be precisely a pleasure trip, and prudence bade me give the helm to Dick. He is a good enough driver; and the car was his car now; I was but an insignificant passenger, with a case of visiting cards in his pocket, newly engraved with the name of Mr. George Smith. I sat on the front seat beside Dick, however, silently criticising his every move; Ropes was in the tonneau; such luggage as we had, on top.

It was scarcely eight o'clock, and there was so little traffic in the town that we did not need to trouble about a legal limit. We slipped swiftly along the rough white road to the railway station, past large villas and green lawns, and took the sharp turn to the right that leads out from the pleasant land of France straight to romantic Spain, the country of my dreams. We sped past houses that looked from their deep sheltering woods upon a silver lake, and away in the distance we caught glimpses of the sea. Before us were graceful, piled mountains, the crenelated mass of Les Trois Couronnes glittering with wintry diamonds. Against the morning sky, stood up, clear and cold, the cone of far La Rune.

Looking ahead, in my ears sang the song of my blood, sweet with hope, as the name of the girl I love and the land I love, mingled together in music.

Gaining the first outskirts of straggling St. Jean de Luz my [pg 43]eyes and Dick's fell at the same time upon something before us; a big grey automobile, its roof piled with luggage, stationary by the roadside, a chauffeur busy jacking up the driving wheels, a tall man standing to watch the work, his hands in the pockets of his fur coat. Instantly Dick slowed down our car, to lean out as we came within speaking distance, while I sat still, secure from recognition behind elaborately hideous goggles.

“Is there anything we can do?” asked Dick with the generosity of an automobilist in full tide of fortune to another in ill fortune. I noticed as he spoke, that he made his American accent as marked as possible; so marked, that it was almost like hoisting the stars and stripes over the transformed and repainted Gloria.

“No, thank you,” said Carmona; for it was he who stood in the road looking on while his chauffeur worked. He had glanced up with anxiety and vexation on his ungoggled, dark face, at the first sound of an approaching car, and I knew well what thought sprang into his head. But a red car, with an American driving, was not what he had half expected to see. He was visibly relieved; nevertheless, he was slow enough in answering to bring us to a standstill, while he peered at our wheel-caps.

The deceitful name, glittering up to his eyes, so evidently reassured him that a temptation seized me, and I yielded without a struggle.

I had come prepared for a quick signal to Monica whenever an opportunity should arise, and, as I was anxious to let her know that she was not unprotected, it seemed to me that the first chance of doing so was better than the second.

In an inner breast pocket of my coat I had the lace handkerchief which I had stolen on the night of the ball. As Dick questioned Carmona, and Carmona answered, I flashed out the wisp of lace and passed it across my lips, not turning to look full at the slim, grey-coated figure on the front seat, yet conscious by a side glance that a veiled face regarded us.

What I did was done so quickly, that I think it would have [pg 44]passed unnoticed by the Duke; but Monica, taken completely by surprise, bent suddenly forward; then, remembering the need for caution, hurriedly leaned back against the cushions.

Carmona caught her nervous movement, saw how self-consciously, almost rigidly, she sat when she had recovered herself, and, suspicion instantly alert, turned a searchlight gaze on us.

The lace handkerchief had vanished. I was sitting indifferently, with arms folded, my interest concentrated upon the busy chauffeur. Still I felt there was no detail of my figure and motoring clothes that Carmona was not noting as he explained to Dick the nature of his mishap.

“A simple puncture,” he said. “And we have all necessary means to mend it, thank you.”

Dick and I lifted our caps to the ladies and went our way; but it was not until we had passed the charming Renaissance house where Louis Quatorze was born, that Waring made any comment on the incident.

“If that Moor-faced chap isn't on to the game, he's getting mighty ‘warm,’ as the children say,” he remarked dryly.

“He can't possibly be certain,” said I. “Even if he saw my face, he couldn't swear to identifying it, as the only sight he ever had of me was in that asinine, yellow Romeo wig. Besides, Romeo had no moustache, and, thanks to your advice, I have. It's the one thing that's conspicuous under the goggles.”

“A sort of ‘coming event casting its shadow before.’ I didn't say he knew. I said he guessed. See here, while he's waiting for his tyre, could we wire from this town to the frontier in time to have you stopped?”

“We ought to get there before any telegram he could send,” said I, hopefully. “However, there'll be a lot of formalities at the custom-house. They might catch us before we finished. But, uncertain as he must be, it would hardly be worth his while—”

“I wouldn't bet much on that,” said Dick.

“Let's rush it,” said I.

[pg 045] “Too risky. You'd feel such a limp ass to be detained by a fat policeman at the door of Spain, while Carmona and Lady Monica went through, and disappeared.”

“I'd shoot the fat policeman first.”

“There you are, being Spanish again, just when you ought to develop a little horse-sense.”

This put me on my mettle, and in two minutes I had thought out a plan, while Dick whistled and reflected.

It was rather an odd plan, and could only be carried out by the aid of another. But that other had never failed me yet, when loyalty or devotion were needed; and I had not got out half the suggestion when he understood all, and begged to do what I had hardly liked to ask.

We took exactly eight minutes, by Dick's watch, in making arrangements to meet an emergency which I hoped might not arise if our speed were good and our luck held.

Already Hendaye, the last French town, was but just beyond our sight. We ran through it at high speed, passed on through little BÉhobie; and next moment our tyres were rolling through a brown mixture of French and Spanish mud on the international bridge that crosses the swirling Bidasoa. We had passed from Gaul to Iberia. At the central iron lamp-post, carrying on one side the “R.F.” of France, on the other the Royal Arms of Spain, I lifted my cap in salutation to my native land, just where, had I been an Englishman, I should have lifted it to memories of grand old Wellington.

The broad river was rushing, green and swift, down to Fuenterrabia and the sea, eddying past the little Ile des Faisans, where so much history has been made; where Cardinals treated for royal marriages; where Francis the First, a prisoner, was exchanged for his two sons. We were across the dividing water now, in Irun, and on Spanish soil. High-collared Spanish soldiers lounging by their sentry boxes, looked keenly at us, but made no move, little guessing that the accused bomb-thrower of Barcelona was driving past them through this romantic gate to Spain. [pg 46]We turned abruptly to the right, and, hoping still to escape trouble, pulled up at the custom-house.

To hurry a Spanish official, I had often heard my father say, in old days, is a thing impossible, and we avoided an air of anxiety. The three men in the big red car appeared to desire nothing better than to linger in the society of the He it was who jumped from the tonneau, and in passable Spanish asked our inquisitor which, if any, of our suit-cases he wished to open. At the same instant a propitiatory cigarette was offered and accepted.

Carefully the overcoated man selected with his eye a piece of luggage on the car roof. Luck was with us. It was the one easiest to unlock.

In the twinkling of an eye (an American, not a Spanish eye), the thing was down and in the office. The Naturally the official fell into chat with the new-comer, and it was necessary to remind him that we had the right of precedence. Every moment was of importance, for already there was time for a telegram to have arrived. Presently there would be time for its instructions to be acted on as well. And at this moment I realized, as I had not fully realized before, all that it would mean to me of humiliation and defeat to fail ignominiously on the threshold of my adventure.

It was hard to show no impatience as the Very carefully did the imperturbable official examine each Spanish bank-note we tendered; laboriously did he make out [pg 47]the receipt. Had he meant to detain us, his movements, his words, could not have been more deliberate. How I had longed to hear again the Spanish language spoken by Spaniards in Spain, yet how little was I able to appreciate the fulfilment of my long-cherished wish! At last, however, every formality was complied with, and we were free to go.

With all speed we took our man at his word. The leather-coated, leather-legginged chauffeur set the engine's heart going in time with his own, flung himself into the tonneau, and had not shut the door when Waring slipped in the clutch, muttering “Hooray!”

Another second and we should have been beyond recall; but hardly was the brake off than it had to go crashing on again to avoid running over a sergeant and two soldiers who rushed up and sprang in front of us, puffing with unwonted haste.

In his hand the sergeant held an open telegram.

“You speak Spanish?” he panted.

“A little,” said Dick. “French better.”

“I have no French, seÑor,” replied the sergeant, “But my business is not so much with you as with this gentleman,” he glanced at the telegram, “in the grey coat with the fur collar, the grey cap, the goggles in a grey felt mask, the small dark moustache, the grey buckskin gloves.” (Carmona had noticed everything.) “Our instructions are to prevent the MarquÉs de Casa Triana from going into Spain.”

“Casa Triana? What do you mean?” cried Dick. Then he laughed. “Is the person you're talking about a Spaniard?”

“He is, seÑor.”

Dick laughed a great deal more. “Well, I guess you'll have to look somewhere else. There's a mistake. The gentleman in the grey coat and all the other grey things has hardly enough Spanish to know what you're driving at.”

The sergeant shrugged his shoulders and looked determined. “There is no mistake in my instructions, seÑor. I am sorry, but it is my duty to detain that gentleman. If there is an error there will be apologies.”

[pg 048] “I should say there jolly well was an error,” sputtered Dick, in his wild combination of Spanish and English and American. “George, show your card. He thinks you're a Spaniard, who's ‘wanted.’ ”

The gentleman in the grey coat showed the visiting cards of Mr. George Smith, and the Spanish soldier examined them gloomily. “Anybody might have these,” said he, half to us, half to a group of his countrymen. “SeÑor, I must reluctantly ask you to descend and to come with me. It will be much better to do so quietly.”

“Of all the monstrous indignities,” shouted Dick. “I'm a newspaper correspondent on a special detail. I'll wire the American minister in Madrid, and the English Ambassador too. I'll—”

But the gentleman in the grey coat had obeyed the sergeant. He had also taken off his goggles.

“It will be all right in a few hours, or a few days,” said he in English. “You must go on. Don't worry about me.”

“Go on without you?” echoed Dick, breaking again into astonishing Spanish for the benefit of the official. “Well, if you really don't mind, as I'm in the dickens of a hurry. You can follow by train, you know, as soon as you've proved to these blunderers that you're George Smith.”

“If you are SeÑor George Smith, you will be free as soon as the photograph of the MarquÉs de Casa Triana has been sent on by the police at Madrid,” said the sergeant. “If not—” he did not finish his sentence; but the break was significant. And the soldiers closed in to separate the alleged George Smith from his companions of the car, lest at the last moment they should attempt a rescue.

“We'll make them sorry for this, George,” said Dick. “But as we really can't do much for you here, we'll get on somewhere else, where we can.”

“I must ask also for the name of the owner of this automobile, and for that of his chauffeur,” insisted the sergeant, “before I can let you go.”

[pg 049] “Oh, all right,” said Dick, crossly, producing his passport, and cards with the names of the papers for which he had engaged to correspond. “Ropes, fork out your credentials.”

The chauffeur brought forth his French papers, and pointed to the name of Peter Ropes. The sergeant industriously wrote down everything in his note-book, a greasy and forbidding one.

“It is satisfactory,” he said with dignity; “you can proceed, seÑores.”

The engine had not been stopped during the scene; and as the gentleman in the grey coat was marched off to the guard-house with a jostling Spanish crowd at his heels, the red car in which he had lately been a passenger slipped away and left him behind.

Through the streets of Irun it passed at funeral pace, as if in respect and regret for a friend who was lost; but once out in the green, undulating country beyond, it put on a great spurt of speed, after the chauffeur had scrambled into the front seat.

“Great Scott, but I'm as hot as if I'd come out of a Turkish bath,” growled Dick.

“It was a warm ten minutes,” said I. “Poor old Ropes—bless him!” And I sent back a sigh of gratitude to the staunch friend in my grey overcoat, cap, goggles, and gloves, to whose loyalty I owed freedom.

IX

A Stern Chase

We were on the outskirts of San Sebastian, and to reach the cafÉ we turned off the main road and ran the car into a side street. There, without being ourselves conspicuous, we could see all that passed along the road beyond. We had some vermouth, sitting at a little iron table outside the cafÉ door, to excuse our presence. Every moment we expected to see the Duke's car shoot by, but time went on, and it did not come. We finished our first edition of vermouth and had a second, with which we toyed and did not drink, by way of keeping our place.

Had they punctured another tyre? Had Carmona stopped in Irun, and had any mischance occurred there which might, after all, put the police on my track?

Dick and I were beginning to get restive, and question each other with raised eyebrows, when the big grey automobile charged past the end of our street. Not a head in the car turned in our direction; and laying a couple of pesetas on the table we sprang to the manning of our own road-ship. So quick was our start that, when we spun out into the road, there was our leader still within sight.

I had heard my father speak often of San Sebastian, which, situated in the heart of the Basque country, had been the great Carlist centre, and even when Carlist hopes died, retained most stoutly the Carlist traditions. But, Carlist as he was at heart till the day of his death, he could not fail to appreciate the tact of Queen Cristina, by whose wish a royal summer villa had risen [pg 56]over the waters of the bay. Owing to this stroke of clever policy, a poor and discontented town was transformed into the most fashionable watering place of Spain, and surely if slowly disaffection merged into prosperous self-satisfaction.

Because of stories I had heard my father tell, I should have liked to explore the place; but the one thing of importance now was to keep the grey car in sight until we could be certain which road it would take; so there was time only for brief glances to right and left as we flashed on.

Through streets with high modern houses, more Parisian than Spanish, we came at last upon a broad boulevard that led us by the sea. There had been a picture at home of the deep, shell-like bay, guarded by the imposing headlands of Monte Urgull and Monte Igueldo, the scene of much fighting in the Carlist war. The royal palace, Villa Miramar, was new to me save for the many photographs I had seen of it in Biarritz; but we had no more than a glimpse of the unpretending red brick house on the hill, before we swept through a tunnel that pierced a rocky headland, and came out into open country.

Now our progress developed into a stern chase. By a wrong turn in a San Sebastian street we lost the car ahead for a few moments, but beyond the town, where mud, fresh after a recent shower, lay inch thick on the road, we came upon the track of the flying foe.

There was the trail of the “pneus” as clear to read as a written message, and we followed, relieved of doubt.

On, on we went towards the south, and the mountains of Navarre, and my mind was free enough from strain at last to exult in each new glimpse of the land for which I longed.

Ever since I was old enough to read, I had steeped myself in the history and legend of my own country. I knew all its wars, and where they were fought; I knew the names of the towns and villages, insignificant in themselves, perhaps, made famous by great victories or defeats; and there was time to think of them now, as we passed along the way the heroes of the Peninsular [pg 57]War had taken; but there was no time to linger over landmarks, not even at Hernani, where De Lacy Evans' British legion was shattered by the Carlist army in 1836, and where, in the church, we might have seen the tomb of that Spanish soldier who, at Pavia, took prisoner Francis I.

Rain fell in swift, fierce downpourings, but left us dry under the cover of our car; and as we sped on, sudden gleams of sunlight shining on the wet stone pavements of small brown villages, turned the streets to glittering silver; while beyond, the trees sprayed gold like magic fountains against the white sheen of far snow-peaks.

Thus we ran up the winding road by the river Urumea, worming our way deep into the heart of the mountains; climbing ever higher with a wider view unfolding to our eyes—a view as new, as strange to me as to Dick Waring. And yet I felt at home with it, as if I had known it always.

As we ascended, the roads did what they could to deserve their evil reputation. The rain of a few days ago had been snow in the mountains. The surface of the road became like glue, and despite non-skidding bands, and Waring's careful steering, the car declared a sporting tendency to waltz. Presently the glue liquefied. We were speeding through sheets of yellow soup, which spouted from our pneus in two great curving waves, spattering from head to foot the few wayfarers we met. Down the front glass coursed a cataract of mud, and Waring could steer only by looking out sideways. Thrown up by the steering-wheels, the yellow torrent thudded on the roof, so that we were driving under a flying arch of liquid Spanish earth.

With the approach to a town, however, the way improved. The place was Tolosa, and at the sound of our motor in the distance, a cry of “Automovile, automovile,” came shrilly from a score of childish throats. Even the grown-ups rushed out, and were far more excited than we should have expected in this motor-frequented part of Spain between Biarritz and Madrid. In a French town of the same size scarcely a head would be turned [pg 58]if an automobile passed; here people were as pleased as if we had been a circus, though only a few moments before they must have had the joy of seeing Carmona's car go by.

“If it's like this in the north, what must it be south of Madrid?” said I. “Here they're all wonderfully good-natured; delighted with us in towns and villages—I believe they'd pay to see us if they had to!—the road-menders give military salutes, and even the men whose mules and donkeys are frightened grin as they cover up the silly beasts' faces with their shawls.”

“That's because we behave like decent human beings instead of marble-hearted scorpions,” said Dick, with an originality of simile which he cultivates. “When we see that we're frightening anything we slow down, slip out the clutch, and glide so stealthily by that the creature gets no excuse for hysterics. I used to think before you taught me to drive, and I had the experience and the responsibility myself, that you wasted time grovelling to animal prejudices; but I've changed my mind. I've learned there's no fun to be got out of pig-selfishness on the road, and leaving a trail of distress behind.”

“If you hadn't come to feel that, I couldn't have made over my car to you,” said I. “Road brutality would be peculiarly brutal in Spain, where motoring's a new sport, and peasants must be made accustomed to it. Every motorist who slows down for frightened animals, or gets out to help, is paving the way for future motorists.”

“Somehow I don't believe Carmona'll lay much pavement for us,” said Dick, chuckling.

“Monica won't stand it if he doesn't,” said I. “He's got her sitting beside him, the beggar; and it's his We had lost the trail of the pneus, but as the country changed we picked it up again. We were among trees now, and the mountain sides were green with oak and poplar, though as we dropped the landscape darkened into desolation. The bleak corner of the world towards which we were speeding had that formless, [pg 59]featureless look which one sees on common faces, as if it had been shaken together carelessly by the great Creator in an absent-minded moment.

No scenery can be unattractive to a motorist while his car goes well, and the sweet wind flutters against his face; but even I had to admit that this country—illumined only by snow mountains walling the horizon—would be irredeemable in dead summer heats.

My map, which I consulted as Dick drove, said that we had passed out of Navarre into Alava; and suddenly I noticed that we had crossed the watershed, for the bright streams, instead of running down to the Bay of Biscay, were spinning silver threads towards the Ebro, on the way to tumble into the Mediterranean by Tarragona.

Here and there my longing for the strange and picturesque was gratified by the tragic grace of a tall, ruined watch-tower crowning a desolate hill, a vivid reminder of days when red fire-signals flashed from hill to hill to call good Christian men to arms against the Moors. Sometimes creamy billows of Pyrenean sheep surged round our car, graceful and beautiful creatures with streaming banners of wool, and faces only less intelligent than those of the grey dog that rallied them to order, and the brown shepherd in fluttering garments of red and blue.

The farther south we came, the darker grew the mild-eyed oxen our automobile frightened. At Biarritz and beyond they were pale biscuit-coloured; here, the sun seemed to have baked them to a richer brown.

Nevertheless, that sun had no warm welcome for us to-day. We were nipped by the bitter wind, which struck us the more coldly as we were hungry; and about two o'clock we were not sorry to see in the middle of a wide-stretching plain, the Concha de Alava—a large town which we knew to be Vitoria.

Luncheon there might be counted upon. It was too chilly for a picnic meal to be feasible with ladies, therefore Carmona's car must stop for an hour or two, and it was clear now that he [pg 60]would go by way of Burgos; consequently, it was on the cards that AngÈle de la Mole's letter would be delivered by hand.

We sneaked stealthily into Vitoria, glancing furtively about for a large grey Lecomte; but it was not long before we caught sight of it in the distance, in the main street, and drawn up before the principal hotel.

I would have given a good deal if I could have got word to Monica; for, even if she had happened to see the red car following since Irun, she was probably miserable in the thought that I had been turned back at the door of Spain.

Of course, in the fear of disgusting her, Carmona might have kept the curtain down on the little drama which he had stage-managed. Concealment would have been difficult, however, as he must have signed his telegram to the police; and on arriving at the custom-house, some of the facts would have been liable to leak out in Monica's hearing.

It was hard that she should be distressed for my sake as well as her own; but my first fencing bout with the Duke had warned me against rashness, and I decided that nothing could be done till we reached Burgos. There, somehow, I would find a way to let her know that it was I, and not the Duke, who had come out best.

Before joining Dick at lunch I engaged a small boy who sold newspapers in the street to let us know when the other car started. This was to prevent our being given the slip by any chance; but it proved a needless precaution, as we scrambled through a Spanish menu, and still the grey car slept in its coat of greyer mud before its chosen hotel; therefore Dick and I bolted a hasty impression of Vitoria, as we had bolted our lunch.

He read aloud as we walked, bits out of a guide-book about Wellington, and King Joseph, and the battle of Vitoria that had decided the fate of the Peninsular War; but as it happened, I was more interested in a strange effect of light and darkness in the sky which for a moment made an unforgetable picture.

Another wild, April storm was boiling up, and where we [pg 61]stood in the square, below the long flight of stone steps, the high cathedral above seemed built against a cloud-wall of ebony. A long sabre of sunlight struck upon the tower and threw a ray of reflected gold on the white Virgin in her niche. Over all the town there was no other gleam of light, and so had the afternoon darkened that it was as if a mourning veil hung between our eyes and the solemn sky.

Suddenly the deep-toned bells of the cathedral boomed; and the doors opening, hundreds of women clad in black, with close-folded black mantillas poured out, down the double stairway to the square.

As they came nearer, and each figure took individual significance with the breaking of the cloud, the rich browns and blue-shadowed greys of the buildings—deep and soft as velvet—attained fine value as a background for lace-framed faces, and the vivid colours of little children's cloaks.

For a single instant I forgot even Monica, in the tingling sensation that the life of Spain was throbbing round me, but a touch on my arm brought me back to her with a bound.

“The grey car is getting ready to start, seÑor,” murmured a Spanish voice, as two Spanish eyes looked up—hopeful of pesetas—into mine.

X

The Unexpectedness of Miss O'Donnel

I think that not once did Carmona or anyone else in the Lecomte spy the car which, with the unflagging obstinacy of a bloodhound, kept on the fresh trail of the pneus that began again outside Vitoria; for while we had the trail we were satisfied to hover always beyond eyeshot of those in front.

We had a crowd to see us leave the town, a laughing crowd who seemed to wonder why people in their senses should rush about the world when they could stop at home and take siestas. And the peasants by the roadside were amazingly good-natured too, though we disturbed their avocations and upset the calculations of their animals.

Stately Spanish seÑores, whose long brown or indigo One handsome old man on a donkey so lost control of his beast when we swept into view, that he was dislodged, and would have fallen on his face had he not enmeshed his knees in some intricate tracery of rope. Round and round spun the frightened animal in the midst of the road, like a cat chasing its own tail, [pg 63]the rider toppling over, his well-cut nose all but scraping the ground.

Our car was stopped and I was out in a moment, though it must have been a long and giddy moment to that human spinning-jenny. A few tangled seconds, and I had him unwound and reseated, expecting no gratitude. But to my surprise, when I got the old fellow right side up, I found him wreathed in smiles, pouring out thanks and wishes for my good speed. Remembering experiences in other lands which call themselves enlightened, I glowed with pride of my country folk, especially when the victim of progress politely refused five pesetas.

As we came nearer to Old Castile, the ancient land of many castles, I felt as a man must when at last he comes to a house which is his, though never until now has he held the key and been free to enter.

The northern provinces, peopled by mysterious Basques alien to us in blood and language, I could scarcely look upon as Spain. But in Castile I saw the heart and citadel of my native country. My father was Andaluz; my mother Castiliana, and she used to say that in my nature were united the qualities of the two provinces—Castilian pride and stubbornness; the gaiety and recklessness of the true Andaluz.

I hoped that some change of scenery, some sign given by Nature, might mark the passage into Castilla la Vieja; therefore I was grateful when the car ran upon a stately bridge, hung above a broad river that was a flood of tarnished gold. Thence we looked across to the old buttressed and balconied town of Miranda del Ebro, strange and even startling in its wild setting of white mountains; and as we slowed down in admiration, from a dark secretive tunnel which was the principal street of the place, there seemed to blow out, like wind-driven petals of flowers, a flock of girls in golden yellow, tulip red, and iris blue. Then, as we looked, followed a string of black mules with crimson harness, pressed forward by a dozen young men in short blue trousers, capped like Basques with the red birret.

[pg 064] It was like coming into a picture which our arrival had, in some magic way, endowed with life; and the effect did not wear off as we ran into the shadow-tunnel, where the brown dust lit up with flames of colour. Under the balconies bristling over narrow Miranda, I thought, was worthy of Old Castile; and when but a short distance further on, the way seemed blocked by a high ridge of mountains flung across our path, I began to hope that my mother's country—that home of highest Spanish pride and honour—had some real magnificence of scenery to give us. We wound into the splendid gloom of the gorge of Pancorbo, cut like a sword-cleft in the rock; and I said that this scene alone was worth a journey into Spain.

There was room only for the road, and the foaming Oroncillo tearing its way through the mountain. High over our heads, where fingers of sunlight groped, the railway from Paris to Madrid looped its spider's web along the precipice, winding through tunnel above tunnel in miniature rivalry with the sublimities of the St. Gothard. Below, deep in the shadow of the gorge, crouched the sad village of Pancorbo itself, stricken, desolate, articulate only in its two ruined castles on the height, Santa Engracia and Santa Marta, imploring Heaven with silent appeal. Still higher, towered a guardian mountain of astonishing majesty, seeming to bear aloft on a petrified cushion a royal crown of iron. It was a place to call up in memory with eyes shut. This was the majestic entrance into Castile; but it raised my hopes only to dash them down. Once past the serrated needles and fingers of Dolomite rock which made the grandeur of the gorge, we came again to monotony of outline, and began to realize Castile as it is; a vast and lonely steppe, wind swept, bounded by an infinite horizon.

Treeless, silent, unbroken by hedge or boundary, guarded by [pg 65]a ruined watch-tower on each swelling hill, the illimitable plain lay sombre and impressive.

No labourers were to be seen; no villages were in sight, whence men could come to till the land; nevertheless, everywhere were signs of cultivation by invisible hands, harvests to be reaped by men who would spring from one knew not where.

Yet the monotony of these tremendous spaces was redeemed by such changeful splendour of colour as I had never seen. Swelling undulations, worthy to be named mountains, were warm with the purple of heather, though no heather grew upon them. Sometimes you could have fancied, from a sudden outburst of radiance on a distant hilltop, that a rainbow had lain down to rest. And through all there was never absent that impression that this was painted-glass-window country with its rich tones of crimson and violet, its palely luminous skies, and the solemnity of its blended hues. Always there was a haunting effect of sadness, even in the spring purity of those white blossom-arches which decorated the brown monotony of our roads.

The sky still burned dusky red when in the midst of a wide plain, the soaring twin-spires of Burgos stood up for our eyes against a rose veil of sunset pinned with the diamond heads of stars. Away to our left, as we ran towards the town, was a dark building like Eton College chapel standing on a wind-swept hill; and this I knew to be the convent of Miraflores, where Isabel la CatÓlica employed Gil de Siloe to make for her father and mother the “most beautiful tomb in the world.”

I felt a sense of possession in the grand old town, coming upon it thus at its best; and I was glad that fate had driven me into my own land Each new hour of life on the road would build up knowledge for me of my people and my country. I should not be studying [pg 66]it in any obvious, guide-book way, and I should learn more of real Spain in a few weeks than in months of conscientious railway plodding from one point to another.

There was no question which hotel Carmona might choose. He would go to the best; consequently unobtrusive persons whose hopes lay in keeping to the background, must select one less good.

We halted outside the town, while I consulted a guide-book for the most Spanish “All the better,” said I. “You can carry out your commission without trouble. Perhaps you'll see them at dinner. They're sure to be the only foreigners there, so it will be easy to pick out their Irish faces in a dining-room full of Spaniards.”

There was little room in my mind for the O'Donnel family, however. We were near Monica now, and my one desire was to let her know that I had not failed.

We drove through a fine old gateway, up a broad street, and past big barracks, opposite to which was the hotel where Carmona would stop. But his Lecomte had already disappeared; and though Dick clamoured for dinner, I waited only long enough to secure rooms at our own By this time the Duke and his friends would be dining, and I could venture as far as the lower offices of their hotel without much fear of being seen by Carmona's sharp eyes. In any case, I decided to risk it, and on the way mapped out a plan of action.

A couple of porters were in the bare hall of the ground floor as I entered. Walking in with a businesslike air, I said in Spanish, “Have you some people here who came in a red automobile? They ought to have arrived this evening.”

“No, seÑor,” replied one of the men. “We have a party staying for the night who came in a grey automobile.”

Good fellow, how well he played into my hands! Hiding [pg 67]delight under a look of disappointment, I said that my friends were in a red automobile. “They may have been belated,” I went on. “They'll probably turn up before midnight. I hope you'll have good rooms to give them, at the front of the house. They're very particular.”

“I'm afraid all our best rooms are occupied,” said the man. “The seÑor who came in the grey automobile has taken five rooms along the front, on the first floor, with a private sitting-room. Unfortunately, your friends will have to put up with something at the back.”

I expressed regret, and went away joyful, having astonished the porter by pressing upon him two pesetas. I now knew all I wanted to learn, even—roughly speaking—the position of Monica's room; and I saw a way of sending her a message.

Dick was ready for dinner when I got back, but I did not try his patience long. He had inquired if the O'Donnels were still in the hotel, and had been told that they were, though they were leaving in a day or two. This was all we knew when we entered the dining-room, but, as a good many people were still seated at the long table and the numerous small ones, we glanced about in search of Mademoiselle de la Mole's friends.

There was not a face to be seen which you would not confidently have pronounced to be Spanish, if you had met it at the North Pole.

Dick and I sat down at a little table and began to talk in English, while round us on every side the Spanish language—pure Castilian, and slipshod, mellifluous Andaluz—gushed forth like a golden fountain.

Hunger, long unappeased, at first inclined Dick to a cynical view of life in general, and Spanish hotel life in particular, but his temper improved as the meal went on, and he even forgave me for deserting a starving man.

“No sign of the O'Donnels,” said he. “Perhaps they've a private dining-room.”

“I doubt there's one in the house,” said I.

[pg 068] “Well, I'll inquire later,” Dick went on. “I've looked at every face here, and—”

“At one in particular,” I cut in.

Dick reddened. “I hope I haven't been staring,” said he; “but she is the ideal Spanish girl, isn't she? If I were an artist, I'd want to paint her.” As he spoke, his eyes wandered towards the table next ours, which, since a dish of Spanish peppers, rice, and chicken made a man of him, had monopolized all the attention he could spare from dinner.

I had noticed this; hence my gibe. But Dick was not far wrong about the girl.

Her place at the table put her opposite him; and her companion was a rotund, brown man, with the beaming face of a middle-aged cherub, and the habit of murmuring his contributions to the conversation in an AndalucÍan voice, with an AndalucÍan accent mellifluous as AndalucÍan honey.

The girl herself was true Andaluza, too, though of a very different type from the cherubic person who (Dick hoped) was her father. No such brown stars of eyes ever opened to the world outside AndalucÍa; nor did any save an Andaluza know, without being taught, how to give such liquid, yet innocent, glances as those, which occasionally sparkled from under her long lashes for Dick, when the Cherub was not looking.

She was a slim young thing, with a heart-shaped face of an engaging olive pallour; a pretty, self-conscious mouth, which changed bewitchingly from moment to moment; and heavy masses of dark hair piled high after the Spanish fashion, as if to suit a mantilla—hair so smooth and glossy that, from a little distance, it had the effect of being carved from a block of ebony.

“She's perfect of her kind,” said I; “but I thought you preferred American types.”

“Rot!” said Dick. “Comparisons are odious. I say, thank Heaven for a pretty girl, whatever she may be. But there's something particularly fascinating about this one.”

“I see a serious objection to her from your point of view,” I [pg 69]went on. “She's too young. You draw the line at them under twenty-two. I'll bet you she won't see twenty-two for a couple of years yet.”

“She might be worth waiting for,” said Dick.

“No good. She'll be married long before twenty-two. All self-respecting Spanish girls are. You'd better not think of her any more. Forget her, and look up Miss O'Donnel.”

“AngÈle de la Mole says Miss O'Donnel's pretty,” said Dick. As he spoke, he beckoned a waiter; and I noticed that the girl with the eyes no longer made any pretence of hiding her interest in Dick. She even whispered to her companion, who, after listening to what she had to say, turned to look at us with benign curiosity.

“Ask whether he knows Colonel O'Donnel and Miss O'Donnel by sight,” Dick commanded when the waiter appeared, to breathe benevolence and garlic upon us in equal quantities. He was shy of airing his own Spanish before a roomful of Spanish people.

I asked; the waiter looked surprised, and to Dick's confusion and my astonishment, indicated the occupants of the next table.

“The colonel and the seÑorita,” said he. It was so startlingly like an introduction that the cherubic brown man sprang up and bowed; and the girl, bending over the Dick, overwhelmed, and recalling every word we had said, as a drowning man recalls each wicked deed of his life from childhood up, got to his feet, and began stammering explanations.

“Well, that shows what an idiot a man can make of himself,” said he. “Miss—Mademoiselle de la Mole gave me a letter of introduction, and a parcel with some little present, and I was looking around for you. My name's Richard Waring; I don't know whether mademoiselle's written about me. Anyhow—”

“SeÑor,” announced Colonel O'Donnel, grieved at Dick's distress; “no entiendo.”

“Habla usted espaÑol?” asked the girl. “No Inglees, we, [pg 70]much.” And she smiled a dimpled smile, straight at Dick, with one side glint for me.

Dick was, to use against him a favourite word of his own, flabbergasted. “Then you're not Colonel and Miss O'Donnel?” said he. “I though you couldn't be, but—”

“Si, si,” the Cherub reassured him, nodding. “O'Donnel. Aw—right.” He laughed so contagiously that we laughed too; and I found my heart warming to these unexpected, surprising friends of AngÈle de la Mole's.

“Me MarÍa del Pilar InÉs O'Donnel y Alvarez,” the girl introduced herself. “AngÈle de la Mole, mi—mi fren.” Having wavered so far, between Spanish and English, she flung herself headlong into her native tongue. This was the signal for the Cherub also to begin fluent explanations, both fluting Andaluz together, and so fast, that Dick (painstakingly taught a little Castilian by me in leisure moments) found himself at sea, and drowning.

I had to translate for him such facts in the O'Donnel family history as I could unravel from the tangled web. The mystery of AngÈle de la Mole's Spanish-speaking Irish friends (which she must have refrained from explaining in order to play a joke upon Dick) was solved in a sentence. An O'Donnel grandfather had fought in Spain under Wellington in the Peninsular War, and stayed in Spain because he loved a Spanish girl who had many acres. The Cherub's father was born in Spain, and spoke little English. The Cherub himself spoke none, or but a word or two. He was a colonel in the Spanish army, now retired. That was all; except that his son and daughter had once studied an English grammar, until they came to the verbs; then they had stopped, because life was short and full of other things. “But,” said Miss O'Donnel proudly, “me know, two, three, word. Lo-vely. Varry nice. Aw raight. Yes.”

When she thus displayed the store of her accomplishments, punctuated with dimples, any man not head over ears in love with another girl, would have given his eyes to kiss her. I was [pg 71]sorry for Dick. As for me—I found myself longing to tell DoÑa MarÍa del Pilar InÉs O'Donnel y Alvarez all about Lady Monica Vale, with the conviction that her help would be of inestimable value.

Such is the power of a girl's eyes upon weak man, even when he adores a very different pair of eyes; and already it was strange to remember my stiff disclaimer of a wish to know the O'Donnels. I had called them “extraneous.” What a dull ass!

XI

MarÍa del Pilar to the Rescue

At last, when the general confusion had subsided, I was able to impress upon the delightful pair that, if they would but speak very slowly, and kindly trouble themselves to give a word of three syllables, say, two of them (a punctilious habit disapproved in AndalucÍa) SeÑor Waring would be able to join the conversation. With true Spanish goodheartedness they did their best, though Heaven knows what it must have cost them. Dick also did his best, with a conscientious American pronunciation; but where tongues halted, eyes spoke a universal language, and we all got on so well that in ten minutes we might have known each other for ten years.

By the end of those minutes we were asked to the O'Donnel's sitting-room, which had been furbished up out of a bedroom; and there Dick brought the famous letter of introduction and the white paper parcel tied with pink ribbon.

My name had not been mentioned by AngÈle. I was merely a “friend of Mr. Waring's”; and, it seemed, I had been designated vaguely thus in a previous letter in which our arrival had been prophesied. This had been AngÈle's way of leaving it open for me to introduce myself as I pleased; but now there was no secret with which I would not have felt safe in trusting our old friends the O'Donnels, so I gave them my real name.

The Cherub's face lit up. “I knew your father well,” said he. “We learned soldiering together as boys, though he was four or five years my senior, and the hero of my youth. Our ideas”—--he [pg 73]coughed in an instant's embarrassment—“were different. This separated us. But I never forgot him. He was a great man; and it's an event to meet his son. When I saw you downstairs in the dining-room, it was like going back thirty years. Such a young man as you are now, was your father when I had my last sight of him. You are his living portrait.”

We shook hands; and I believe, with the slightest encouragement, the dear old fellow would have planted a kiss on each of my cheeks. That he did not, was a tribute to my English education.

The next thing was, that at Dick's request I was telling them everything; and as Pilar listened to the story which prefaced my errand in Spain, her eyes, which had been stars, became suns. When I spoke Carmona's name, she and her father uttered an exclamation.

“El Duque de Carmona!” echoed the Cherub.

“He!” cried Pilar. And they looked at each other.

For a single second, I asked myself if my frankness had been a mistake.

“You know the Duke?” I asked.

“Santa MarÍa, but do we know him!” breathed the girl. “I wish we could tell you no.”

“You don't like him?”

“Do we like the Duke, Papa?”

The good Cherub shook his head portentously. “The Duke of Carmona is a bad man,” he said. “He has not done us any harm—”.

“Oh—oh!” Pilar cut him short. “He has not driven into a convent one of my best-loved friends?”

“My daughter refers to a sad story,” explained her father. “In Madrid it made a stir at the time. He jilted a school friend of Pilarcita's. That is almost an unheard-of thing in Spain; but he did it. The young girl's family got into trouble at Court—an insignificant affair; but the Duke is ambitious of favour. He had something to retrieve, after the scandal during the Spanish-American [pg 74]War, when he was quite a young man—not more than twenty-four—and—”

“You mean, the story that he speculated in horses—bought wretched crocks cheap and sold them to the army for the cavalry, with the connivance of the vets he's supposed to have bribed?”

“Yes. He managed to clear himself; but the royalties looked at him coldly, and he is not a man to bear that. The father of the girl—Pilarcita's friend—was at one time much liked by the young King, and people thought it was Carmona's motive for engaging himself. With the first breath of the storm the Duke was off; and the discarded fiancÉe entered as a novice the convent where she and my daughter went to school. That is why Pilarcita so much dislikes him—”

“But it's not all!” cried the girl. “What about the grey bull, poor Corcito.”

Colonel O'Donnel laughed his gentle, chuckling laugh.

“Our home is close to a “That's like him,” said I.

“There's nothing he wouldn't do against an enemy, or to gain a thing he wanted,” said Pilar, turning to me. “Take care, now he wants something you want.”

“It's been so between our families for generations,” I said. “My grandfather ran away with the girl his grandfather wanted to marry, and my father and his in their youth had a furious lawsuit.”

[pg 075] “Which won?” asked the girl.

“My father.”

“Be sure he will remember,” said she. “Oh, how I wish we could help you! It would be such a revenge upon him for poor Eulalia and for Corcito. Papa, can't we do something?”

“If we could,” echoed the Cherub, “for his father's son!”

Suddenly the girl jumped up and clapped her hands. “Oh, I have thought of the thing!” she cried “It would be like a play.” But her face fell. “I don't know how to propose it,” said she. “Perhaps you and Mr. Waring would disapprove. And how could we invite ourselves—”

She stopped; but I made her go on. “Please tell us,” I said. “It's sure to be a splendid plan. And anything associated with you would bring luck.”

“This would be very much associated with us,” said she, laughing; “for the idea is that, instead of going home by rail as we meant to do, day after to-morrow, we go on in your car with you, pretending to be Mr. Waring's guests, and you supposed to be my brother CristÓbal.”

“Pilarcita, some wild bird has built its nest in your brain,” said the Cherub.

“Wait till I finish!” the girl commanded. And it was easy to see that, though her father shook his head, she was a spoilt darling who could do nothing wrong.

“I only wish CristÓbal were here,” she went on, breathlessly; “but there was a regimental dinner, and he had to leave us. He'll come in later, and you shall meet him, and hear what he says to the plan. Oh, there's not much fear that he'll object, when you are AngÈle's friend, and she's doing all she can for you. He'd walk through fire to please AngÈle. And this would be but to give up his leave—or at least the going home with us—and lending you his uniform, which I'm sure would fit you sweetly.”

I could not help laughing at the way she disposed of her brother and his plans, to say nothing of those she was making for me; but she rushed on, anxious to justify her counsel.

[pg 076] “You don't understand yet,” she insisted. “It's a wonderful idea. You see, papa and I have met the Duke in Madrid, at friends' houses. I've scarcely spoken to him, for Spanish girls don't have much chance to talk with men, but he'll remember me, and papa too. The lucky thing is, he's never seen my brother since CristÓbal was a little boy, and then no more than once or twice, when he came out to his “Casa Triana is also CristÓbal,” I laughed. “RamÓn CristÓbal.”

“All the better. We shouldn't any of us have to fib. I always said CristÓbal is the luckiest saint to have for a patron. See how he's offering his help to you. And oh, did you know he's the patron saint of automobilists? To-morrow I'll give you a CristÓbal medal to nail on your car. They're made on purpose; such ducks! But now do you begin to understand what I'm driving at, and that it wasn't just impudence to suggest our going in your automobile, papa and I? What with us, and San CristÓbal, you ought to get your foot on the Duke's head.”

“But what about your brother CristÓbal?”

[pg 077] “Oh, he! We must all thank San CristÓbal that he has this leave, otherwise the Duke could easily find out; but instead of going home he can go—why, he can go to Biarritz, where he will see AngÈle, so it will be nice all round. And imagine yourself in his uniform, walking with us in the cathedral, where the Duke is sure to take Lady Monica and her mother,—otherwise, why stop at Burgos? One comes for that, and nothing else, unless one has a little brother in the garrison. Now what do you say, Don RamÓn?”

“I say you're an angel,” I replied with promptness. “But I also say that Colonel O'Donnel won't allow such an arrangement.”

“Oh, won't he?” exclaimed Pilar. “Do you think I'm an ordinary girl of southern Spain, who says ‘yes, yes,’ and ‘no, no,’ as her parents wish, and looks down on the ground while life passes? Only to think of being like that is enough to make a woman grow a moustache and have an “As you are a CristÓbal,” said the Cherub mildly, “it might be managed, if you liked, without our having to go more than an extra time to confession. I could wear the sin upon my conscience, if you could; and if you could wear also the uniform of my son.”

“I'd like to see Carmona's face when you're introduced,” remarked Dick, in his slow Spanish.

“You will see it,” exclaimed Pilar; and with this, the door opened and the other CristÓbal came in.

XIII

What Happened in the Cathedral

Before six next morning, CristÓbal O'Donnel was tapping at my door, with the promised uniform and accoutrements concealed under the military overcoat which was also to be put at my disposal.

Hearing our voices, Waring appeared, yawning, at the door of the adjoining room, and there was a good deal of stifled laughter among the three of us, as I got into my borrowed red and blue. The things fitted well enough, as I have only an inch or two the advantage of the other CristÓbal, and even the cap accommodated itself to my head almost as if it had been made for me. When I was ready for the part assigned by Pilar, Dick said that I had never looked so well before, and probably never would again.

My suit-cases were packed, and the programme which Dick had to carry out when O'Donnel and I had gone, was to settle our account at the hotel, get the luggage bestowed on the roof of the car, and finally to drive round to the cathedral door, in order to start from there in the end, without going back to the His happy smile was changed to a stare of surprise at sight of me in the uniform of a Spanish officer, but true to his training he ironed all expression out of his features in an instant, and allowed himself to look only decorously pleased when Dick and I welcomed him with enthusiasm.

“Well done!” said I. “Did you break out of gaol?” But to [pg 82]tell the truth I was faintly uneasy; because, if he had, it would mean trouble for us all presently, when we had been traced by the police. But I need not have doubted the faithful Ropes.

“No, sir, I didn't break out,” he replied. “I wouldn't have done that in any case, though I didn't like to think of my work on your hands. But I'll tell you how it was, if I won't be disturbing you.”

O'Donnel, who could not understand a word, thought that he must be off, as he wanted to hear mass and catch the train for Biarritz. I let him go without me, therefore; and after our good-byes, Dick and I clamoured for Ropes' story.

“It was a rum go altogether, sir,” said he. “They took me off to the head police office at Irun, and the chief asked me all manner of questions; but I kept on repeating ‘no comprendo,’ and showing the cards of Mr. George Smith. I couldn't understand all their jabber, but they mentioned your name, and from the way they looked when I put on my stupid airs, I thought they began to have their doubts. The chief policeman motioned me to stop where I was, and ordered two of the men to go somewhere. From my place, I could see the bridge, and the two policemen who seemed to be looking for something.

“By and by came the thrum of an automobile, and I could tell it was a Lecomte. A minute later the chaps outside were talking to the Duke of Carmona, who stopped his car where they were. They talked a bit; then he gave the wheel to his chauffeur and came into the police office. The chief treated him very deferential; they laid their heads together in a corner, but I could see them reading a telegram, and once and again they had a squint at me.

“I knew too much to let on I suspected the Duke of a hand in the business, but having heard him answer Mr. Waring about the tyre in English as good as my own, I jumped up and asked if he'd interpret for me with the police. I explained what had happened, showed my card, and said there'd been a silly mistake which was causing me no end of annoyance. Then I [pg 83]said I'd write to The Times, about the sort of thing that happened to Englishmen travelling in Spain, and talked of the Embassy at Madrid.

“All the time I was speaking the Duke pulled his moustache and stared so hard, if I'd had on a false moustache or wig, or any of that kind of business, he'd have been sure to find it out. He looked cross and puzzled too; but finally he said, as I was English, and he believed they were wanting a Spaniard, there must be a mistake, and he would do the best he could to help me. I suppose he must have told them they were on the wrong job after all, for after he'd gone, and they'd buzzed awhile and made out a lot of papers, they said that as a very important person certified to my being Mr. George Smith, I could go.

“By this time it was afternoon, and I wanted to get on as soon as possible, so I took the next train for San Sebastian, and hunted up a place to hire a motor bike. I didn't know where you'd have gone after that, so I couldn't book by train; but I counted on picking up your trail if I kept the road.”

“How could you expect to do that, since there must be a lot of automobiles going back and forth between Biarritz and San Sebastian, even at this time of year?” said I.

“Why, from the non-skids, sir. I'd know ours anywhere. There's three of the steel studs worn close down on the off driving wheel, which makes a queer little mark in dust or mud. I could even see, once I got on to the tracks, that you'd followed the Duke's car, for your tracks came sometimes on his, almost obliterating his trail for a bit. I can tell you, sir, it cheered me up to be coming on your tracks like that. Made me feel at home in a strange country. The bike took me along pretty well, too; but do the best I could, night came on without my overtaking you. For fear of losing the tracks, I put up at a “You're a regular Sherlock Holmes as well as a thorough brick, Ropes,” said I. “Now, have something to eat; get the [pg 84]motor bicycle back to San Sebastian by rail, and be ready for another start.”

With this I was off, leaving him to Dick. I turned the collar of CristÓbal's big coat up to my eyes, pulled the cap down far enough almost to meet it, and went out, praying to meet none of CristÓbal's fellow-officers.

The wild wind for which Burgos is famed wailed through the long, arcaded streets with their tall yellow buildings, and tried to hurl me back from the great honey-coloured gateway with its towers and pinnacles, where I would have paused to pick out the statue of the Cid from other battered statues in weather-beaten niches.

The few men who passed, wrapped in black I was ready to love Burgos for the sake of my childhood's hero, the brave old Cid, with whom every stone seemed to be associated. This was the city of the Cid as well as the country of the Cid; and if I had come into my fatherland as a sightseer, and not as a lover, I should have gone on a pilgrimage to his tomb at the convent of San Pedro de CÁrdeÑa, only a few kilometres out of Burgos—that City of Battles.

As it was, I should have to be content with reading about it in some book, for Carmona would not desert his car to go; and where Carmona went, there must I go also.

At least I had a cup of coffee at “The CafÉ of the Cid” on my way to the cathedral; and the first landmark I sought in that triumph of Gothic grandeur was the coffer of the Cid. I might have hours to wait, I knew, before the others would come, though in order to reach Valladolid at a decent hour, they must not delay too long. But sooner or later they would certainly arrive, for [pg 85]Carmona could not, for shame's sake, rush Monica out of Burgos without showing her the glory of Burgos. And meanwhile, for none save a paltry soul could Time have halted, heavy-footed, as a companion in that realm of shadowed splendour.

It was the first of the famous cathedrals of Spain on which I, an outcast son, had set my eyes; and a glimpse of the twin-spires from afar had given me some inkling of its beauty. Wrapped in sunset flames, I had seen the towers as if cut in precious stones, chiselled, according to legend by angels, like a queen's bracelet, adorned like an old reliquary. I had said to myself that the vast building was a wild festival in a stone, a bravura song in architecture. And if I remembered, as I looked, other twin towers which are the glory of the Rhine, I tried to put the reminiscence away, because I wanted the cathedrals of Spain to be different from those of any other country. I wanted them to speak to me with their own national inspiration. And this morning, as I flitted with the other shadows into the solemn dusk of the great nave, I was satisfied. I found no German inspiration here. Each detail struck the same curiously national note, from the rare iron-work to the octagonal lantern, a miracle of Plateresque design, which lifted itself, clear and bright, above the centre of the great church. Perhaps the effect lay partly in the gorgeous colour, colour never tawdry, never vulgar, as I had seen it sometimes in Italy; or else in the wonderful reliefs; statues in niches of gold, flowering stones, arabesques, alabaster columns, richly-toned pictures; but no matter whence it came, it was there, and could have been nowhere except in Spain.

I wandered from chapel to chapel, saw the strange mummy-like figure of the Christ of Burgos, supposed to shed blood every Friday; admired the treasures of the sacristy; and, I am half-ashamed to say, had just dedicated a candle to propitiate San CristÓbal, when my heart gave a leap at sight of four persons who appeared from behind the grand coro which fills the nave.

The old Duchess of Carmona, brown, stout, yet somehow stately, and the tall figure of Lady Vale-Avon advanced towards [pg 86]me, side by side. Behind came Monica, fresh and sweet in her white-winged grey hat and travelling dress, and the Duke of Carmona, dark as a Moor in contrast with her young fairness.

I dared not break upon her unexpectedly, after my experience of yesterday, so I turned away, and entering a chapel interested myself in a tomb which is the cherished jewel of the cathedral.

How long I could have kept my patience under provocation I can't tell; but my strength of mind had not been tested for five minutes when I heard the voice of my adopted sister Pilarcita. She and the excellent Cherub were claiming acquaintance with the Duke.

They were close to the chapel in which I stood. Half turning I saw the group, which consisted of six persons. Dick was not among them, and I wondered whether he were absent by design or accident.

Now the Duchess and the Cherub were talking together. Now the O'Donnel's were being introduced to Lady Vale-Avon and Monica. The two girls began chatting together. Dear Pilar, what a jewel of a sister she was!

“Do you remember CristÓbal?” I heard her suddenly ask Carmona, in a voice raised to such clear distinctness that I guessed she had seen a uniform behind the iron-work of the half-open chapel door. “You saw my brother, I think, when he was a little boy. He's stationed here now; we've been visiting him.”

I took this as my cue, and turning from the sleeping figure of Bishop Alonso de Cartagena, I walked out of the chapel to join my adopted family.

“Why, here's CristÓbal now!” exclaimed Pilar.

Then, in a flash, she had me introduced to all, leaving Monica till the last, so that the girl might have time to get her breath after the first shock of surprise.

Whether it was that yesterday had given her a lesson in self-control, or whether Pilar had contrived to whisper some word concerning her brother, I could not tell; but if Monica changed [pg 87]colour I could not see it, perhaps because a darkening of the sky outside had begun to deepen the rich dusk of the cathedral.

For her own sake I scarcely dared look at her; and my silence must have passed with the others for the shyness of a young soldier among strangers. But I did look at Carmona, feeling his eyes upon me, and met a stare as searching as RÖntgen rays.

His face is not one easy to read; but for once the windows of his mind were wide open. If he had recognized me, and guessed the trick which had been played on him he would have worn a very different expression; but he was bewildered, uneasy, as he had been yesterday when he saw Monica lean forward, blushing, to gaze at a masked man in a motor-car.

He realized the likeness between CristÓbal O'Donnel y Alvarez and his own dangerous, though ineligible rival, Casa Triana. I could see the thought dart into his mind and rankle; I could see him push it into a dark corner kept for the rubbish of imagination. I knew how he was telling himself that there could be no connection or collusion between the O'Donnel family and Casa Triana. I hoped he also soothed his anxiety by reminding himself that in all probability Casa Triana, in the blue Gloria car once seen by his chauffeur, was busily forgetting Monica Vale in some distant part of Europe. Carmona had admitted one mistake yesterday: he would not be ready to fall into another to-day.

Lady Vale-Avon was also gazing somewhat sharply at the young Spanish officer, a brother of those old acquaintances of the Duke's. But now she coaxed her eyesight by lifting a lorgnette which, as Mary Stuart, she had not been able to carry on the night of our former meeting; and when a questioning glance at Carmona met with no alarming answer, the suspicious frown faded from her forehead.

After a few words we all, as if with one accord, began to move on upon the tour of inspection; and still there was no sign of Dick.

I would defy anyone to hold out for more than five minutes against the charm of the Cherub. Without raising his voice above [pg 88]a honeyed murmur, and with nothing particular to say, by sheer force of cherubic, Andaluz charm of manner he fascinated the Duchess of Carmona, and even Lady Vale-Avon, to whom he was a new type. She had been studying Spanish with an eye to the future, for she understood and answered Colonel O'Donnel; but with apparent innocence and real subtlety he contrived to keep the Duke busy explaining him, and murmured so many funny things that even Carmona was obliged occasionally to burst out laughing.

Meanwhile, Monica, Pilar, and I were left to follow behind, greatly against the will of the Duke, as I guessed by the sulky set of his shoulders.

“Quick, quick, into this chapel,” whispered Pilar, “before they look round. Then they won't know where we've disappeared, and you'll have five minutes grace.” As she spoke, she caught Monica by the arm, and whisked her into the Capilla del Condestable. Once behind the iron lattice, she darted away as if moved by a sudden passion to gaze at the carved altar piece.

“How wonderful!” said Monica. I caught her hands, which she held out to me, and then we laughed into each other's eyes, in sheer happiness and triumph over fate. “To think that you're here, after all.”

“Wherever you are, I'm going to be, while you want me,” said I, “and until we know whether I shall have to take you away.”

“I might have known you wouldn't fail me,” she said. “But I was so unhappy yesterday. When I saw that handkerchief I knew at once who you were, though I should never have guessed, with those awful goggles, and I couldn't help giving a jump, and getting red. But I shall never be so stupid again. I'll be prepared for anything. Just a whisper from SeÑorita O'Donnel was enough this time. While we shook hands she said, ‘Something's going to happen.’ So I was ready. Only it does seem too good to be true.”

“Here's the glove and the rose you threw me,” I said, showing them inside my coat.

“Here's the music you played to me,” she answered, touching [pg 89]her heart; and I would have given a year of my life to kiss her. “Oh, tell me, is Miss O'Donnel any relation to you, really?”

“Only a very good and clever friend,” said I, for there was not much time to waste in explaining things more or less irrelevant. “All this was her idea, to give me a chance of getting near you. And, as CristÓbal's my name too, as well as her brother's, the thing has been managed without a fib. Brother CristÓbal has leave. Friend CristÓbal will spend it with the family; that is, they're all going in that red car you saw yesterday—wherever you go. It would save a lot of anxiety if you could tell where that will be.”

“I can't,” said Monica. “I fancy mother's afraid I might find some way of letting you know; anyway, the Duke is always talking about how pleasant it is not to make plans beforehand, but to let each day arrange itself. I don't know how or where we're to spend the time before we get to Seville; but for Holy Week we're to be at the Duke's house. I'm not afraid of anything, though, now you're near; and I think I shall let myself be happy, in spite of the Duke, for your Spain is glorious, and I love it. I wish it weren't the Duke's Spain too!”

“He thinks it's all his,” said I. “Is he bothering you much?”

“No. He's being nice to me. You know, I refused him in Biarritz; but mother came in while I was doing it, and told him that I was too young to know my own mind; that he must be patient, and she could almost promise I'd change it. I said I wouldn't, but that made no difference. And as mother wanted to come on this trip, I had to come too. I have an idea they've made up a plan between them that I shall be left in peace till Seville, if I behave myself. If they suspect who you really are, though, it will be dreadful. I don't know what will happen.”

“They can't make you marry Carmona,” I said.

“No. How could they? such things can't be done nowadays; at least, I suppose they can't; and yet, when people are strong and determined, and unscrupulous too, one never knows what they may be planning, what they may be capable of doing. Often, [pg 90]in the night, I try to think what they could do, and tell myself they could do nothing, unless I consented, which, of course, I never would. Oh, I shall be very happy and safe now. It will even be amusing, or it would be if I were sure the Duke couldn't harm you.”

“He tried yesterday and failed,” said I. “If he tries again, he'll fail again. But for the present, he thinks it was a false alarm, and perhaps believes I've stopped in Biarritz, sulking.”

“It was dangerous for you to come,” said Monica.

I laughed. “Don't I look like the sort of fellow who can take care of himself—and maybe the girl he loves, too?”

“Yes, yes,” she answered. “How I love you, and how proud I am of you. If you should stop caring—if you should find it wasn't worth while—”

“We've too few moments together to discuss impossibilities.”

“Ah, but you have known me such a short time. Suppose you should see someone else—” and she glanced at Pilar's pretty, heart-shaped face, and the velvet eyes raised in contemplation of a carved Madonna.

“There's nobody else but you in the world,” I had begun, when Pilar beckoned. “They're coming,” she said. “You must be looking at this sweet little panel, Lady Monica. CristÓbal, go instantly and stare as hard as you can at San GerÓnimo on the other side. See, that pet who is twisting his dear feet.”

It was thus they found us; the two girls chatting over the perfection of the tombs of the constable and his wife; the soldier blind to the charms of his sister's companion, and wrapped in reverent contemplation of a wooden masterpiece.

“We were so stupid to lose you,” said Pilar. “But we thought you'd be sure to come back this way by and by.”

XIV

Some Little Ideas of Dick's

We said good-bye presently, still in the cathedral, all very polite and conventionally interested in each other's affairs. Pilar ingenuously hoped that we might meet again in Madrid. The Duke said he hoped so too, but did not know, as they were motoring, and stopped each day where fancy prompted. Pilar thought this charming, and said that we were going to have a little trip with an automobile, too. An American friend had invited us.

At that very moment the American friend was visible in the dim distance, standing with his back to us, gazing at an alabaster tomb. One would have thought he had some reason for avoiding us, or else escaping an introduction to the others, for he let them leave the cathedral before he tore himself away from his study of the sleeping cardinal. When they had vanished, however, he came towards us with a briskness which showed that he had taken more interest in our movements than he appeared to do.

“It's gone off beautifully!” Pilar informed him. “And you did exactly right, SeÑor Waring. You see,” she said to me, “on second thoughts one saw he'd better keep out of the way, for fear the Duke might begin to put two and two together, just as he was noticing that CristÓbal looked rather like someone else. He caught a glimpse of SeÑor Waring's face yesterday, in the car, and it will be safer for him not to see us in that car until we have gone on a little further. Then, he will have had time to get used to my brother's face, as my brother's. Wasn't that a clever idea of mine?”

[pg 092] We all praised her; and praised her again when she explained her policy in having dropped a hint about our American motoring friend, so that she need not be suspected of having tried to conceal anything when the car appeared on the scene.

“The Duke's auto was at the door when I came in,” said Dick. “He must have seen ours.”

“Yes. But he saw you, too, prowling round the cathedral by yourself. I suppose you have as much right to be motoring in Spain as he has, seeing the sights?”

This was true. And as the grey car had now probably gone off, it was time that ours persued.

Ropes was in his seat, coated and legginged once more in leather, and so well goggled that there was no reason why he should be associated in any mind with that Mr. George Smith who had threatened to air his wrongs in The Times. He had seen the other car go, so we must follow. We crossed the Arlanzon and I looked back regretfully at the citadel of Burgos, rising in the middle of the town. We had had no time to visit that castle in which so much history has been made. There the Cid was married; there he held prisoner Alfonso of Leon; there was Edward the First of England married to Eleanor of Castile; and there Pedro the Cruel first saw the light. But if there was one regret more pressing than another, it was that I could not go to the Town Hall and pay my respects to those bones of the Cid, and Ximena his wife, so strangely restored to Burgos, after their extraordinary wanderings to far Sigmaringen.

“Who is this Thith you all keep talking about?” demanded Dick, as the car spun along the river bank.

“Heavens, don't tell me that you've been brought up in ignorance of our national hero!” I exclaimed. “If I'd dreamed of such a thing, I couldn't have made a friend of you. Why, this was his town. He was married in the citadel. He—”

“How do you spell him?” asked Dick, cautiously.

“C-i-d, of course.”

[pg 093] “Great Scott! you don't mean to say my old friend the Cid was the Thith all the time, and I never knew it? What a blow! I don't see why C-i-d shouldn't spell Cid, even in Spanish; as a Thith I can't respect him.”

“Then let him go to the grave with you as the Cid,” said I. “But you know, or ought to know, that ‘C,’ and ‘Z,’ and sometimes ‘D’ are ‘th’ with us.”

“I never bothered much with trying to pronounce foreign languages,” said Dick. “I just wrestle with the words the best I can in plain American. But now—I always thought it rude to mention it before—I understand why you Spaniards seem to lisp, and hiss out your last syllables like secrets. As for the place we're going to next—”

“Valladolid?” I pronounced it as a Spaniard does, “Valyadoleeth.”

“Yes. That beats the Thith. My tongue isn't built for it, and I shall call it simply Val.”

With murmured regrets from the Cherub that we strangers were turning our backs on Burgos without seeing all its treasures, and sighs from Pilar for the Cartuja de Miraflores, and the most beautiful carved tomb on earth, we turned our faces towards Valladolid.

Our road cut through the arid plain that had stretched before us yesterday. Few trees punctuated the sad song of its monotony; but always in the distance rose yellow hills like lions crouched asleep, lights and shadows sailing above their heads with the bold swoop of the Titanic birds. More than once we crossed the poor, single line of railway, the main thoroughfare between Paris and Madrid, and Dick said that Spain needed a few Americans to wake her up. Three trains a day indeed, and a speed of fifteen miles an hour! People shook their heads and told you that Spain was no country to motor in. Well, it was certainly no country to travel in by rail, unless you wanted to forget where you were going before you got there. He wished he were a managing director; or no, on second thoughts, the thing he'd prefer would be to [pg 94]improve the future of the motor industry. Why, there was a fortune to be picked up by some chap with a little go, and a little capital. Look at these roads, now; not so bad, any of them, as far as we had seen; some, as good as in France; others, only rough because science hadn't been employed in making them; after rain they got soft and muddy, and then hardened into ridges. But a few thousands of dollars, well laid out, would change that. Then, with a good service of automobiles, see what could be done in the way of conveying market produce and a hundred other things. What was the matter with Spaniards that they didn't fix up some scheme of this sort?

The Cherub, listening politely to Dick's remarkable Spanish, and understanding perhaps half, answered mildly that it would be a great deal of trouble, and Spaniards didn't like trouble.

“But I suppose Spaniards like getting rich, don't they?” said Dick, who was resting, and letting Ropes drive, while he made a fourth in the tonneau.

“They are not anxious. It is better to be comfortable,” murmured the Irish-Spaniard. “Besides, it is vulgar to be too rich, and makes one's neighbours unhappy. It is a thing I would not do myself.”

“That is true,” said Pilar. “It isn't what you call sour grapes. Papa could be rich if he liked. We have copper on our land, much copper. Men came and told papa that if he chose to work it he might have one of the best copper mines in Spain.”

“And he wouldn't?” asked Dick.

“Not for the world,” said Colonel O'Donnel, with a flash of pride in his mild, brown eyes. “I do not come of that sort of people. I am an officer. I am not a miner.”

“But,” pleaded Dick, bewildered by this new type of man, who refused to open his door and let money, tons of money, roll in, “but you could sell the land and make an enormous profit. You could keep shares, and—”

“I have no wish to sell,” replied the Cherub.

“Well, you might let others work the mine for you.”

[pg 095] “But I prefer living over it. It's beautiful land. I would not have it made ugly. My ancestors would rise from their graves and cry out against me.”

“Still, we are poor,” said Pilar. “New brother, pray be careful of CristÓbal's clothes,” and she laughed merrily. “It will be a long time before we can afford to buy others.”

“And all that copper eating its head off underground,” gasped Dick.

“We have cousins who are prouder than we about such things,” said Pilar. “Two girls and their mother, who live in Seville. They've a beautiful old house with lovely grounds, but nothing else. How they manage not to starve, the saints know. They've sold their china and jewels—everything but their mantillas—to keep their carriage; and they have to share that with two other families of cousins, each taking it in turn; but they have three doors to the carriage—a door with the family crest of one, a door with the crest of the second, and another with the third; so nobody outside knows. A Scotch company want to buy their house and land for an hotel, and have offered enough money to make them rich for life; but they'd rather die than give up the place. And although one of my cousins can paint beautifully, and could make a great deal by selling pretty sketches of Seville, her mother won't allow it. I do think it's carrying pride too far; but there are lots of people I know who are like that.”

“It makes me feel as if I'd came through a week's illness just to hear it all,” said Dick. “I can't get over that copper.”

Through village after village we sped smoothly, everyone delighted to see us except the dogs, who resented our coming, and made driving a difficulty, until Ropes picked up a trick which usually served to keep dogs and car out of danger from one another. He would throw up his arms suddenly and the dog, thinking of a whip or a stone, would mechanically spring out of harm's way. By that time we would have whizzed past.

After a short run we reached Torquemada, home of the Grand Inquisitor; crossed the Pisuerga by a long-legged bridge straddling [pg 96]across the river-bed; had a fleeting glimpse of Venta de BaÑos; came to a straight-cut canal of beryl-green water (which Dick gloomily pronounced a surprising evidence of energy in Spain), and slowed down to wonder at a village of cave dwellings, hollowed out in tiers in the hillside, above the road on our right.

It was such a place as Crockett describes excitingly in one of his books of adventure. All the long, yellow flank of the hill was honeycombed with little, dark doorways and leering windows, whence wild faces looked. From hummocky chimneys rose the smoke of hidden fires burning in the heart of the earth; while down in the road a donkey or two, with their heads in yellow bags and their forefeet tied together with rope, tried to hop away up the steep hill, as if they were gigantic rabbits.

By the waterside stood pollarded trees, scraggy and black, ranged along the shore like naked negro boys, big-headed, with shaggy lumps of wool, hesitating before a plunge. The sandy roads were welcome after stones, and suddenly the landscape began to copy Africa, with shifting yellow sand deserts, brushed by purple shadows of the Sahara. Far away, the mountains, rolling along the wide horizon, glimmered blue, rose, ochre, and white, like coloured marble or a Moorish mosaic. Again we flashed past a troglodyte village in a hillside; crossed a magnificent bridge, which even Dick approved; wound through a labyrinth of strange streets like the streets in a nightmare, and roads to match; smelt mingled perfumes of incense, burning braziers, cigarettes, and garlic (the true and intimate smell of country Spain); saw DueÑas, where fair Isabel la CatÓlica met Ferdinand in the making of the most romantic of royal courtships; spun through Cabezon: and then, as we entered Valladolid, began bumping and buckjumping over such chasms and ruts as had not yet insulted our wheels in Spain.

“Heavens! What can the City Fathers be thinking about?” gasped Dick, between the jolts which even the best springs could not disguise. On we went, through that famous old town which Philip the Second chose for the capital of Spain; and each street [pg 97]was a more awful revelation than the last. The car pitched and rolled like a vessel in a choppy sea, shuddering to right herself between breakers, though Ropes drove at walking pace. “Who ever heard of roads being all right outside a town, and going to bits in it?” Dick went on. “Why, in America—”

“But this is Spain,” the Cherub reminded him.

We had left Burgos at half-past ten, and it was two when we plunged into the town which Dick shortened to “Val.” There I took advantage of the part I played, and sought the hotel at which Carmona must lunch or perhaps put up for the night; but to my astonishment he was not to be found at either of the two possible The grey car had been seen coming into town, and none had seen it go out; nevertheless it, with all its passengers, had vanished. While the others went through a high-sounding French menu at the hotel first on the guide-book list, Ropes and I did detective work. It was he, really, who picked up the trail of the Lecomte, when we had walked back to the street it must have entered first; and even for Ropes this would have proved an impossible feat if our automobiles had not been the only two which had passed since the heavy rains. “I've got the pattern of those non-skids printed on my brain, sir, since yesterday,” said he. “What I don't know about 'em, isn't worth knowing.”

So he pounced upon the thick, straight, dotted line in the mud, and, losing it often, but always picking it out again, we turned and wound till the trail stopped in front of a private house. Later, it went on; but it was evident that the car had paused. The mud was much trampled, and probably luggage had been taken down.

We presumed, therefore, that those we sought were within; but the next thing was to find the resting-place of the Lecomte, lest it should disappear and leave us in the lurch, ignorant of its destination. Luckily for us, the worst was over. The trail led to a stable not far away, and as the doors stood wide open we had the [pg 98]joyous relief of seeing the car being cleansed of its rich coat of mud. The chauffeur was superintending, his back turned to the doors, and we walked quickly on lest he should spy a leather coat and guess that his own game was being played upon him.

“Now you can rest easy, sir,” said Ropes. “That car won't leave this town without my knowing; and it'll go hard if I aren't able to tell you in the course of the next hour whether it's due to start to-day or to-morrow.”

I laughed gratefully. “Thank you, Ropes,” said I. “I shan't ask how you mean to get your information. When you say you can do a thing, I know it's as good as done.”

“It's for me to thank you, sir—for everything,” he replied, flushing with pleasure.

Then we went back to the hotel. And whether Ropes lunched or not I cannot say; but I did, with a good appetite, Dick and my adopted family lingering at the table to hear my news.

In three-quarters of an hour Sherlock Holmes kept his word by sending in a short note, addressed (as I had suggested) to Waring. “Honoured Sir,” it ran, “Lecomte remains night. Master and friends stopping with his relatives. Will let you know time of start in morning, and have our car ready—Respectfully, P. Ropes.”

Some servant of the house or stable-boy had doubtless earned a few pesetas. Just how the trick had been done, was of little importance, for it was done. With a light heart in my breast, and CristÓbal O'Donnel y Alvarez' uniform still unsuitably adorning my back, I went with the others to do some sightseeing, and look for Monica.

We wandered rather aimlessly through the streets, stopping before any building which caught our interest; staring up at the windows behind which Cervantes wrote part of “Don Quixote” when he had come back from slavery; admiring the graceful mirador of that corner house where Philip the Second was born; [pg 99](“Much too good for him, since the world would have been better if he hadn't been born at all,” said Dick, who has Dutch ancestors and a long memory;) trying to identify the place where Gil Blas studied medicine with Doctor Sangrado; wandering into two or three churches, but wasting no time on the cathedral spoilt by Churriguera.

“As a Spaniard, what's your opinion of the Inquisition?” Dick suddenly asked the Cherub, as if he were inquiring the time of day. We had stopped for a moment in the Plaza Mayor where Philip had watched the heretics burning in their yellow, flame-painted shirts, in the first great auto-da-fÉ which he organized.

As another Spaniard, I know that this is the one question of all others, perhaps, which it is not wise to put to a Spaniard, even in this comfortable twentieth century. But Dick either did not know, or wished it to appear that he did not know; and I watched the effect of the words. But the Cherub was equal to the occasion—and his cherubicness.

He glanced round instinctively, as a man might a few centuries ago, to make sure that nobody overheard; then smiling slowly, he replied, “I am no judge, seÑor; I am half-Irishman.”

Pilar had looked disturbed, but she gave a little sigh at this, saying, “Come on, and see the museum.”

Nowhere in Spain can there be a more beautiful thing than that faÇade, well named Plateresque because of its resemblance to the workmanship of silversmiths; and inside the museum we found a collection of carved wooden figures marvellous enough, as Dick said, to “beat the world.” There were crucifixions, painted saints, and weeping virgins by Hernandez and Berruguete, faultlessly modelled, so vivid and beautiful as to be well-nigh startling; and I hoped that Monica might come while we lingered. But she did not, nor did we see her in the Colegio de San Gregorio. There, in the lovely inner court, however, I found a little grey glove on the marble pavement, and so like a certain other glove did it look that I annexed it, to compare [pg 100]with that other which lived in my breast-pocket with its friend the rose.

The pair matched in size, colour, and dainty shape. Even the fragrance of orris hung about it, and I knew this second glove had not been dropped by accident. Monica had been here, and she had left a message for me to read if I followed.

XVI

A Secret of the King's

Pilar said that the oxen were idiotic dears to break their hearts for nothing, not even a percentage on the twenty pesetas. But four-footed beasts are tragically conscientious, and these farmyard martyrs accomplished their task without a groan, while the Gloria crept up close behind on her own power.

I thanked the patron saint of cow creation when the straining brutes got to the top. The summit of the pass was crowned by a lion on a granite pedestal; a lion with a cold air of pride in his mission of marking the limit between Old Castile and New. For me also he marked something for which I owed him gratitude; my deeper advance into the heart of my own land.

Close to our resting-place at the top of the pass there was a rude hut, and one or two wagons which had strained up from the other side were halting their smoking teams. Here, seated in the car again, as we waited to see the oxen unyoked and the boy paid, a girl came out from the little house with a large volume, in which she asked us to sign our names. The Cherub scrawled something; and as Dick was scribbling, Carmona strolled across, to see whether or no I entrusted my name to the book. I had meant not to do so, but now I would have changed my mind had not Colonel O'Donnel stopped me. “I wrote your name, CristÓbal,” said he, in his ambrosial voice; and the situation was saved. Carmona made some commonplace remark to account for his approach, and walked away with a self-conscious [pg 112]back, as Pilar's glance and Monica's crossed the distance between the two automobiles and met mischievously.

The grey car took the lead again, and at a turn of the road it seemed that the whole world lay at our feet; yet it was not even all of Old Castile, so vast a country is my Spain.

Far as the eye could travel spread the fair land, green with the tender green of spring, yellow with patches of golden sand, darkly tufted with woods; struck with flying shafts of light, ringed in with ethereal blue.

Nothing could steal from me this illuminated missal of memories, and were I to be banished to-morrow, I should have Spain to keep in my heart, I said, as we rushed down the steep, winding way that serpentined along the southern slope of the Guadarrama. A breakneck road it was, but nobly engineered, twisting back upon itself in many coils, letting us fly with the speed of a bird to lower levels; and it seemed that scarcely had we sunk over the brink of the mountain than we were at the turn on the right which would lead to the Escurial.

Straight before us, rising out of the bare mountain side and seeming a part of it, towered and stretched a building vaster than any I had seen even in the limitless spaces of dreamland. Were it not for its cold regularity, I should have thought myself approaching another desert of giants who made toys of monoliths and obelisks; but these appalling domes and towers could be the work of man alone. There was no toying here; all was forbidding and gloomy; for this was the Escurial—immense, sinister, as if fashioned from the grim product of those iron mines which gave its name.

I could imagine the fanatical satisfaction Philip's dry mind had found in planning this monument to represent the gridiron on which Saint Lawrence was martyred. He who was to stand in history as the great Inquisitor, must build his monastery and palace in honour of a martyr! But Philip was the last man to have a sense of humour; and it was like him to appease an injured saint by giving him a church a thousand times bigger [pg 113]than the one destroyed on Saint Lawrence's own day, in the battle of San Quentin.

“Wouldn't the Escurial be hideous if it were anywhere else but just here?” asked Pilar.

She was right; for on the Sierra it seemed an expression of the Sierra; and in spite of Philip rather than because of him, it was splendid in the melancholy strength which made it a brother of mountains.

We lunched on extremely Spanish food at a Carmona had made a point of the “influence” which could open for us doors that, for others, would remain shut; and he did smuggle us into the Library of Manuscripts, the Queen's Oratory, and the Capilla Mayor to see the royal tombs. But after we had stopped longer than he wished in the church, and the Choir, where Philip learned that Lepanto had saved Europe from the Turks, and listened to the sad music of Mary Stuart's requiem, the Duke promised something still better, in the palace. “What you shall see there,” he said, “is a secret. It was a secret of King Philip's—so great a secret that even the writers of guide-books know nothing of it; while, if a tourist should have heard a rumour and asked a question, the attendants would say, ‘There's no such thing in existence.’ Only the Royal Family know, a few privileged people about the Court, and the guardians of the Escurial. As for me, I was told by someone here—someone whom I myself placed in the palace.”

My curiosity was excited; and even Dick, who resented this [pg 114]expedition, looked interested as we arrived at the palace—the great gridiron's handle. At the entrance Carmona separated himself from the rest of the party, saying that he must have a few words in private with the attendant who would show the rooms of Philip the Second. He walked ahead, engaged the brown-liveried guide in low-voiced conversation, and seemed to ask a question with some eagerness.

Observing the pantomime from a distance, I fancied that, for some reason, Carmona was to be denied the privilege of which he had boasted; but, apparently, he did not intend to accept defeat without a struggle. He and the guide moved on, then stopped again to argue—this time with their backs to us; but, from the action of Carmona's elbows, I judged that he put his hand into his pocket. Five or six minutes later he returned, to announce that after some difficulty he had succeeded in getting his own way. We might go, unattended, into the private apartments of Philip the Second; and while we were there, other visitors would be kept out. “If there are any, they'll be taken another round,” said Carmona, “and won't be ready to come into the King's rooms until we're ready to come out.”

The guide led us down the narrow staircase to the outer door of Philip's suite, then slipped away, shutting the door behind him. Lady Vale-Avon and Monica (the mother still clasping her daughter's arm), Pilar, Dick, Carmona, and I were now alone between the gloomy walls behind which the bigot and despot had lived his miserable life and died his miserable death.

There was a chill in the sombre place which froze the spirit; yet I, for one, did not feel sad. I was conscious only of an excited expectancy, as if I were waiting for something to happen.

We let our imagination set the meagre form of Philip in his chair, or by the desk at which he used to write; examined the grim relics of his monk-like existence; and finally moved to the death-chamber, set like a stage-box at the theatre, beside the high altar of the chapel.

So small was the room that it was filled by our little party of six; [pg 115]yet I felt there another presence which none of us could see—a grey ghost agonising for his sins, through a bleak eternity.

Monica felt it too, for she shivered, and exclaimed, “Let us go. This room seems haunted with evil. I can't breathe in it.”

“But now for the secret,” said Carmona. “Would you guess at any hidden opening in these walls?”

We stared critically about, and I began to test the wainscot, but the Duke stopped me. “You'd never find the place,” he said; “and I promised the person who told me not to give away the secret; but that doesn't prevent me from showing you what's behind the door.”

He moved close to the wall, stood for an instant, then stepped back, as we heard a slight clicking sound, like the snap of a spring on an old box-lid. At the same time a part of the wainscoting rolled away, leaving a narrow aperture.

It was dark on the other side, but Carmona took a gold match-box from his pocket and struck a bunch of little wax “Philip had this cell made for a place of penance and self-torture,” he said, “and it's just as it used to be during his lifetime, before he was too ill to go in any more. His twisted wire scourge is there, with his blood on it, his horsehair shirt, and a girdle bristling with small, sharp spikes. Will you have a look, Lady Vale-Avon? I can't go with you, for the cell isn't big enough for two, but I'll hold the matches at the door.”

Lady Vale-Avon is of the type of woman who enjoys seeing such things as these; and though she would not have tortured herself had she lived in feudal days, I am sure she would have dined calmly over an underground dungeon where an enemy—an inconvenient wretch like me, for instance—suffered the pangs of starvation.

She squeezed into the cell, descending a couple of steps, remained for two or three minutes, and came out, pronouncing it extremely interesting.

“Now, Lady Monica, it's your turn,” said Carmona; but Monica drew back, “I hate seeing torture-things,” said she, [pg 116]“and blood, even wicked old blood like Philip's, which I used to think, when I read about him in history, I'd love to shed. No, I won't go in, thank you.”

Pilar also refused, for if she went she would certainly have a nightmare and dream she was walled up; thus there remained only the three men to inspect the hidden horrors.

Carmona held his match-box to me, saying that when we had seen the place he would look in to refresh his recollections. But Dick calmly helped himself to several He reappeared presently, however, his suspicions allayed. “Beastly hole,” he remarked; “almost bad enough for Philip, though he did grill some of my best ancestors.”

I took a couple of matches, lighting them on the Duke's box; then, bending my head low, and pushing in one shoulder at a time, I squirmed through the aperture. In so doing, however, I contrived to trip over Carmona's foot, which must have been thrust forward, staggered against the opposite wall of the narrow cell, and lost both my lighted vestas. Carmona exclaimed, I stumbled, and almost simultaneously the door slid into place with a sharp click.

There was not space to fall at length. I merely lost my balance, and saved my head from a bump by shielding it with a raised arm, I steadied myself in a second or two; but I was in black darkness. Outside I could hear a confused murmur of voices, and would have given something to know what Dick was saying at the moment.

I was thinking that I should not like to be a prisoner in this hole (only large enough for the swing of Philip's scourge) for many hours on end, when there came an imperative tapping. “Holloa!” I answered, expecting to hear Dick speak in return; but it was Carmona's voice which replied. Evidently he was speaking with his mouth close to the secret door.

“I'm very sorry for this accident,” said he distinctly. “When [pg 117]you stumbled, you knocked my arm, and made me touch the spring. Unfortunately the door closed with such a crash, that the spring seems out of order, and I can't move it. But if you'll be patient a few minutes, I'll look for an attendant who understands the thing, to bail you out of gaol.”

If I had been Lieutenant CristÓbal O'Donnel I would have heard no more in the rhyming junction of those words “gaol” and “bail” than met the ear, but being the man I was—the man he suspected me to be—I did hear more; and I believed that he wished me to catch a double meaning.

“Does he mean to hand me over to the police now, on suspicion?” I wondered in my black cell—“before Monica's eyes?” But aloud I said, “Thanks; don't be too long, or I shall be tempted to smash the door.”

“You'll find that impossible,” answered Carmona. “Don't worry if I seem to be gone an age. There's only one man on duty to-day who knows the secret of this room; I asked for him when we came, but his comrade said he was away on leave till four o'clock. It must be that now, and I'll have him here as soon as possible. He will be the more pleased to set you free, as he's an old friend of yours. You remember little Rafael Calmenare?”

I was silent, seeing, as if by the glare of lightning, the whole design of the trap, and seeming to see also the triumph which must be in Carmona's eyes. But the pause had not lengthened to a second, when I heard Pilar's voice, speaking also close to the door.

“Of course you remember, CristÓbal. Rafael Calmenare of the Duke's “After he was gored by Nero and lost his health, through the influence of a friend at Court I got him a place here,” I heard Carmona say. Then raising his voice for my ears, he went on, “Poor Rafael will be pleased to see you again. You must have played with him when a boy. I'm off to find him now.”

Silence followed these last words. I could picture the consternation of Dick and Pilar. Neither could do anything to help [pg 118]me, nor could I help myself. I could but wait in this suffocating black hole for the moment when a stranger should give me light, and exclaim, “This is not Don CristÓbal!”

Almost I admired Carmona for his quick wit. After a few moments of rage, at sight of the suspected man of Burgos Cathedral on his track in the red motor-car, the thought of the Escurial and his old servant must have sprung into his mind.

Had Calmenare been available at first, Carmona would have been spared the trouble of shutting me up in Philip the Bigot's torture-chamber; but hard pressed for an excuse to keep us at the Escurial till his man came back, he had put me where I could be kept while needed. And now that he was gone in search of Rafael, we three loyal comrades could not discuss the situation, because of Lady Vale-Avon's presence.

A brilliant stroke of Carmona's to have me betrayed by another than himself, so that Monica might not bear him a grudge! Who was this person masquerading as an officer of the Spanish army? would be the first question of the police. And the answer need not be long in coming. The Duke had reason to congratulate himself; I had been a fool to drop like a fly into his net, and now that I was in, I saw no way out.

“Oh, how I wish we could open the secret door!” I heard Monica exclaim.

“I can't even see exactly where it is now,” Pilar said. “CristÓbal?”

“Yes,” I answered.

“Poor little Rafael; a good fellow, wasn't he?”

“Very good,” I replied. To what end was she working? I wondered. But I was not to be made wiser. Before she had time to finish the hint I heard Carmona speaking.

“I've sent for Calmenare, who has returned, and will be here in a few minutes,” he called to me. It was like him to hurry back, so that by no possible means could the three suspected ones reach any understanding.

The moments dragged on, and I could have lashed myself [pg 119]with Philip's scourge in fury at the rashness which might involve the whole O'Donnel family in my disaster. Never had I been able to think less clearly; but perhaps it was the stifling atmosphere of the cell which made me feel that fingers in a mailed glove were clenched round my temples.

Outside, voices buzzed; but those who spoke must have stood at a distance, for I could catch no words. Then, at last, there was a new voice in the room. Calmenare had come.

“How do you do, Don Rafael?” Pilar exclaimed, as politely as if she had addressed an equal. “I'm glad to see you again. I've been waiting for you impatiently. Only think, my dear brother CristÓbal, whom you know so well, is in that dreadful place and can't get out, because the SeÑor Duque shut him in—by mistake—and broke the spring.”

“I do not find that it is broken, seÑorita,” answered the new voice.

“I couldn't make it work,” Carmona said hastily.

Click! went the spring under skilled fingers. The door sliding back gave me a rush of light and air which set me blinking for a second or two; and there I stood at the stranger's mercy.

What I saw, when my suddenly contracted pupils expanded, was a little man in the palace livery; a pale little man with insignificant features, and large, steady eyes. There was absolutely no expression in his face as for one brief instant our glances met. Then—“God be with you, Don CristÓbal,” said he. “I am glad to have been even of this slight service. I hope, seÑorito, you have not suffered from lack of air?”

“Very little,” said I. I held out my hand. He took it respectfully.

“Is it long since you saw each other?” asked Carmona, sallow and red by turns.

“About two years only, SeÑor Duque,” replied his ex-servant, expressionless as before, and quietly respectful to all. “I could not forget the date, for the SeÑor Colonel and the seÑorita, as well as the seÑorito himself, were always very good to me.”

[pg 120] The Duke was silenced. The test invented by himself had failed. Calmenare accepted me as CristÓbal O'Donnel; he was obliged to accept me too—at least for the present.

“Shall we get out of this place?” he said to Lady Vale-Avon.

She swept her daughter with her; but Monica had a backward look for me, sparkling now with malice for Carmona, radiant with relief for Casa Triana.

We said good-bye to Calmenare in the Duke's presence; and I would have pressed a gold piece into his hand for “opening my prison door,” but he would not have it. Afterwards, while we followed the grey car on the downhill road to Madrid, Pilar told the whole story with dramatic effect to the Cherub.

“My one hope was in Rafael,” she said. “I was good to him, you remember, when he was ill. And he and I had a great sympathy over Corcito, the dear grey bull. I prayed he'd never forgiven the Duke for that crime, and that he'd still be grateful to me. Well, I looked Rafael straight in the eyes when I said, ‘My brother CristÓbal is in that place, shut up by the Duke, who has broken the spring.’ With all my soul I willed him to understand, and he did. ‘If the seÑorita chooses to have a strange gentleman for her brother, he is her brother for me,’ is what he said to himself; no more! But what if he hadn't?”

“That's where I should have come in,” remarked Dick.

“What would you have done?” asked Pilar, breathless.

“I don't know,” said Dick. “I only know I should have done it; and that if I had, maybe Carmona wouldn't have been feeling as well as he feels now.”

XVII

Like a Thief in the Night

No longer did the Duke desire our company. He had played his little comedy of good-fellowship, and it was over, though it had not ended according to his hopes. The grey car did its forty-horse best to outdistance us on the way to Madrid, but the road—so good that perhaps we lost nothing in the detour to the Escurial—distributed its favours evenly. We kept close on the Lecomte's flying heels until one of our four cylinders went to sleep, and Ropes had to get down and wake it up by testing the ignition.

Some fellow-motorists would have turned to offer help, but the Lecomte was ever a Levite where we were concerned; and when we were ready to go on, the grey car was not even a speck in the distance. Luckily, however, there was little or no doubt where its occupants would put up.

Though the Madrid house of the Carmonas had been burned down ten years ago (since when the Duchess had made her home at the old palace in Seville), there was scarcely a Continental paper which had not described the splendours of the Duke's apartment in one of the finest modern flat-houses of Madrid. Naturally, he would entertain his mother and guests there, so that it would be difficult to slip away with them unknown to us.

The thing I did not know was, how long he meant to stay in the capital; but as he must show Seville in Holy Week, and later perhaps other places in the south of Spain, to Lady Vale-Avon and Monica before their return to Madrid for the Royal Wedding, it was almost certain that he would go on in a couple of days.

[pg 122] The O'Donnels recommended to us the Hotel InglÉs, the best Spanish hotel in Madrid, as well as the most amusing, and it was with a heart comparatively light that I looked forward to a first sight of my country's capital. How would it compare with Paris, with Vienna, with London? What adventures awaited me there? What was to be the next pass in this queer duel with Carmona?

But I need not have searched for comparisons. As we rushed into Madrid without threading through any suburbs,—since suburbs the city has none,—I discovered that it bore no resemblance to any other place.

We flashed from open country to a shady park, set about with buvettes and beer gardens; ran through a massive gateway, and were in the heart of Madrid. Electric trams whizzed confusingly round us, and far above the hubbub of such traffic loomed proudly a hill crowned with an enormous palace. There was no need to ask if it were the royal palace, for it was essentially Royal, a house worthy of a king.

My father had fought to put Don Carlos there—Don Carlos, far away now in Venice; but with all my admiration for his brave son Don Jaime, my sympathies flowed loyally towards the young dweller on those heights.

We swept under and round the palace hill, as Colonel O'Donnel directed. In spite of his instructions, however, Dick lost the way twice, plunging into wrong turnings; but the second time he did this it seemed that San CristÓbal—whose medal now adorned our Gloria and shaped our destinies—must have twisted the steering-wheel. There, before the door of an official building guarded by sentries, panted the grey car of Carmona; and among its passengers Carmona alone was absent.

“That's the Ministry of War,” said the Cherub, and with a quick thought I asked Dick to slow down. Taking advantage of her son's late cordiality, I spoke to the Duchess.

“We thought we had lost you,” said I airily. “I hope nothing's wrong, that you stop here?”

“Not in the least, thank you,” coldly replied the Duchess.

[pg 123] But Monica spoke up bravely. “The Duke didn't tell us why he wanted to go in. He only said he wouldn't keep us many minutes. SeÑorita O'Donnel, shall you be in Madrid long?”

“Only a few days,” said Pilar. “And you?”

“We shall be here again at the time of the wedding,” Monica answered quickly; “so I believe the Duke and Duchess will—”

“It is undecided,” Lady Vale-Avon cut in before the girl could make us a present of Carmona's plans. “We may take some excursions. As there's a fine road to Barcelona, we may go there and to Montserrat; and the Duke has said something about Bilbao—”

“But, Mother, surely we're going to Seville for Holy Week!” cried Monica.

“There's no reason why we should arrive before Maundy Thursday,” replied Lady Vale-Avon, hiding annoyance. “But isn't that the Duke coming out? I hope he won't be long. It's windy here, and you have a cold coming on, my dear Duchess.”

We were dismissed; and raising our hats again we drove on, Pilar waving a small, encouraging hand to Monica. “They won't do any of those things,” said the Spanish girl. “Something tells me they mean to start for Seville as soon as they can.”

“Something tells me so too,” said I. “And something tells me that Carmona's errand at the Ministry of War is to find out whether Lieutenant CristÓbal O'Donnel y Alvarez is really away from Burgos on leave.”

“That's what I was thinking,” murmured the Cherub. “But the thought will not bring a grey hair. CristÓbal is on leave; and he told his brother officers that he expected to go with his family to Seville. It was at the last minute that his plans were changed. No one was taken into his confidence; and it will be very negligent of San CristÓbal to let him meet in Biarritz any common acquaintance of his and Carmona's.”

“I'm putting my faith in San CristÓbal,” said I. “But as he has a good deal to attend to, the less I show myself in Madrid, where my adopted brother must be known, the better.”

[pg 124] “He hasn't been as often here as Pilar and I,” said the Cherub, “so he knows few people. Still, CristÓbal's uniform should now be put away, and CristÓbal should wear civilian clothes.”

“He certainly will,” I answered, laughing. And Colonel O'Donnel gave himself up to directing Dick which way to go, as we were in the most crowded centre now, close to the Puerta del Sol.

This big, open space, shaped like a parallelogram, walled by hotels, Government buildings, and shops, struck me as a Spanish combination of Piccadilly Circus and the Mansion House, thrown into one. Ten busy streets poured their traffic into the place; intricate lines of tramways converged there. The pavements were crowded with loungers who had the air of never doing anything but lounge, and wait for excitements. There was much coming and going of leisurely pedestrians, talking and laughing, all classes mingling together; men in silk hats on the way to their clubs chatting with men in Steering cautiously through the throng which scarcely troubled itself to move before us, we took one of the main arteries leading out from the Puerta del Sol (where no sign of a gate was to be seen), and turned into the deep blue shadows of the Calle Echegaray to our hotel.

Already I had discovered that it is not the habit of Spanish [pg 125]landlords to descend from the important first floor to the unimportant ground floor and welcome their guests. They are glad to have you come if you choose, but they do not care if you stop away, for there are plenty of others; and whether you are cousin to the King of England or an American millionaire, or a Spanish commercial traveller, very timid and just starting in business, you will be given the same reception, unless you put on “proud airs,” when you will be shown that you had better go elsewhere. But with an old friend, all is different; everyone welcomed the Cherub and the seÑorita; for their sakes everyone welcomed Dick and me. I was vaguely introduced as a relative—no name given; no name, in the flurry of greeting, asked; for Spain is not like France or Germany, where the first thing to do is to write down all particulars about yourself on a piece of paper.

Ropes drove the car off to a garage, and we were shown to rooms which made us realize that we had left the provinces behind and come into the capital.

“Thank goodness I shall have a pillow to sleep on to-night,” said Dick, “instead of doing the carved-knight-on-a-marble-tomb act. I looked particularly at the two neat, rounded blocks those chaps in Burgos Cathedral had to rest their heads on, and the alleged pillows on my bed were an exact copy, hardness and all.”

“I like them hard,” said I.

“That's right! Stand up for Spanish institutions.”

“There's one anyhow I don't think you'd run down,” I remarked.

“Which one?”

“Spanish girls.”

We dined in great spirits that evening, in the big scarlet and gold restaurant; and in rich, red MarquÉs de Riscal Dick drank confusion to the Duque de Carmona. The Cherub had told us where Carmona's flat was situated, saying that his car would perhaps be kept under the same roof with his carriage and the state coach.

[pg 126] The company was interesting to watch. Leoncavallo had as a guest the famous ex-bull-fighter Mazzantini; a Russian prince entertained several beauties of the Opera; and there were two or three politicians greatly in the public eye. We were hungry; the dinner was good; there was much to talk over; and all seemed to be going well.

But about half-past ten, when Pilar had gone, and the Cherub was having a “yarn” and a cigar in the sitting-room of our suite; Ropes appeared, looking serious.

“Something bad has happened, sir; and I blame myself,” said he.

“Something wrong with the car,” I asked quickly.

“Something out of the car, sir,” he amended. “The main shaft of the change-speed gear.”

“Impossible!” said I. “A car can't go along dropping her gearing, as a woman drops her purse!”

“No, sir. But she can, so to speak, have her pocket picked. After all that's come and gone, I ought to have kept my eyes open.”

“Out with it, my good chap,” said I; “don't try to break it to us.”

“It's the car that's broken into, sir. I found the garage all right, left her safe and sound, came back here, but after dinner thought I'd go round again to tinker a bit at the car in case of an early start to-morrow. When I got to the place there were three new fellows on duty, and they seemed astonished when they saw I intended to work on the Gloria. The chauffeur who looked after that car had been in, they said; and you can believe, sir, I pricked up my ears. He'd been working like a demon, said they, opening the gear-box and dismounting the main shaft. Then he went off with it over his shoulder, after telling the foreman his master wouldn't believe the pinions were so worn there ought to be a new set, and he was going to show it to him. They were surprised, I can tell you, sir, when I said we'd been robbed, and that the thief wasn't your chauffeur. But just then one of the old lot came [pg 127]in, and bore witness that I was the right man. It did seem like a bad dream, but a peep at the gear-box showed me it was real enough. I was a fool not to give somebody warning, or pay a man to stay by the car.”

“I can't see that you had reason to be suspicious,” said I, “although it's a rascally outrage, and makes me feel murderous. Did they describe the supposed chauffeur?”

“They did sir; and I expected to recognize the description. But I didn't; they're too smart for that.”

“You think we know him?”

“Sure of it, sir. Nothing easier than a bit of disguise.”

“It might be a common motor-car thief, who wanted a main shaft for a Gloria car.”

“And then again, sir, it mightn't.”

“Anyhow,” said I, “the thing to do would be to apply to the police, have the ruffian run to earth and arrested, no matter what his position. The worst of it is, though, I'm not anxious to have the eye of the Spanish police turned upon me, and there are those who count on that fact.”

“Wouldn't I like to smash their heads for this! Wouldn't I like to smash their car!” growled Dick.

“No. That would be playing it too low down,” said I.

Ropes coloured under his sunburnt skin, and began to search for non-existent dust on the leather cap in his hand.

“You're right, sir, no doubt,” he said, in a meek voice.

I was half sorry that he, or anyone, should agree with me. It seemed somehow as if my chauffeur were taking this monstrous thing too coolly. “Well, the fact remains that we're done,” I said, with suppressed fury. “If the Duke of Carmona has had a hand in this act, it's a sign that he means to get off while we're held up waiting for a new shaft and pinions to arrive—probably all the way from Paris. He can go to-morrow—”

“Beg pardon, sir; he can't, not in his own car,” said Ropes. “If we can't leave, no more can't he.”

“Why, what have you done?” I tried to speak sternly.

[pg 128] “Oh, next to nothing, sir. A bit of a touch on his magneto ignition, and a tickling of his coil, just enough to keep him in hospital till he's doctored up.”

Rope's expression was so childlike that Dick and I burst out laughing. “You demon!” I said. “How did you get at the car?”

“Much the same as they did at ours, though I don't pretend to be as clever as some. I said to myself, as this car of the Duke's is new, and he doesn't drive it himself, chances are he's never had a motor before, and wouldn't have a garage in Madrid, though he does live here part of the year and must have fine stables. I inquired what was the best garage besides ours, and strolled round, thinking the chauffeur would have gone straight to the Duke with his news. I found the place, and all the chaps were standing outside open doors, watching a couple of dogs having a fight. I walked in, without a word to anyone, though I'd have said I came from the Duke if I'd had to. There was the car; and before one of those blessed dogs had chewed the other's nose off, I'd polished up my little job. Then I came to you, feeling a bit better than a few minutes before.”

“You ought to be crushed with remorse,” said I; but I'm afraid I grinned; and Dick remarked that if he were King of England he'd give Ropes a knighthood.

“Heaven knows what the next move will be,” I commented, when the avenger had gone, not too stricken in spirit. “It begins to look as though the enemy would stick at little, and we can't go on giving tit for tat.”

“He won't take open action against you for the present,” said the Cherub, “as he isn't sure you aren't CristÓbal O'Donnel; and you're warned if he tries to strike in the dark. He's probably found out through the Ministry of War that CristÓbal's on leave, so to rid himself of your company he's resorted to the only means which occurred to him.”

“I have to thank you that he had no surer means,” I said.

“It's the fashion in Spain, if a friend wants a thing, to tell him it is his,” replied Colonel O'Donnel. “You wanted me for a [pg 129]father, Pilar for a sister. I said, ‘We are yours.’ There's not much to be thankful for. I would do ten times more for your father's son; and my confessor's a sympathetic man. Besides, to tell you a secret of mine which even Pilar doesn't know, though she has most others at her finger-end, your mother was my first love. I adored her! You have her eyes!”

Whereupon I shook hands with the Cherub.

XIX

A Parcel for Lieutenant O'Donnel

Never was such a man as Don Cipriano, Conde de Roldan. Not content with lending me his wings that I might fly while he was left to crawl, he proposed to heap other favours upon the friend of his friends.

He offered me an asylum at his place for my rejuvenated car, lest the enemy in reconnoitring should learn our secret before the time; and, better still, he volunteered to visit the camp of that enemy, and discover his plans.

Being an acquaintance of the lady whom Carmona had jilted, he was no admirer of the Duke's. Nevertheless, he was a member of a club which Carmona frequented when in Madrid, and he thought that the Duke would look in next day. Even if he should decide to proceed by rail, after discovering how “two can play at the same game,” such a change of plan would mean delay; therefore Carmona and his party would spend at least one day in Madrid. Don Cipriano offered to go early to the club, and not to leave until he had seen the Duke. The moment he had any news he would bring it to us.

I accepted my new friend's invitation to house the Gloria, as his place was so close to town that Ropes or I could spin her back at short notice; and at dawn, when merry Madrid was thinking of bed, my car towed out his dismantled one. Pilar and her father had gone home to dream their good deeds over; Dick, when he heard that we were to drive behind the Conde's horses, developed a headache, and Ropes and I had to carry the business through ourselves.

[pg 137] We bathed and breakfasted in the country, and drove back to Madrid while the gay world slept. He would now, Don Cipriano announced, spend the day in the city, on watch-dog duty; but as he would have no news until afternoon, I might visit the picture galleries if I liked. “They will make you feel proud of your country,” he said; and so they would, no doubt. But I resolved to sacrifice them in the fear that, after all, Carmona might evade me if I gave him so good a chance.

Never had I seen Dick so gloomy as when I returned to him, and the black dog was not chased away by my praises of Don Cipriano. He cheered up, however, at the prospect of sightseeing with the Cherub and Pilar; the Cherub martyred; Pilar joyous in the thought of showing off the Murillos and Velasquez which she adored.

They did the ArmerÍa and picture galleries all the morning, until they were drooping with fatigue; waggled back in a dilapidated cab, clamouring for their lunch and my tidings; departed again in the afternoon to finish what they had left undone.

Meanwhile I had heard nothing; and the day, spent in waiting for Don Cipriano or for some bit of gossip picked up by Ropes, was long.

But five o'clock and Don Cipriano came together. Carmona had been to the club. The Conde de Roldan had not spoken to him, but the Duke had talked to another man, a motoring friend of the King's. Perhaps, with few others, would the Duke have been so expansive. He had said, “I'm only in Madrid for the day. Should have been off this morning, with my mother and two ladies who are going to visit her in Seville, but had an accident to my automobile, which has made me a lot of bother. I hope to get away, though, sometime to-morrow.” Then he had asked after the health of a certain actress, and the subject had been definitely changed.

This was a triumph. I heartily thanked Don Cipriano, all the while feeling a guilty thing; for if I were loyal to Dick and wished him luck, I must be disloyal and wish defeat for my benefactor.

[pg 138] We spoke of the road, which he knew, and said was not too bad; and about brigands, who were making themselves talked of just then. “You'd better buy arms, if you haven't them,” said Don Cipriano; “but there's not much danger on this side Seville.”

He had brought a road-map; and we were examining it, in the reading-room of the hotel, wondering whether Cannona would take the direct way through Manzanares, ValdepeÑas, and Cordoba, or another which Don Cipriano considered better, though longer, by Talavera de la Reina, Trujillo, and Zafra, when the “It must be a mistake,” I replied.

“He asked for el Teniente O'Donnel; and he has a packet for you.”

“Bring it in, please, and let me see how it's addressed.”

“He won't give it up, sir, without seeing you himself. Those were his instructions.”

I got up impatiently and went into the hall, where a boy in the livery of some shop handed me a small parcel. There was no address upon it, and I wondered if this were not some purchase of Pilar's, sent back to my care. However, I decided to open it, and found nothing inside except a little steel paper-knife with the word Toledo engraved on the black and gold handle.

I stared at the thing stupidly for a moment, as I fumbled for a “A young lady? yes, sir. But she was with only one seÑor, and two seÑoras, both of an age.”

“You saw them?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Describe all four, and you shall have two pesetas instead of one.”

“One seÑora was Spanish, brunette, fat, with dead eyes in a [pg 139]large, soft face of two chins. The other was tall and foreign, handsome, but with an air! I would not be her servant. The seÑor was distinguished. Dark, with a thin nose that turned down, like his moustache; a face of an old picture; one shoulder higher than the other.”

“But the young lady?”

“Oh, sir, the seÑorita was a white and gold angel, made of a sunbeam! It was she who bought the knife, while the others chose a thing for the tall seÑora. She quickly gave it and the money to an attendant, with the address, saying it must be put into the gentleman's own hand.”

I gave the boy five pesetas instead of two.

A paper-knife with the word Toledo engraved upon it from Monica for me! No message, only that! But was it not in itself a message—the only one she could find a way to send?

I went back to Don Cipriano. “I've just heard,” said I, “that when Carmona starts, he intends to go to Toledo.”

XX

The Magic Word

When the others came back, and the paper-knife was shown, all agreed with me that it could mean but one thing. The best of it was that to go to Toledo the grey car must pass the Conde de Roldan's place where my Gloria lay; and all we need do would be to await the moment when the Lecomte flashed by. Then we might give Carmona a surprise.

None of us doubted that he must guess the cause of his accident, as we guessed at ours; nevertheless, the blow he had inflicted was far more severe than our retaliation, and he doubtless hoped that, despite our revengeful scratch, he could slip out of Madrid leaving us Don Cipriano dined with us that night, and went with the others to the Teatro EspaÑol, where the great Guerrero and her husband were acting. It was not thought well for me to appear, lest the Duke should be there, and say to some acquaintance, “You see the O'Donnel's. Is that the son who is in the army?”

When they returned, Pilar had news. Carmona, with the Duchess, Lady Vale-Avon, and Monica had all been at the theatre in a box.

“I knew that girl was beautiful,” said Pilar, “but I didn't know how beautiful until to-night! With her pearly skin and golden hair among all the dark heads, she gleamed like a pearl amid carbuncles, and everyone was looking at her. You know how we admire fair beauties, and how we expect to adore the young queen when she comes? Well, if it had been Princess Ena [pg 141]herself, people could hardly have stared more, and the Duke was delighted. He wants everything that's best for himself, and to have others appreciate it. He was so proud of Lady Monica between acts, and kept bending over her as if she belonged to him. I don't think he saw us; but I was glad you weren't there, or you would have been wild to fly at him.”

“You make me wild to do that now,” I said.

“Have a little patience, and you will steal her,” said Pilar.

“If she would only let me! But she won't.”

“Who knows what she will be ready to do if they press her? And after to-night, too! She seemed half afraid of him, as if she began to realize more and more what he is. Oh, if you weren't here I should want to do some desperate deed and snatch her away myself! He likes having her admired, while she's not yet his; but he has enough of the Moor in him to shut up a wife, so that no other man should see her beauty. And then presently he would tire, and be cruel.”

“Don't let's talk of it,” said I. “It's not going to happen.”

Though it was so late before we slept, we were dressed at an unearthly hour—according to the Cherub—and driving out with the small luggage which accompanied us on the car, to Don Cipriano's place on the Toledo road.

Ropes had spent the night there, and the Gloria was ready. The luggage was got into place; and Don Cipriano and his mother—a fairy godmother of an old lady, with a white dome of hair under a priceless black lace mantilla—were determined to provide us with food and drink as if to withstand a siege.

There was a snow-cured ham from Trevelez, the most famed in AndalucÍa. There was delicious home-made bread, “You will need these things,” insisted the old lady, giving the Cherub a friendly pat on the arm, as she encircled Pilar's waist. “It is different on the road between Madrid and Seville, from those you have travelled. You will want to lunch out of doors, in the sunshine, for you won't find good things like these at any little venta. I know, for I have been with my son. I am a heroine, my friends say. We will pack everything well for you.”

“And the wineskin you must hang on the side of the car,” said Don Cipriano, all solicitude for our welfare, poor fellow, believing happily, as he did now, that neither Dick nor I was dangerous. “There's no cure for Spanish dust, except Spanish wine. Besides, you're going through wild country where automobiles are seldom seen. If peasants are inclined to throw stones, the sight of a good skin of wine should soften them. And what true man would risk damaging a wineskin?”

That fairy godmother, DoÑa Rosita, conceived a fancy for Dick, who flirted with her in his bad Spanish so outrageously that she was delighted. He made her feel young again, she said, and it was a shock to find that he was an American. She had not forgiven America for the Cuban war, which she had not understood in the least. “But you are not wicked!” she exclaimed. “I thought all American men were wicked, and would do anything for money. [pg 143] Ignorance being bliss, the delightful mother and son were a hostess and a host almost too hospitable.

As if the hampers stowed in the car were not enough, a tremendous breakfast on a table loaded with flowers was provided for us. But just as we sat down, at ten o'clock, a servant on duty as scout appeared, panting after a scamper across fields, to say that a motor had passed. Our chauffeur sent word that it was the motor; and was ready to start our car.

This was the signal for confusion, cries of regret, wishes for good luck, laughter, and exclamations. Pilar and the Cherub were persuaded to finish their cups of thick chocolate, flavoured with cinnamon, while Dick and I drank our strong coffee and left our Off we went, in flowery Spanish speech kissing the seÑora's feet, while she kissed our hands; Don Cipriano leaped upon a horse to see us off, all his dogs about him; and ten minutes later our pneus were pressing the track in the white dust made by the Lecomte.

We soon lost sight of gay Madrid, with its domes and spires clear cut against the white mountains, to run through a green landscape of growing corn and grape, vineyards framed for our eyes with distant hills flaming in Spanish colours, red and gold. Colonel O'Donnel pointed out an isolated elevation which he said was the exact centre of Spain; and of course there was a convent on its top. Every other hill had a ruined watch-tower, brown against a sky of deeper, more thoughtful blue than Italy's radiant turquoise. Men we met rode upright as statues on noble Andaluz animals, grand as war-horses in mediÆval pictures; but some did not scorn to turn abruptly aside at sight and sound of our motor, to go cantering across fields to a prudent distance. Carters with nervous mules held striped rugs over the creatures' faces till we had passed; donkeys brayed and hesitated whether to sit down or run away, but ended in doing neither; yet no man frowned.

Dick said that now, at last, he began to feel he was really in [pg 144]Spain, because we met the right sort of Spanish faces, the only kind he was ready to accept as Spanish. He had been satisfied with the strongly characteristic qualities of everything else (especially the balconies, the hall-mark of domestic architecture in Spain); the rich, oily cooking; the pillows, oh, the stony pillows! the manners of the people, and the costumes of Castile. But the features of the people hadn't been, till to-day, typical enough to please him. He had expected in the north mysterious looking Basques; then, something Gothic or Iberian, if not Moorish, with a touch of the Berber to give an extra aquiline curve to the nose. But not a bit of it! Noses were as blunt as in England, Ireland, or America, and might have been grown there. It was only this morning that we had flashed past a few picture-book Spanish features, and fierce, curled moustaches.

“Wait till you get farther south,” murmured the Cherub, “you will see the handsome peasants. They put townspeople to shame.”

“And mantillas—I want mantillas,” said Dick. “I've only seen one so far, except in the distance at Vitoria; I expected every woman to wear one. Now you, seÑorita, owe it to your country.”

Pilar laughed. “Fancy a mantilla in a motor-car. You haven't seen me yet, seÑores—no, not even when I went to the play. When we're at Seville, why, then you'll be introduced to the Real Me. Look you, I have but one sole hat in this wide world, beyond this motoring thing I bargained for at Burgos. You've no idea what a hat—such a hat as a self-respecting seÑorita can put upon the head God made—costs in this land of Spain. Twice—three times what it would be elsewhere, so travelled women say, and to have a smart one is necessary a trip at least to Biarritz. As for DoÑa Rosita, she is old-fashioned, and always wears the mantilla; indeed, on her wedding tour to Paris she had to buy her first hat in Marseilles, she says; for thirty years ago, you could hardly find one in Spain. Now, most of the ladies in Madrid wear hats, except for the bull-fight; but in dear Seville, [pg 145]it's different. I shall no longer have a headache with the hatpins which pinch these hairs of mine. Santa MarÍa PurÍsima, you shall see what you shall see.”

She spoke as if to me; but she glanced at Dick, who—though he had still to pose as the owner of the car—was growing fond of the tonneau, while Ropes drove. Woe betide Don Cipriano if he had seen that glance!

By and by we turned off the main road at Cetafe, and got caught by closed bars at a railway crossing.

“We shall probably be here an hour, and might as well lunch,” said the Cherub resignedly; but when a humble-looking luggage train had crept in, it was so impressed with our air of superior importance that, to our surprise, it backed out rather than obstruct our honourable path; and the gates were wheeled back for us to pass in front of the engine's polite little nose.

It was a spin of but fifty miles from Madrid to the olive plantations (the first I'd seen in Spain) near Toledo; but the road surface was not of velvet; and we had often to slow down for animals who hated, because they did not understand, that most faithful and loyal of beasts, the automobile. Therefore it was close upon one o'clock when the noble old town rose in wild majesty before us on its granite, horseshoe hill, girdled by the dark gold bed of the Tagus.

Madrid seen from afar off had scarcely been impressive, but this Rome of Spain—though we did not approach it by way of the world-famous bridge—was grander than any picture had led me to believe.

We had seen nothing of the grey car yet, not even a cloud of dust, but we knew it must be here, and everyone of us looked forward to watching the face of the Duke when we should march into the dining-room of the best hotel, where by this time he and his party were probably about to lunch.

In a few minutes I should see Monica, perhaps be as near to her as at the I could hardly believe that the sullen yellow stream pounding its way through the gorge, and shouldering aside huge rocks as if they were pebbles, was really the Tagus, enchanted river of my childish dreams—the river my father loved—the golden river I had scarcely dared hope to see.

Not a legend of the Tagus or Toledo that I did not know, I reminded myself dreamily. I knew how, in the grand old days of the city's glory, the Jews of Jerusalem had respectfully sent a deputation to the wise Jews of Toledo, asking: “Shall this man who says He is the Son of God be given up to the Roman law, and die?” And how the Jews of Toledo had hastened to return for answer: “By no means commit this great crime, because we believe from the evidence that He is indeed the long looked-for Redeemer.” How the caravan had made all speed back, arriving too late; and how, because of their wisdom and piety, the Jews of Toledo had been spared by the Inquisition when all others burned.

I knew how, in a time of disaster and poverty for Toledo, San Alonzo, a poor man, prayed heartily to the Virgin, in whose lifetime the cathedral had been begun, imploring her help for the town; how she came at his call, and looking about to see what she could do, touched the rock, which throbbed under her fingers like a heart, until all its veins flowed with molten iron; how this iron was drunk by the Tagus in such draughts that the water became the colour of old gold; and how after that, the city grew rich and famous through the marvellous quality of its steel, which, the faithful believe, owes its value to the iron-impregnated Tagus.

I knew how the King of the Visigoths had here become a Christian, and made of Toledo the ecclesiastical capital of Spain. I knew how the Cid had ridden to the city on Babieca, beside treacherous Alonzo. I knew how Philip the Second had been driven away by the haughtiness of the clergy, pretending greater [pg 147]love for Madrid, that town built to humour a king's caprice. I knew how, even as in the mountains round Granada, in every cave among the rocks of the wild gorge, sleeps an enchanted Moor in armour, on an enchanted steed, guarding hidden treasure, or waiting for the magic word which will set him free to fight for his banished rulers. And yet, here was I entering this ancient citadel mighty in history and fable, in an automobile, with a photographic camera!

“But you are a banished prince yourself,” said Pilar, when I spoke something of what was in my mind. “And you've come out of your enchanted cave at the magic word. That magic word is—Love.”

XXI

The Duchess's Hand

High on the hill Colonel O'Donnel pointed out the With this, he began bowing right and left to young officers who sauntered inside the gateway. Nearly everyone knew and seemed delighted to see him; indeed, who could see the excellent Cherub, and not be glad?

He himself was happy. “There go your father and I!” he exclaimed, picking out the two best-looking infants in a procession of incredibly small boys proudly wearing a smart uniform. “Oh, where are the girls who used to smile at us?”

So we drove into the Moorish-looking stronghold, through a labyrinth of steeply ascending tunnels which were streets. They were so narrow that I would not have believed the car could scrape along without smashing the mud-guards, had not the Cherub valiantly urged us on, with assurances that it could be done. And always we did slide through, the sides of the Gloria so close to open doors and windows that we could have reached into dark rooms, and helped ourselves to loaves of bread, brass cooking vessels, coarse green pottery, jars of flowers, or astonished babies.

There was no space for dwellers in these shadowed lanes to rush from their houses before our car, when warned by the [pg 149]“choof, choof” of the motor as we rattled over the “agony stones,” that something extraordinary was coming; but mothers shrieked for their offspring, while young girls hailed their friends to the free show; and men, women, and children jostled each other good-naturedly in every window and door as we approached, pouring out in our wake, though seemingly half afraid even then that the dragon might take to charging back upon them.

Beautiful faces peered from behind rusty bars, with eyes to tempt any man to “eat iron,” as the saying is. Dark men with sun-warmed eyes, and black heads wrapped in handkerchiefs of scarlet silk, stared curiously at Pilar's veil; and when we emerged from the stone-and-plaster labyrinth, into a wider space where the hotel stands like an ancient palace, we were swamped by the laughing crowd which had formed into a trotting procession behind us.

Just as the marble whiteness of the Monica grew rose-red at sight of us. Her elders, not in the Duke's confidence concerning the Gloria's disabilities, appeared as little surprised as pleased; but Carmona's various and visible emotions included extreme astonishment. I looked at him, my cap off for the ladies, smiling and nonchalant as if nothing had happened since our last meeting; and despite the self-control inherited from Oriental ancestors, for an instant he tried in vain to hide mingled rage and bewilderment. Possibly he might have fancied that we had come by train, had not Ropes been starting the car at that moment, Then he must have wondered how, by all that was demoniac, we had contrived to track him to Toledo!

“This is quite a surprise, SeÑor Duque!” said I, as we met in the [pg 150] “Ye—es,” he answered, tugging at his moustache, and wishing us and our car on some uninhabited planet.

“And a great pleasure!”

“Um—er—of course,” he mumbled; and I dared not meet Monica's laughing eyes, lest our lips should laugh as well.

They went to lunch; but we were not many moments behind, and Pilar, murmuring in my ear, “Cats may look at a king, whether the king likes or not,” gaily selected a table next to the others. She then kept up a stream of talk with Monica, exchanging impressions of Madrid. “Didn't you love the shops?” she asked. “And shall you buy Toledo things to-day; scarf-pins and hatpins and paper-knives; or did you buy too many yesterday?”

“I think I bought just enough,” said Monica, with a quick smile. “But I shall get more here. We're going to a metal work-shop, after the cathedral.”

But this was sheer audacity, and was punished as I feared it would be.

Not wishing to pursue with too conspicuous violence, lest we defeat our object, we let Carmona's party leave the dining-room before us. A quarter of an hour later we followed, going out into the strange grey streets, haunted by men and women who have made history. Dick (armed with a book by Leonard Williams, greatest of authorities on Spain) was allowed to walk beside Pilar, while that most unsuspecting and kindly of chaperons, the Cherub, bestowed his society on me. But, according to his habit, he was often silent, giving me time to dream of Toledo's past.

Picturesque enough were the figures of to-day in the old grey capital of the Visigoths, yet they were not as real for me as other figures which only my mind's eye could see.

Here was the long, flat faÇade of the building legend had chosen as the palace of Wamba the Benefactor—the Farmer King. I saw the old man waking to life in the dungeon where the treachery of one loved and trusted had thrown him, dressed in the monkish garb which never again could be changed for robes [pg 151]of state. I saw a haggard company of Jews marching into “Tarshish,” scarred and bleeding from the persecutions of Nebuchadnezzar who had flung them from Jerusalem. I saw Moorish men fighting to take Toledo—the “Lookout,” “the Light of the World,” and fighting again to save it for themselves.

There, in the towering Up this narrow street in the town, behind that barred window with its curious cannon-ball decorations, perhaps the incomparable DoÑa Flor of Dumas' “Bandit” had smiled and pierced the heart of the “Courier of Love” with her beauty.

It was like awaking from a brilliant dream when the Cherub stopped abruptly, to point up at the vast, incongruous bulk of the cathedral towering over us. But there was nothing incongruous in the rich, Gothic splendour within; and my sole shock of disappointment came when I gave up hope of finding Monica.

They had punished her by changing their plan of campaign, and I must seek her elsewhere. But I could not wrench my friends from this great monument of Spanish glory, merely because I cared more to look on Monica Vale's face than the face of any saint, carved or painted by a master's hand.

I stayed, therefore, finding such consolation as I could in the jewelled gleam of rare old glass, the magnificence of bronze doors; tombs of kings and heroes; and all the wonders of gold, silver, pearls, and diamonds which, stored in the sacristy, do honour to the famous Black Virgin, the cathedral's Queen.

Coming out again into the town was like stepping with a [pg 152]single stride back from Europe into Africa; for nowhere can Moslem and Christian civilizations be more closely tangled than in Toledo. Moorish streets were like scimitar strokes cleft deep in the city; narrow chasms lined with secretive houses, giving here and there a glimpse of some bright, flowery No one cared for us now that we were no longer gods in a car, except an occasional beggar, to whom the Cherub would murmur, “God will aid you, sister!” “Pardon me, brother!” and then, changing his mind, drop a penny into a withered old hand, or a pink, childish palm.

“They'll leave the shopping to the last, because Lady Monica told us it was to be done first,” said Pilar sagely; so we wandered through the shabby aisles of Rag Fair, Pilar hoping against hope to unearth a treasure; because, did not a man once pick up, for a song, a Greco worth a fortune, and did not one always find something at least amusing in the Rag Fair of Madrid? Thence we went on to the Moorish mosque, which the Visigoths began, and so to San Juan de los Reyes, which, Pilar said, I must like better than anything else in Toledo, because she did. With an air of possession she explained the votive chains of captive Christians darkly festooning the outer walls, and I did not tell her I had heard the story long ago. She shuddered as she pointed to the crucifix which used to go with the procession of the auto-da-fÉ. “Only think how different times are now!” said she. “When Philip the Second was going to be married to his bride, not fourteen, a great show in honour of the marriage was a burning of heretics, here in the Zoco—the market-place of Toledo! I shouldn't have cared much to see a royal wedding then. I don't even like to look at that crucifix, it gives me such thoughts. But see, aren't those carved stone galleries where Ferdinand and Isabel used to hear mass, like two great chased silver goblets? I hope the king and queen never sat there watching [pg 153]the poor wretches bound before marching off to the Zoco to die; but I'm sure Isabel wouldn't: she was so sweet, she must often have wished she hadn't made that awful promise to Torquemada.”

“You're Catholic, yet you say that!” I exclaimed, as we stood looking at the gorgeous shields of Los Reyes CatÓlicos. Dick was near, listening with concealed eagerness for the girl's answer,—and no wonder, since he was Protestant, and not the man to be a turncoat, even for his love.

“Oh yes, I'm Catholic,” said she. “But,”—half whispering,—“Spaniards, even the most ardent Catholics, didn't really love the Inquisition. It was thrust on them; and—I suppose in those brutal old days it was a horrible excitement to see the burnings. It's natural to us Latins to have excitement; and after years of such dreadful ones as we had in those times, do you wonder the people clamour for bull-fights?”

“Then you don't think we Protestants deserve burning?” asked Dick, staring at the crucifix.

“How can you ask such a question?”

“But you—couldn't make a real friend of one, I suppose, or—er—let yourself care about one much?”

“I should try and convert him—or her.”

“Supposing you couldn't?”

“Then, I'd have to like him—or her—in spite of all. And he—or she—would have to leave my religion alone. But I'm tired of solemn things; and brother CristÓbal's dying to buy metal-work.”

I don't think that Dick knew whether he had been encouraged or not. And he must have remembered that the Conde de Roldan is the best and most eligible of Catholics. Poor Dick! Perhaps he was beginning to realize how much easier it is to advise another man to be sensible than to be sensible yourself.

Pilar had been right in her surmises as to the workings of Carmona's mind. When we came to the showroom of the Fabrica de Espadas, where the dusk was shot with a thousand gleams and glitters of strange weapons, there were those we had [pg 154]sought in vain till now. The Duchess, yellow with fatigue, was resting her stout person on a bench in the long, low room, Lady Vale-Avon beside her, looking tired and bored. But Carmona was at the glass-covered counter, begging Monica's advice in the selection of his purchases.

His back was towards us as we entered, and, unnoticed by him, we saw him hold up to the light a small sharp dagger, with a handle beautifully ornamented. He was indicating with his finger, for Monica's benefit, the delicate tracery upon gold, when, warned by lack of attention and wandering glances on the part of his companion, he turned in our direction. Then, hastily laying down the dagger, he pushed it away as though resenting the intrusion of our eyes.

“After all, we went to the Cave of Hercules,” said Monica, “and to the house where the Moorish nobles were supposed to be murdered; so we missed you when we got to the cathedral. SeÑorita O'Donnel, do come and help me choose presents for some girls at home, in England.”

She spoke brightly, yet wistfully, as if wondering whether she would be allowed to go back to those girls, a girl herself, and able to call England home.

Pilar crossed to her at once, and Dick and I followed. The good Cherub tactfully engaged the attention of the Duchess and Lady Vale-Avon, looking so innocent that it was more than they could do to be rude to him. And while the Duke sulked, we picked out wonderful knives and forks for our luncheon-hampers, and thin sword-sticks of leather which imitated bamboo and concealed blades so flexible that they could be rolled up like watch-springs.

“Let's all buy presents for each other, in memory of the day,” suggested Dick; and began by offering Pilar a pair of splendid hatpins. She retaliated with sleeve-links; so, emboldened by this prelude, I begged Monica to accept a brooch shaped like a shield. “Now I shall never lack protection,” said she, with gentle emphasis; and it was well for me that the Cherub was showing [pg 155]Lady Vale-Avon some marvellous sword passes. “Let me see,” the girl went on, when she had defiantly pinned the trinket into her lace cravat, under Carmona's furious frown. “What shall I give you for luck? Shall it be a dagger? Where's the one you were looking at, Duke?”

“I don't know,” he answered, so angry with me for my presumption that he could hardly speak, though not daring to show his true feelings and imperil his chances. “It seems to have disappeared. But we must really go at once. My mother is tired, and we still have several things to see before I can take you back to the hotel to rest.”

Purposely, he spoke in a loud tone, and Lady Vale-Avon heard through the Cherub's honeyed murmurs. She rose, and called Monica, who was swept away without finding the dagger.

It was dinner-time when we returned to our hotel; but Carmona's party did not appear in the dining-room. We lingered on hoping that they would come, until it was useless to hope longer, and as we drank black coffee, in the By and by Pilar's long lashes drooped, and the Cherub, catching her in the act of stifling a yawn, laughingly ordered her off to bed. “You haven't had enough sleep these last few nights to keep a “The ExcelentÍsima SeÑora Duquesa de Carmona would consider it a favour if SeÑor Waring and Teniente O'Donnel would visit her in her sitting-room,” he announced.

Were the heavens about to fall? My lifted eyebrows and Dick's [pg 156]questioned each other in bewilderment. But our lips were silent as we followed the servant.

The sitting-room of the “ExcelentÍsima SeÑora” was on the first floor, perhaps a big bedroom hastily transformed. What we expected to see as the waiter opened the door I hardly know; but we assuredly did not expect to see the Duchess sitting alone.

The table where the party had dined was covered now by a piece of gaudy, pseudo-Moorish embroidery, and adorned with flowers. A few guide-books and novels were scattered about, and in her hand the Duchess held a paper-covered volume, as if she had been reading. But the expression of the dark, heavy face contradicted her pose. We could see that she was excited.

“Forgive my not rising, as I am tired,” she said, as we came in. “It is kind of you to be so prompt, and I thank you.” Then she paused, and we waited.

“I beg you to sit down. I want the pleasure of a talk.”

We obeyed. And still waited.

“I am a little embarrassed,” went on the Duchess. “You must be patient. What I wish to say is difficult. And yet the SeÑor Teniente, being himself Spanish, will understand. We are in Spain, the land of formality and rigid etiquette, among people of our class. That an automobile with two young unmarried men in it (and even Colonel O'Donnel is a widower, not old)—that such an automobile should be closely following ours which contains a beautiful girl, is calculated to cause gossip. Everywhere we go along this route my son and I have acquaintances, friends; and already there has been talk, which flies from place to place in gossiping letters between women. I am sure you would not like to think that you had caused me this distress on account of my sweet young guest and her mother?”

Never had I been more completely taken aback. She had us at her mercy; for how is a man to fight against a woman?

“We are motoring in your direction,” I said lamely. “The chances of the road bring us together.”

“Ah! but I ask you, as a woman of my age may ask a favour [pg 157]of young men like you, seÑores, not to take those chances. If it is as you say—and of course I believe—that you happen to be motoring on our road, it would be no great hardship to delay and give us a longer start. Remember, it is for the sake of a young girl, and for an old woman's peace of mind. Will you do this kindness, then, for me?”

She had struck me dumb. I did not know how to answer her, and she knew it. Even Dick, with his quick Yankee wit, for once was unready. And indeed, the Duchess had us at a hateful disadvantage.

“We are in something of a hurry, SeÑora Duquesa,” I stammered awkwardly.

“Then, rather than cause you loss of time, we will be off very early, and go as far as may be in the day. If we leave at—let us say seven o'clock to-morrow, it would not be too inconvenient for you to wait till nine? That is all I ask; and to stay the night at Manzanares instead of trying to get on to some other stopping place. If you promise this, you are honourable men, and I know you will keep your word.”

She had her lesson well, and had evidently rehearsed it with her son, for this lymphatic, weary-eyed woman was not one to know in advance the names of halting places on an automobile tour. It was clever of Carmona to use his mother's plump hand as a cat's-paw to pull his chestnuts from the fire; but it was not brave, because he must know that we could not let it touch the flames.

I thought for a moment in silence. Only boors could in so many words refuse such a request, put with apparent frankness by a woman old enough to be their mother. Yet I must not be trapped into promising anything that could separate me from Monica.

To be near her, at her service always, was the one thing of supreme importance; but to throw aside my sheep's clothing and declare myself a wolf would be to lose her; for the instant that Carmona was sure of my identity he would denounce me. I [pg 158]would be sent across the frontier while Monica remained with him, unprotected save by her mother, who was his loyal friend. This was sure to happen, even if I did not count the trouble I might cause Colonel O'Donnel if I were arrested while posing as his son.

It seemed to me that we must agree to do what the Duchess asked, and, while keeping the letter of our promise, take means to see Monica in Seville. There, I must let her know all that had taken place, even if I could not communicate with her before. And I must implore her to come away with me lest some plot had been hatched meanwhile behind my back.

“What do you think, Waring?” I said. Then, giving him a cue, “I feel that we must consent, even though we may not see things according to the Duchess's point of view.”

“Why, of course, a man can't refuse a lady; a lady generally knows that,” Dick answered, avenging our wrongs with one sharp dig.

She thanked us effusively. “Then I may depend on you?” she asked, looking at me.

“You may depend upon us,” I said. “And pray don't trouble to leave at an inconvenient time. My friend and I promise you two hours' start.”

XXIII

The Glorification of Monica

Slowing up, we were almost upon the group; and for once we were welcome to our enemies. Even Carmona's face brightened, a flicker of hope lit Lady Vale-Avon's grey eyes; and the Duchess deliberately courted us with a smile.

As for Monica, she was radiant as a child who has been surprised by the home-coming of loved ones; yet there was a new wistfulness in her eyes, despite the joy she showed.

“Oh, how glorious that you've come to the rescue!” she cried, all dimples and roses. Still, she looked from me to Pilar, and from Pilar to me, as if she longed to ask one or the other some question which it was impossible to speak; and I said to myself that it would go hard with me if I did not find out before I was many hours older, what that question was.

Any port is welcome in a storm or among fellow-motorists, if you are helpless by the roadside with several ladies when night is coming on; and Carmona's first words showed that he had no scruple in making use of us. But with the trials he had gone through, and his natural preference for the help of any other car rather than the hated Gloria, he was in a black mood. He wished to be civil, lest we should be goaded into leaving him in the lurch; yet it was plainly such an effort that I could have laughed aloud. Pilar would have been able to quote paragraph and page of her Dream-Book.

The worst damage to the car was a broken spring, though something seemed to have gone wrong also with the ignition in [pg 175]that disastrous bump into the The ladies of the Duke's party had to be transferred to the Gloria; and Dick, with airs of ownership, urged vague and voluble reasons why I should be their companion in the tonneau. We were the masters of the situation, and Carmona's face, as he was obliged to take his seat beside the chauffeur who must steer the car in tow, repaid me for grievous wrongs.

Pilar, not to be outdone in ingenuity by Dick, did for me what I could not do for myself, in contriving that I should sit next to Monica. Though I could say nothing for her ears which other ears might not hear, it was a joy to feel her slight shoulder nestling warm against my arm, to know that she could not be snatched from me by her mother or Carmona, but that as it was now, so it must be for many moments, perhaps an hour, to come. There was also satisfaction to be got from the fact that my enemy, bumping on behind in his own disabled car (propelled by our generosity and power), was glaring with malice, envy, and all uncharitableness at my back.

My one regret in these moments which should have been perfect, was that my prophetic soul hadn't caused me to write a long letter to Monica, which I might have been able to slip into her hand under cover of rugs and darkness.

Ropes had to light the lamps before we saw more of Manzanares than an illusive church spire which kept appearing and disappearing like a will-o'-the-wisp. But the petrol held out, and [pg 176]the Gloria's breathing was regular, despite the weight she had to tow over ruts and across gutters. Once, however, Ropes looked back at me with an expressive movement of the shoulders which I interpreted as, “we're lucky if we get there!” so I could have shouted “hurrah!” at sight of the first houses, though they brought my last moment of happiness.

Another instant, and the population of Manzanares was answering to the thrum of our motor, as soldiers to the call of the drum. From somewhere, their saints alone knew where, an army of children poured into the long straight street, and as we slowed to avoid wholesale murder, they took advantage of our consideration to swarm up the car like ants. They ran shouting beside us, climbed on to the steps, hung on behind, fighting so ruthlessly for choice positions that they all but fell under the wheels. One would not have supposed there could be other children left in Spain. How there could be room for these in the town of Manzanares was a wonder; how they could all have turned out on the second in their thousands, was a miracle; and their promptness would have done credit to any commander.

The shrill cries of this legion, drowning the sound of the motor, and increasing as the contingent was swelled from each side street, roused the town. Families left their tables and rushed to the door, their supper in their hands. Bakers with white arms left to-morrow's bread in the troughs; a group of farriers shoeing a horse stopped work, until the glowing iron paled. Shopkeepers who had lighted their windows with a blaze of electricity, ran into the street. Mules and donkeys tied to doorposts shared the general excitement, plunged and reared before the advance of the human breaker with the car on its crest snapped their cords, and dashed into their master's houses.

Never, among all our successes, had we made such a He dealt blows and exhortations indiscriminately, piloted us through side streets which it would never have occurred to our imagination to enter, and with exertions worthy of him who “singly kept the bridge,” helped us make a lane for the ladies to dart into the door of the little It was an iron door of elaborate openwork, leading, Moorish fashion, through a shallow vestibule into a Assured of the ladies' safety, the men of the two (outwardly) united parties remained to help the chauffeurs and a bewildered landlord to take down luggage. Overwhelmed by a wave of halfgrown children and a thick spray of babies, Carmona's man lost his presence of mind. The two cars had hardly stopped before the little creatures were in them, and on them, and under them, trying to pinch the tyres, blowing the horn, squalling, laughing, crying. “Mon Dieu, c'est un obsession!” wailed the unfortunate Frenchman; and even the imperturbable Ropes showed signs of “nerves.”

As fast as the thronging goblins were beaten off, they were up again in redoubled force; but so merry they were, and so handsome was each bold brown face, with its dazzling eyes, that it was impossible to be angry. Somehow, we rescued the luggage, and with the aid of the landlord pitched, or slid, or rolled it through the door, momentarily opened.

“For Heaven's sake, sir, see me through this!” implored Ropes, noticing that the men of the party were on the point of following the luggage. “Hate to trouble you, but I don't think my Spanish will run to it.” In pity I climbed into the car to go with him to the stable which the landlord indicated as our garage. It was an experience to be remembered in nightmares; yet there was in it a sort of schoolboy pleasure. We seemed to have done [pg 178]battle against the whole force of the army out against us; nevertheless when we returned to the Dozens of dark faces were pressed against the bars, like tier above tier of glowing pansies in a flower-bed; and we knew at last the sensation of those who are the observed, not the observers, in a menagerie.

Everyone was in the “The ladies are saying they can't stay here,” announced Dick, his voice in sympathy with a twinkle in his eyes.

“I'm not saying so,” cut in Monica. “I think it will be fun; a real adventure. The landlady's wonderful, and all her daughters and nieces beauties. If we're nice to them, they'll be adorable to us.”

“The place is a den!” exclaimed Lady Vale-Avon. “There must be something better in the town.”

“I'm afraid there isn't,” said the Duke. “This accident has made me helpless. I'm horribly sorry; but we can't get on anywhere else to-night.”

“We can sit up,” said the Duchess, “in the automobile.”

“Do let's look at the rooms,” begged Monica. “And don't let them see we're finding fault. Their feelings will be hurt.”

“What nonsense!” replied Lady Vale-Avon. “As if they had feelings!”

[pg 179] “If you don't consider them, they won't take pains to make you comfortable,” I said, knowing by instinct the people with whom we had to deal. “They're beginning to suspect already that something's wrong, and judging from the expression of their faces it will take only a little more for the landlord to say he has no rooms. Then we really may have to sit in the automobiles.”

The keeper of the “They wouldn't dare turn us out!” exclaimed Lady Vale-Avon. “They can never have had persons of our sort before.”

“If you asked, they'd probably retort that Dukes and Marquesses were thick as blackberries,” said I.

She glanced at Carmona, hoping for support, but he shrugged his shoulders in despair; and a look from me was a signal for the Cherub to step forward.

The atmosphere had begun to tingle, and in a few moments more it might have been too late to make peace with these proud and self-respecting people, who had never submitted to indignity. But in the space of six seconds the magnetism of the Cherub had begun to do its work. He murmured, nodded, and smiled, took the family into his confidence with a few graphic gestures, explained that the ladies were upset by an accident, appealed to the landlord's chivalry, and the landlady's heart. Gathering frowns were chased away by smiles; and when Monica showed [pg 180]her dimples to the boy and girls with a look which pleaded for kindness, the battle was fought and won.

They had not many bedrooms. Several were engaged by commercial travellers, but these gentlemen should be stowed into one room, their clothing and luggage moved at once. Oh, they would not object when they learned that it was a question of accommodating ladies; or if they did, they must eat their objections for supper; it was no matter. And the landlord and landlady would give up their room, a good one, their worships need have no fear. All should be ready in the opening and closing of an eye. But would we meanwhile have supper? There was always enough for a few unexpected ones.

Having listened so far, the Cherub turned blandly to Carmona. These arrangements need not include the SeÑor Duque's party, unless he liked, of course, but—his palms were extended as if to receive the decision. Plump it fell into them. Everyone must stay, and make the best of it.

So the ladies were bundled into a room where they might get rid of the dust, and the men into another; clean rooms, with whitewashed walls, bare save for a pictured saint or two in lurid colours; floors covered with coarse, bright matting; and iron beds with lace-frilled and embroidered pillows.

In a quarter of an hour everyone was ready for dinner, but five out of fifteen minutes I had given to the hasty scribbling of a pencilled note for Monica. I hoped to slip it into her hand in the dining-room, but she was closely under guard; and Carmona annexed four seats at the head of the long table, by which manoeuvre he secured isolation for his party. It was safe from any sortie of ours, as there was a scattered contingent of commercial travellers already earnestly engaged in dining on either side of the table. Two polite men on the left, and three on the right, all with napkins tucked under their chins, rose, offering to move rather than divide friends; but Carmona assured them that the sacrifice was unnecessary. As they were all paralysed by Monica's beauty, of a type so different from any to which [pg 181]they were accustomed, they had not the self-command to protest; and as dinner went on (in many courses of which the landlord was evidently proud), they could scarcely do justice to their Such charms as Pilar's, though unsurpassable of their kind, went for nothing with these ardent gentlemen; and even the landlord's son, daughters, and nieces who waited upon their guests, forgot half their duties in abject admiration. “An angel!” “a saint!” “a princess of fairyland!” were a few of their whispered adjectives; and when the object of their worship was snatched away by her mother and the Duchess, before the goats'-milk cheese had been brought round, a gloom fell upon the room. The commercial travellers galloped through the remainder of the meal, and went out, hoping perhaps, if they promenaded the street, to have the joy of seeing a light in the radiant being's window. The pretty girls of the household vanished with murmured excuses, leaving us at the mercy of the boy, who sighed grievously, dropped a sugar bowl, and spilled coffee within an ace of the Cherub's shoulder.

Pilar presently disappeared also, leaving her three men alone at the table, observed only by a few dozen eager faces pressed against the iron bars protecting the open window.

Soon we heard peals of laughter from the [pg 182] It was not a beautiful From the rooms above we heard laughter and ecstatic cries. Evidently the warming-pan was making a sensation as it went its round, or something else had happened; and when at last the girls trooped downstairs from the balcony, I beckoned them to come our way. They skipped to us, wild with delight at the prospect of pouring out their hearts to an appreciative audience.

The great warming-pan, stuffed with embers that glowed and paled, was laid on the tiled pavement while the girls wove themselves into a group, with interlacing arms.

“Why are you so happy?” I asked

“Happy? We have been in paradise, with the angels,” replied the prettiest girl with crimson roses stuck in a bank of copper hair.

“There was but one angel,” objected her brunette cousin.

“That is true. The two old ones think themselves everything, but they are less than nothing. I would not change my years for theirs, with their jewels and their quarterings. Thanks be to God, in our Spain, we are all as noble as the nobles, or at least in this province!”

“You are also all beautiful!” said I.

“That you can say so, seÑor, after seeing that wonder!” exclaimed the landlord's eldest daughter, a creature of carnation and flame. “Ah, the joy of it, we have been undressing her!”

“If you could have seen her, with gold hair down to her knees!” gasped a gypsy of fifteen. “And when we had got her dress off, and she was in her—”

“Hush, Micaela! it is not seemly that you should mention such garments in the presence of

[pg 183] “But why, then, since they are most beautiful? You know well, Mariquita, you yourself said they were like the handwork of fairies, and her shoulders—”

“Be silent, foolish one, or I shall have to burn your nose off with the warming-pan!”

“And what did the elder ladies say to the young lady's new maids?” I asked quickly, as great eyes began to flash, and scarlet lips to pout.

Back came the smiles, and the maidens fell into a fit of schoolgirl giggling.

“There was but one Majesty there, praise be to the saints, the English one, who is no doubt the mother of our lady angel. They have two rooms between them, but that of the seÑorita is tiny, with no door of its own, and only a square glazed hole for a window, though the bed is as good as any, and we have given it the best linen. When we took in the warming-pan, our angel tried to say in Spanish that she was sure our beds were dry and well aired, as indeed they were. She had taken off her bodice, and was undoing her hair, which was so beautiful we could have fallen down and prayed to her as a saint. Then we could not resist, but began helping her to undress, talking about her beauty. She was not offended, though we kissed her hands, and that silly Micaela one of her tiny white feet when we had pulled off the stocking—”

“Now you are as bad as I was, Mariquita.”

“No, indeed; what is a stocking? A thing it is as well to go without as to wear. That is different. The angel laughed till she was close to tears, and said we were far nicer maids than the one her mother had sent on by railway train in starting by automobile. After this, she would be spoiled for others; and she gave us each one a present. Lola, two wondrous hatpins with blue stones in silver—not that she would ever suffer the tortures of a hat, but it is a great thing to have them. Teresa, a sweet round purse [pg 184]of blue leather, of the size to hold a five peseta piece; Micaela, a handkerchief with lace on the edge, and me an embroidered veil like a gossamer. What did we care that Her Majesty the mother would have sent us away if she could? She had not enough Spanish to make us understand what we did not wish to understand, and at last she saved her breath for another day. But by that time we had finished, for we had put our angel into her night-dress, a thing of cobwebs and lace kept together by blue ribbons, which I should have thought good enough for a queen to wear when mounting her throne.”

“You must show us your presents,” said I, with deliberate cunning. All were displayed on the instant, with chattering, laughing, and clamourous claims for rival merits. But the veil was the thing which I looked on to covet. She had worn it one day after rain, when the roads had been clear of dust, and her face had gleamed through the lace as a star gleams through a floating cloud-film. I felt that I could not see it in other hands than mine.

While the Cherub compared the gifts with eloquence, I drew Mariquita apart. “I want that veil very much,” said I; “so much that I'll give you a hundred pesetas if you'll part with it.”

She opened her tobacco-brown eyes. “But the seÑor is only a man, and cannot know that the bit of embroidered net is worth no more, in money, than fifteen pesetas at most.”

“It wasn't its money-worth I was thinking about.”

“A—ah, I see! The seÑorito—yes, of course, it would be strange if he did not! I love my new veil, not only because it is pretty, but more because it came to me from the most beautiful seÑorita I have ever seen. Still, since the seÑorito will value it even more than I can, I will give it to him, though not for the hundred pesetas. I will give it for nothing except his thanks.”

I told the girl she was too good; that I could not rob her of the gift just made; but she insisted, and I saw that her pride would be hurt if I refused. So I accepted, while a way of benefitting myself and rewarding her occurred to my mind.

[pg 185] “You see how it is with me.” I said, with a confidential air. “You have been very generous. Will you be helpful too?”

“You may trust me,” she answered. “I love a love affair, especially if there is difficulty. I shall have an acknowledged I nodded.

“She will shrug the shoulders by and by.”

“I doubt it. But meanwhile, I've written a letter. Will you try to give it to the young lady?”

“Yes,” said Mariquita. “I will try my best. I think I can do it. Not to-night, for she has gone to bed, and there would be no excuse to get back to her room, since I must pass through Her Majesty's. But to-morrow morning I will take the ladies' hot water, with oh, such an innocent face! And I will take the letter too.”

“Thank you many times,” said I.

“The thing isn't done yet.”

“It's for your goodwill I thank you in advance. And this is for your bull-fighter, as a present from his I took out my scarf-pin. Her face flushed with pleasure, as it would have flushed for no sum of money. She might have waived away a present for herself, but she could not resist one for the If she went to bed happy, so did I, for I believed that Monica would have my letter in the morning; and if the wistfulness in her eyes meant some new trouble in which I had a part, I hoped that the words I had written might banish it.

XXV

What Cordoba Lacked

Through a flowery field of cloth-of-gold we came, while the afternoon was young, into Cordoba—“Kartuba the Important,” lying like a grave entombing its dead glory, prone at the foot of tombstone mountains.

After the dazzle of wild-flowers shining in the sun, and the ozone of country breezes, a sudden entrance into the network of narrow streets was like being thrown, without a clue, into the Minotaur's dark labyrinth.

I had thought that no town could have narrower streets than Toledo; but the streets of Cordoba were mere slits between house-walls. As we scraped through on the car, Dick likened the town to a huge white cake divided into slices by a sharp knife, but left in shape with only one or two pieces pulled out to loosen the mass.

Still, the stone-paved slits contrived to make pictures; with here and there a pair of splendid Moorish doors, a row of ancient eastern-patterned windows, or a fairy glimpse of a sunlit “She's sure to be here,” I said to myself, as we stopped at last before the principal hotel. “Since the journey's supposed to be a pleasure trip, Carmona's bound to give his guests time to see the sights of Cordoba.”

But nothing was known of the Duke and his party at the hotel, although there was a rumour that an automobile had passed through the town in the morning.

[pg 202] The Cherub, consulted, was of opinion that if Carmona's car had come, it must have remained.

“There'd be nowhere for them to stop afterwards short of Seville,” he said, “unless Carmona, and that's near Seville. They must be lurking in Cordoba—perhaps at the MarquÉs de Villa-blanca's, who's a friend of the Duke's. We shall come across our lovely little lady presently, if we get about in the town; in the “Besides, I thought you'd made up your mind not to worry till we got to Seville,” said Dick.

“So I had,” I answered. “But I have a feeling as if something had gone wrong.”

“Any reason for the feeling—except the feeling itself?” asked Dick.

I shook my head, not caring to mention the letter that might have gone astray. “Nothing I can define.”

“Then I guess it's all right, and you're developing nerves.”

“I know just how he feels,” said Pilar, with a reproachful look at Dick, with whom she was at odds since the episode of the bull. “There was an expression in Lady Monica's eyes, wasn't there, at Manzanares, as if she were sad? Oh, I saw it; and they wouldn't let me get within whispering distance of her afterwards, or I should have found out what it meant. I had the idea that they were particularly anxious to keep me away, and I wondered if there were any new reason. I'm not surprised that Don RamÓn is worried. One can see that SeÑor Waring's never been in love!”

“Oh, haven't I?” exclaimed Dick; which, of course made matters worse; and to mend them, he went on blundering. "What do you know about the symptoms?"

“Girls are born knowing things it takes men years to learn,” said Pilar.

It did not allay my anxiety that she should have noticed what I had noticed. But I clung to the Cherub's assurance, hoping, [pg 203]when we had set out on our explorations, to meet her, to see her face light up with the radiance I knew.

But there were no strangers save ourselves, and a few wandering Americans under the palms and orange trees of the We wandered—Pilar keeping at my side, and leaving Dick to her father—from gate to gate outside the Mosque-Cathedral which once made Cordoba the Mecca of Europe; gazing up at the tremendous mass of honey-coloured masonry rising like a vast fortress from its buttresses of stone; lingering under the bell-tower of the She was not there; nor could we find her in the marble forest of the pillared cathedral, though, while Dick and Pilar made up their differences over the jewelled mosaics, I searched for her.

“I tell you, RamÓn, there's some satisfaction in feeling that you're looking at the best things the world's got to show,” said Dick, almost in my ear, “and there are lots of them in your country, especially in Cordoba, though I suppose the Moors would weep to see it now. But you don't seem to be enjoying them, in spite of risking such a lot to come where they are.”

I didn't remind him that the risk I ran was for the one best thing in all the world, which was only temporarily in my country, and that my depression came because it was not at the moment visible. But Pilar did not need reminding, and in the way of sweet women, tried to “keep my mind occupied” by talking history and legend, confusing them deliciously, and defending her stories of beautiful Egilona and fair Florinda by saying that, anyhow, nobody cared whether they were true or not. Besides, what was history, since dull people were continually discovering that none of the best bits had ever happened?

“I choose to believe in Florinda,” she cried, “and all the other [pg 204]beautiful women who influenced kings, and made wars, and upset countries. Without them and their love-stories, history would be like faded tapestry without gold threads.”

So Dick ceased to argue, and in silence we left the gem-like perfection of the third Mihrab, to wander once more through the wilderness of gleaming columns that were now like over-arching trees, now like falling fountains.

No dusky vista out of those many changing ones framed the figure I longed to see; and when we had left the cathedral and climbed to the gardens and towers where stood once the When we had seen everything, I left my friends in the hall of the hotel choosing curios from glass cases, and went out again in search of news concerning the automobile which had passed in the morning.

Presumably it had attracted a crowd, yet no one seemed to know anything of it until at last, just as I was giving up hope, I met an old man who had seen a large grey motor-car at the railway station. A few minutes later, I had solved the mystery of the Lecomte's disappearance. It had arrived early; its passengers had been conducted round Cordoba in the smallest possible time by Carmona; it had then been driven to the station; and with its late occupants had gone to Seville by the same train.

There might have been several motives for this move. The car might have been partially disabled, not having been properly prepared at Manzanares; or Carmona might have determined to thwart the destiny which so far had kept me near him. I was [pg 205]inclined to accept the latter theory, and it did not tend to promote my peace of mind.

I was glad to hear, however, that the train was not due at Seville until late that evening. If we made an early start next day, it was not likely that the situation could be much changed before I arrived, free of obligations to the Duchess.

Of course, said Pilar, before I had time to ask, they would be ready to start early, oh, very early. It would be beautiful to be in the country before the sun had drunk up the dew on the grass, and withered the roses of dawn in the clouds. There was no fear of cold now that we were in dear AndalucÍa. Yes! we would have coffee at six, and leave at half-past.

I should not have dared suggest such a trial of moral courage, but I accepted the sacrifice; so the roses of morning which Pilar loved still bloomed in the garden of the sky, and trailed their reflection in the Guadalquivir, as we rolled over the old bridge and past the white, Moorish hills.

A morning in Paradise could scarcely be more beautiful; and the pinky-purple blossoms of the Dignified country houses no longer raised brown-tiled roofs from among groves of olives; but an illimitable sea of waving downs lay bathed in the amber light of Spain. Then, olive woods again, with a foam, of field-flowers spraying their gnarled feet, hedges of sweetbrier, tangled with tall, wild lilacs, and blossoming thorn. Beyond, high hills up which the Gloria stormed boldly, frightening the horses of a troop of laughing soldiers who rode without saddles; over stony roads, mere rough tracks drawn through meadows, where bulls grazed, and bellowed at the automobile; thus to a village which first showed itself like a white crown on a hilltop, and proved to be inhabited by women and children of surpassing beauty. Never were such eyes as those which looked from the faces in the quick-gathering crowd; eyes like black wells with fallen stars in their depths.

[pg 206] Peasant houses by the wayside had thatched roofs, grey and glistening as silver plush; and outside ovens like huge cups turned upside down. The fields were gay with flowers; the distance floated in waves of azure gauze which touched the sky.

On we swept, as though to find the joining place, but found only Ecija, the Town of the Seven Brigands, with its grand bridge and pearl-white Moorish mills, in the yellow, swift-running Genil.

Kings had been lodged behind those brass-nailed doors and wrought-iron balconies, the Cherub said; and malefactors famed in history and ballad had swung from that tall gallows which caught the eye before Ecija's eight church towers. There had been famous fighting, too, by the river bank; but now the place slept, dreaming of peace, and the whirr of the mill-wheels sounded as comforting as the “chum-chum” of a motor that runs by night.

So we flashed out of the Province of Cordoba into the Province of Seville, and tall, slender palms, rearing feathered heads among walnut trees and oaks, were signposts pointing south. It was early in April, but the air was the air of an English June, and I wondered to see men muffled in long Beyond the olives, black clumps of umbrella pines flung ink-blots against the sky, and a purple carpet of budding heather was torn apart to let the road pass through. It was ideal motor-country, and Dick recalled with sneers the sixty horse-power man in Biarritz, who had feared the experiment.

“The way is to do what you want to do, and find out as you go along whether it can be done or not,” he soliloquized.

I wondered if he were thinking of another difficult road, not to [pg 207]be travelled by motors—a road where perhaps Don Cipriano already knew the way.

Larks sprang skyward from beds of wild flowers as we fled by, little fountains of music; tall cranes flew out of screening bushes beside bright streams; and blurring the distance before us, a mist of rain floated like a veil blown across the face of Spring.

In sight of Carmona's splendid walls and ruined castle, the rain caught us; and for Pilar's sake we made the car cosey by fastening down the front glass and filling in the space with drawn canvas curtains.

After this, our fleeting glimpses of pine and palm and olive were dimmed as we bowled along a sandy road, yellow as beaten gold. Now and again a patch of purple blossom burning through the mist sang a loud, exultant note of spring and love; and pretty orange-pickers, in men's jackets and brown trousers, warbled of the same theme in that soft Andaluza which is beyond all other languages of passion.

The colour, and the music, and the day went to my head. I knew that I was young, and I wanted my chance of happiness—wanted it so much that I felt I could kill a man who dared try to snatch it from me.

XXVII

Moonlight in the Garden

When the Cherub dies and is gathered to his Irish and Spanish fathers (far distant be the day!) he will not know a happy moment in Paradise unless he is doing something ingenuously kind for somebody. It is my conviction that he will have to be made a guardian angel; and I mentioned this theory to him as he took me to the house of Ramiro Olivero, ex-bull-fighter, present professor of Spanish dancing.

The others were waiting in the car, as, according to the Cherub's plan of campaign, he and I were to visit Olivero alone.

We climbed many stairs to the flat where the celebrated man lives and conducts his school for dancing. He it was who came to the door, and it was a sight worth seeing to watch his somewhat hard, middle-aged features relax in response to cherubic murmurings.

Colonel O'Donnel remembered SeÑor Olivero since the time when he was a This gentleman whom he (Colonel O'Donnel) now ventured to introduce was from England, travelling with a friend from the States who wrote articles on Spain for well-known journals. The American could speak no Spanish, but with the gentleman [pg 219]from England it was like the native tongue. Therefore it was he who most often attended important ceremonies, and made notes for his friend to work up into articles. This entertainment in which SeÑor Olivero was assisting the Duke of Carmona, for instance; it would be all that was characteristic of Spain, as well as beautiful. If the seÑor would allow the gentleman from England to enter the If every man has his price, it was not derogatory to his merits that these pearls of flattery should be the price which bought Olivero. Not a penny was to be paid for the favour. When the word “money” was hinted, rather than spoken, the ex-hero of the bull-ring waved it away with a superb gesture. But he would be glad to see the articles when they appeared; and this was promised, for Dick must write them for the neglected papers he was supposed to represent.

In return for the promise (and the compliments), it was arranged that I should present myself at his house about ten o'clock (the dance was timed to begin at 10.45), there dress for my part, and be furnished with a guitar. Once inside the By the time the plan was mapped out, it was nearly seven o'clock, but the O'Donnels still urged me to dine at the Cortijo de Santa Rufina. The Gloria would eat up the six miles distance in ten minutes; I could bathe and dress before 8.15, when dinner [pg 220]would be ready (a telegram had been sent to the servants from Cordoba), and rested and refreshed, I could start for Seville in the car again at half-past nine.

So we flashed out across the Guadalquivir, by way of the bridge of Isabel Segunda, into that strange suburb which gave Trajan birth, and my family their name; ancient Trajana, now Triana, town of potters, picadores, and gypsies.

Dark-browed boys played Almost could I have seen the towers of the old house—now the property of the King—as we passed into open country again; but I did not speak, nor did the others, though the thought in my mind must have been in Pilar's and Colonel O'Donnel's.

Five miles more, through falling dusk and sweet country scents and we turned off the main road into another, gleaming white as a path of snow in the opal twilight. Then, in a wide-reaching plantation of olives, spraying silver on a ruddy soil where glimmered irrigation tanks and grinding mills, we came upon a large, irregular clump of white buildings grouped together, and made one by a high wall with an open belfry at one corner.

“Here we are at home!” exclaimed the Cherub with a contented sigh, as he gently touched Ropes' shoulder. “Welcome, dear friends, to the Cortijo de Santa Rufina. It, and all within its walls, is at your disposition.”

We drove in through a wide gate in the outer wall, where there was a clamour of greeting from the steward, many servants, and more dogs, dogs of all races, who selected Pilar for their wildest demonstrations. In a second she was out of the car, and half drowned in a wave of tumultuous doghood. Laughing, shaking hands with the servants, patting or suppressing greyhounds, collies, setters, retrievers, she had never seemed so charming. [pg 221]This was the real Pilar—Pilar at home; the Pilar it would be next to impossible to uproot from such associations. Again, poor Dick! And now he no longer tried to hide the loving admiration in his eyes. I think he would even have done his best to fondle a wild bull or two of her acquaintance had they been among the friends who gave her welcome.

Away boomed the Gloria to the stables—the sole garage at the Cortijo—while we were bidden through the Moorish entrance-porch and wrought-iron The windows leading into the rooms surrounding the “This is only a farm, you know,” said the girl, meekly, all the while dimpling with pride in her home and what she had made it; “for we are only farmers, aren't we, Papa.”

Our rooms—Dick's and mine—were not overstocked with furniture; but there were two or three things for which an antiquary would have pawned his soul. On one side, our windows looked upon the The two servants who waited at dinner were wreathed in smiles at seeing again their master and mistress; and their occasional furtive glances of interest in my direction made me wonder if they had not received mysterious instructions as to how they must answer any questions concerning me. But, whatever those instructions might be, I was sure they would be loyally carried out; for the Cherub is a man servants would obey through torture until death, if these days were as the old.

At half-past nine Ropes was ready to spin me back into Seville. We arrived earlier than need be; and having made an appointment to meet at a quiet hotel, where Ropes would await me from half-past eleven till half-past twelve, I decided to walk past Carmona's house and reconnoitre.

I knew where to find it, in the Calle de las DueÑas; but if I had hoped for a tell-tale glimpse within, as in a London or Parisian mansion, I was disappointed. Once a Moorish palace, it showed a closed, secretive front to the narrow street. But I knew, for I had read, that within there were six courtyards, ninety marble pillars, half a dozen fountains, a garden of orange and magnolia trees, with myrtle hedges clipped to represent the ducal arms; that there were vast treasures of statuary, pictures by Velasquez, Murillo, and Alonso Cano; gold-inlaid plate armour; tapestry from the Netherlands not to be surpassed at the Royal Palace at Madrid.

I knew that these splendours would loom large in the eyes of Lady Vale-Avon, and might count for something even with Monica, who confessed to a love of all things beautiful. I thought of the famous Carmona jewels, which would belong to the wife of the Duke, while she lived, as they had belonged to generations of Duchesses. Above all, I thought of the incomparable Blanca Laguna pearl and its glistening maids of honour, which, by this [pg 223]time perhaps, had been shown to Monica. There were few girls in Spain, or in the world, I remembered hearing my mother say, who could resist that pearl as a bride. And now it was offered to Monica, a penniless girl of eighteen, whose beauty formed her sole dowry.

There, behind the cold reserve of those white walls with the shut, brass-studded doors and barred windows, she was being fÊted by the Duke, dining on gold plate, in a tapestried room fragrant with orange flowers. I could see the pictures. I could see the look in Carmona's eyes as they turned to her, saying, “all this is yours if you will have it.” And Carmona's eyes were handsome eyes; I had to admit that, in justice.

Would she hold true to me—true to a man with no palaces, no lands, no priceless pearls, and only half as many hundreds a year as her other lover had thousands? Would she be able to resist her mother, now that mother had seen with her own eyes how much there was to fight for and to win?

The question would come. But with it came a vision of Monica herself, pure and sweet as beautiful, loyal and loving as she was lovely. And I said to myself, “Yes, she will be true.”

It was with the clear ringing of these words in my mind that I turned my back upon the house of Carmona.

Once I had passed into the It was early still, but Olivero lost no time in marshalling his little army into place, that they might make a good effect as a The minutes passed. The dancers talked in subdued tones which scarcely disturbed the nightingales. A breeze rustled the crisp leaves of the orange trees and myrtle hedges; far away the voice of the watchman told the hour of eleven, echoed by the chiming bells of a church clock; and the last stroke had not sounded when there was a burst of merry voices in a distant avenue. Carmona and his friends had come—late, of course—or there could have been no AndalucÍans among them; and suddenly, as if on a signal, the gardens pulsed with rose-coloured light. In the pink blaze I saw Monica, slender and fair as a lily, in a white dress sparkling with silver; but I had only time to see that she walked beside Carmona, when the rose flame died down and left the garden pure and peaceful under the moon.

For an instant the soft light seemed darkness, and I lost the white figure. When it sprang to my eyes again in a sharp emerald flash, while all the hidden fountains in the garden walks spouted jewels, others were grouped round it; only the gold crown of rippling hair shone out clear as a star for me among other women's dark coils and braids.

Old ebony chairs with crimson velvet cushions and the Carmona arms in heavy gilding, had been sent to the In the midst of a The high backs of the ebony chairs were turned to me. I could not even see the heads of the people who sat in them; but I had watched them take their places, and I knew that Monica's chair was the outside one on the end, at the right.

Everyone was absorbed in watching the dance. As it approached its tempestuous climax of joy and love, I moved into the deep shadow of a magnolia tree, close to Monica—so close that, reaching out from behind the round trunk which screened me, I touched her hand.

With a start, she glanced up, expecting perhaps to find that the breeze had blown a rose-branch across her fingers. Instead, she saw my face; for I had taken off the wide-brimmed grey sombrero and bared my head to her.

For a second she looked straight into my eyes, as if she doubted that she saw aright. Then, an unbelievable thing happened. Her eyes grew cold as glass. Her lips tightened into a line which I had not dreamed their soft curves could take. Her youth and beauty froze under my gaze. With a haughty lifting of her brows, and an indescribable movement of her shoulder which could mean nothing but scornful indifference, she turned away as if impatient at having lost a gesture of the dancers.

Astounded, I stepped back; and so vast was the chasm of my amazement that I floundered in it bewildered, unable even to suffer.

Then came a pang of such pain and anger as I had never known—anger not against the girl, but against Carmona; and the knife which pierced me was dipped in the poison of jealously. My impulse was to leap out from the shadow and strangle him. My hands tingled for his neck, and through the drumming of the blood in my ears I could hear the crack his spine would make [pg 226]as I twisted it. For that instant I was a madman. Then, something that was myself conquered.

Horror of the savage thing just born in me overflowed in an icy flood that swept it, drowning, out of my soul. But never again, so long as I may live, shall I condemn a man who kills another in one blind moment of rage.

Even when the red glaze was gone from before my eyes, I could not trust myself to stand there, looking at Carmona as he smiled and patronized the dancers by clapping his hands. I turned away, not stopping until I had regained the kiosk.

There I sat down, elbows on knees, head in my hands, trying to analyse that look on Monica's face, trying to tell myself that I must have mis-read it—that such an expression as I imagined could not have been there for me.

Perhaps, as I suddenly appeared behind a veil of flickering moonlight and shadow she had not known who I was. She had mistaken me for some impertinent stranger, and rather than give an alarm, she had hoped that a frown might rid her of the intruder. Then, I had gone without giving her a second chance to recognize me.

After a few minutes of such reflections, I almost persuaded myself that I had been a fool and was wholly to blame for what I suffered. At least, I said, I owed it to her to make sure that the look had been for me, and the suspense must end to-night. I would know, even if I made her answer me under the eyes of Carmona and the others.

But a moment later I saw that I need not be driven to such extremes.

The first part of the dance was over; the Duke and his guests were walking through the gardens in the interval. They were coming my way—coming to the kiosk. As they advanced, I retreated into shadow. I let the group linger at the kiosk, admiring the beautiful [pg 227] “Monica,” I said, “what has happened? You—”

The girl flung up her head, and though there was a glitter of tears in her eyes and her face was white under the moon, she stared defiance. “Don't speak to me,” she said. “I never wish to see you again. I'm going to marry the Duke of Carmona.”

XXIX

The Garden of Flaming Lilies

The voice of some maid servant singing a Yes, always a little bitter, I said to myself. But if for me there were after all to be some sweetness left?

Last night before parting, the Cherub, Dick and I had talked matters over from every point of view. I was only too thankful to take the advice of one girl on behalf of another, and give to Monica the benefit of that doubt which at first had not seemed admissible. But even Pilar confessed that Monica's engagement to Carmona made our part a hundred times more difficult.

Whatever her motive had been—revenge upon me for supposed disloyalty, dread of her mother, or awakened ambition--she had in any case consented to marry him, and Pilar suggested that the dinner invitations had been sent out as an excuse for a public announcement, which would more firmly bind her to her promise. The news would have flown all over Seville in [pg 233]twenty-four hours; when the King arrived on Tuesday Carmona would certainly lose no time in telling him; Lady Vale-Avon would not wait for Monica to write to the Princess, but would probably wire; and no matter what my private anxieties might be, for Monica's sake I must do nothing openly. As for defying Carmona to use his knowledge of my true name, and challenging him to fight, that must not be thought of. Monica's fair fame would never survive such a scandal, especially in Spain, where a girl's reputation is as easily damaged as the down on a butterfly's wing.

But, as the Cherub said, there are many roads which lead to the centre of the world. He had learned at his club that the Duke had lent his box in the tribune to a friend, for such processions as he and his household did not care to see. That friend was a member of the club, and through him the Cherub had found out that the box in question was next to the royal box which would be occupied by the King, the Infanta DoÑa MarÍa Teresa, and her husband. Immediately upon making this discovery, the Cherub had begun to move heaven and earth to obtain a box for himself, either behind, in front of, or on one side of Carmona's box. He did not know yet if he should succeed, for things were not done in a moment in Spain. Of course all the boxes were already subscribed for the whole week by members of the aristocracy and other persons of importance in Seville; but, then, the Cherub had friends and acquaintances in every class. If it were a question of money, money would not be spared; if it were a question of a favour for a favour in return, that favour would be given. There was hope that the thing might be arranged; and once Pilar came within speaking distance of Monica, nothing short of sudden death could prevent her from telling the girl the truth, vowing by all the saints that she had been deceived for the one purpose of separating her from me. If Monica could be made to believe that, she would have courage to be true in spite of all; and then it would be for me to save her from keeping the engagement into which she had been tricked.

[pg 234] As for my going to Carmona's house and trying to see Monica, such a plan appeared useless, as I should certainly not be allowed to come near her. Therefore I must wait with such patience as I could, and let my friends help me in the subtle ways favoured in Spain.

Now, Palm Sunday had dawned crystal clear; but Pilar had explained that nobody occupied the boxes and chairs to see the procession of palms in the morning; that, though it was pretty to see, it was not one of the great sights; and, as one must be waiting early outside the cathedral, it was unlikely that anyone from Carmona's house would be there. Still there was the chance, and I could not afford to miss it; so the O'Donnels offered to go with me into Seville, Dick, of course, being of the party.

Consequently, every one at the Cortijo was astir by six; and before seven Dick and I were in the She was dressed as a Spanish woman of the upper class should be dressed on Palm Sunday; and though the tight-fitting, rich black brocade silk which she wore would, in any other country, have seemed a costume not for young girlhood but for middle age, it suited her wonderfully. Her clear-skinned, heart-shaped face, with its great soft eyes and red lips, was beautiful in the cloudy frame of black lace; and her piled hair, of so dark a brown as to appear black, except when the sunlight burnished threads of gold in its masses, looked ruddy as the leaves of a copper-beech gleaming through the figured lace.

“By Jove!” exclaimed Dick, jumping to his feet when he saw her. No more than that; but Pilar was woman enough to understand the value of the compliment; and she smiled, patting the flounce of her mantilla into still more graceful folds on her breast.

“You think me nice like this?” she asked. “I'm proud of my mantilla, you know. It came to me from my great-grandmother, as all the best ones do come to Spanish girls; and I've two lovely white mantillas which I wear on great feast days when I want to be very beautiful.”

[pg 235] “At bull-fights?” asked Dick, his eyes adoring her in a way he would have laughed at in any other man only a few weeks ago.

“I don't go to bull-fights,” said Pilar. “I love the poor bulls and horses so much, it would make me sad to see them die. Though, if I were a bull, I would myself choose a brave death in the arena, after a life of five glorious years, rather than the slaughter-house, or a weary existence of labour till old age or overstrain finished me. But I drive in the Did she mean that there was any understanding with Don Cipriano?

I knew this was the thought which flashed through Dick's mind. And if Pilar had been desirable in motoring days, she was irresistible at home.

Before eight o'clock the Gloria was at the gates, and twenty minutes later we were on foot in the street of the Gran CapitÁn, mingling with the crowd who waited for the first procession of No more was needed to make me anxious to go in; and we entered the cathedral, which is, to my mind, the most beautiful, inspiring, and poetic in the world.

The two O'Donnels flitted away in the dusk, mysterious as the twilight of the gods, and we guessed that they were going to [pg 236]hear mass. Soon they found us again. They had not seen those for whom we searched; but the procession was starting.

We made haste out before it, and none too soon, for it billowed forth after us in a glitter of gold and purple vestments, and tall, bleached palm-branches like beams of moonlight streaming against the blue of the morning sky.

“They're not here,” said Pilar, when the last gleaming crucifix and waving palm, blessed by the bishop, had disappeared. “I was sure they wouldn't come. And—it does seem hard to disappoint you—but I'm afraid they won't be in their box this afternoon. Oh, we shall go, of course! But that will be the time for the Duke to lend the Conde de Ambulato his box. Thursday will be the great day, when the King will be in the royal box, and will walk with his This was discouraging; still, I determined to be in the crowd during the afternoon; and I knew well that, though the splendid show of Dick shamefacedly bought from one of many vendors an armful of blessed palms for Pilar to tie under the house windows, as a protection against the rage of thunder-storms throughout the coming year; and we drove to the country with the great glistening fronds blowing behind the motor-car like giant plumes.

I spent hours writing, tearing up, and rewriting a letter to Monica which Pilar was to try and deliver if she could, and when she could. We lunched and did our best to make careless conversation, as if we were not anxious and excited—Dick and I for our own selfish reasons; the two others in sympathy. We talked of Seville, past and present—once “Sultana of the [pg 237]South,” still beautiful and gay, though her reign is over. “We are very happy even now, among ourselves, we Sevillanos,” said the Cherub. “You should see a “Oh, I know what they say!” laughed Pilar. “I heard an American girl give a friend of hers a description of families she knew in Seville. ‘You go to call,’ said she; ‘and if the ladies are at home (they won't be if they can help it), you're shown into a shut-up drawing-room smelling of mustiness. In front of the fireplace, if there is any, or else the brazier-table, a hard yellow or red satin sofa is drawn up, an armchair on each side. All the rest of the furniture's ranged in a straight row round the wall. It's in the afternoon, but you wait till the ladies dress, because if they're in they're sure to be in wrappers, unless it's so late that their carriage is ready for the All this, to amuse us; but unfortunately it was far from amusing to Dick. He sat looking introspective, and wondering no doubt, if Pilar meant to hint that, so far as the door of her heart was concerned, foreigners might save themselves the trouble of knocking.

Seeing him taciturn, as hostess she felt it her duty to console him, so when luncheon was over an invitation to go and visit Vivillo, the beloved bull, was delivered to all, with an especially beguiling look at Dick. He accepted with suspicious alacrity, [pg 238]and to please her I said yes; while the Cherub, who was evidently longing for a siesta, shrugged his shoulders dutifully. It seemed that we could see the pasture which was Vivillo's drawing-room without trespassing upon Carmona's land, on which I should have been loth to set my foot, even for Pilar; but when, after twenty minutes' walk across meadows, we arrived at the hedge which divided the Duke's Pilar cried gaily to a herdsman visible in the distance, and joyously obedient to the girl's evidently familiar voice, the young fellow came running towards us, Yes, there he was—the “lively one,” well named indeed!—grazing for the moment off there to the south-east. Could not the seÑorita see his brown back among the grey and black ones, farthest away? But she had only to call. Vivillo knew her voice and would answer to it as to no other. It was really a marvel. And was it true that she had begun negotiating for his purchase? Ah, it was a pity that such a “Then be sure you don't let the Duke have a hint!” laughed Pilar, happy and fearless as a boy, as she squeezed through the hedge and tripped across the plank, followed by Dick.

“She is perfectly safe,” said the Cherub, in answer to an uneasy look from me. “She's as well known over there almost as the herdsmen who tend the bulls from their birth; besides, she has some curious influence over animals. I have never seen anything like it in another human being, though I have read of such things. Since she was a child, I have no longer had any fear for her over there; and SeÑor Waring is safe also, while he keeps with her and Mateo, unless he were foolish enough to make some demonstration. But for me, I am no friend of Dick and Pilar were in Carmona's pasture now, moving towards a troop of grazing bulls, magnificent creatures whose terrible horns and silken hides (branded with double circles under a crown) glittered in the sun. Scarcely a head was tossed in honour of the new-comers; but as Pilar raised her girlish voice to give a peculiar call, I saw a dark form in the distance separate itself from a group. Then a brown, lean-flanked bull, nobly armed with horns grand as the antlers of a stag, bounded away from his companions, and rushed in so straight a line towards Pilar, that in spite of the Cherub's words, my heart was wrenched.

But I need not have feared. While the young herdsman and Dick stood by passive and admiring, this The girl, opening a large knotted handkerchief which she had [pg 240]brought filled with sweet biscuit, took a step or two forward to meet the bull. Nestling against his huge head, powerful enough to bear up a horse and rider impaled upon his horns, she calmly fed the great beast from her store. Never could there have been a more beautiful picture since the day when another bull submitted to the caresses of Europa.

Vivillo scarcely deigned to look at Dick, who made some bids for his favour. All his chivalrous soul of For ten minutes she stayed, Dick close at her side, always ignored by the bull; then she returned and walked towards us, slowly, the herdsman keeping near and Vivillo marching after in a resolute way which would have turned grey the hair of a nervous man or woman.

But if Dick were conscious of his nerves in such an unusual situation, he did not show it. His head was bent over Pilar's, talking earnestly, and though she never looked up at him in answer, once she broke out laughing, so merrily, I wondered what he had said.

In our own meadow again, safely delivered from the bulls, Pilar slipped instantly to her father's side and began chattering about Vivillo, who stood by the ditch looking wistfully after her as he chewed his last biscuit. Dick and I were thus thrown together; and though Dick's face is no tell-tale, I guessed somehow that his mind was not as calm as his features.

“I should think that might have been a little upsetting to an amateur,” I said.

“Maybe,” answered Dick, absent-mindedly. “But it isn't that, if I'm looking queer. Say RamÓn, I've done it.”

“What?”

“Proposed to a girl for the first time in my life. What's more, I grovelled. I called Vivillo a lamb, though at the moment he was looking more like several dozen lions. I told her if she'd [pg 241]marry me, she could have him and any other bulls sitting about on our hearthrug; that we'd have a nice big one on purpose.”

“That ought to be an inducement—even from a heretic.”

“Oh, confound you, don't harp on that. I'm mad about the girl. I know all you're suffering, and if I ever put on superior airs, I take them back and swallow them.”

Even a man heartbroken would have had to grin; and Pilar had persuaded me not to be heartbroken yet. If I laughed, I sympathized too, and liked Dick better than ever because we were eating the same bitter-sweet orange of which the voice had sung. It seemed that Pilar had neither accepted nor refused him, but had asked for time to think; and he would have been a little encouraged if she had not suddenly said, “Don Cipriano loves bulls.”

At five o'clock we spun into Seville, with the car, for nobody knew at what time the procession might begin; nobody ever did know, it appeared. And Pilar was no longer merrily boyish, but feminine and seductive again in her black mantilla.

The vast oblong of the Plaza de la ConstituciÓn was already humming with the excitement of a moving crowd. The lane between chairs and tribune was thronged with the poor of the town and peasants from the country, who would have no seats and must press for places to see the procession; but there was no ill-natured pushing, and gentlest care was taken not to crush the toddling, star-eyed children who tumbled under people's feet. Soldiers laughed and edged their way past clinging groups of pretty girls. Civil guards, looking as if they had stepped out of old pictures, strove to keep order, their shouts lost among the cries which filled the air; cries of water-sellers bearing big earthen vessels; cries of those who wheeled cargoes of roasted peanuts in painted ships; cries of crab-sellers; cries of shabby old men, and neat, white-capped boys, hawking fresh-fried English and American tourists in panamas wandered through [pg 242]the throng searching for their numbered chairs; vendors of seats shouted reduced prices; bareheaded women with brown babies in their arms offered programmes of the week's processions; tattered boys shrieked the daily papers, and coloured post-cards; while from the balconies of private houses ladies in black mantillas, children in white, and foreigners in gay colours looked down upon the scene.

So passed an hour, while the boxes and best seats began to fill. Spanish families of the middle class, men and women in black, took front seats of the tribune, where the empty royal box made a brave splash of gold and crimson; but more slowly came members of the aristocracy and officers in blue and gold; and, jostled by the crowd, I waited in suspense.

Colonel O'Donnel had gone to his club for news of the box which, by strategic means, he had been trying to get. Pilar and Dick had gone with him, to remain in the car chaperoned by Ropes, until he should come out; so that I had no means of learning whether the Cherub had triumphed or failed. All I knew was, that a club acquaintance whose wife was ill, might be induced to offer his box, close to the royalties, to a second acquaintance in exchange for one directly behind that which the Duke of Carmona had taken. If this could be arranged, the O'Donnels would be given the latter, in exchange for—only the Cherub knew what. Borne back and forth with the moving throng, like a leaf in an eddy, my eyes seldom strayed for long from the tribune. Would the Carmona household come? Would the O'Donnels be their neighbours?

At last I saw Pilar and the two men entering the tribune. Yes, they had succeeded, I could tell from the Cherub's description of the Duke's box. But Carmona's was still empty.

The procession had not yet appeared, though the first This was the herald of a brotherhood with its sacred images; and the police began to sweep the crowd before them out of the lane between the chairs and tribune. Slowly the flock was forced along by the shepherd dogs; and as the way cleared, forth from the dim tunnel of Las Sierpes marched, with arms reversed, a squad of civil guards; then a company of mounted soldiers, their bugles still wailing that sad warning of some piteous spectacle to come.

The cavalry passed; it was but a modern preface to a mediÆval poem which, following closely, brought with it into the Plaza sad ghosts, grim ghosts, sainted ghosts of long past days.

Headed by one of their number bearing aloft an exquisite crucifix, walked a band of penitents carrying great lighted candles. Their white robes of linen swept in long pointed trains over the cobbles, the silver buckles on their black shoes glinting with each step; through the narrow slits in the blue Then suddenly, in that dark, distant tunnel flashed something luminous, something that moved, swung in air higher than the heads of men, something that was like a great blazing casket of jewels or a cloud of fireflies.

It came on, halting, starting again, reaching the open square, and revealing itself as an illuminated platform supporting a crucified Christ, life size, with no detail spared of tragedy and torture.

One of those fine sculptures of painted wood, such as I had seen at Valladolid, the sixteenth century artist had spent his soul in showing to believers what Christ had suffered that they might be saved; and so startling was the appeal of this terrible [pg 244]figure to the sympathies, that for an instant I found myself forgetting everything except a wild desire to rescue it.

As the I watched the heart-rending figure pass round the corner of the Plaza, out of sight, swallows wheeling overhead as if once more to pluck the thorns from that bleeding brow; and as it vanished, far away in the dusk of Las Sierpes appeared another illumined mystery of clustering stars. Out from darkness into hyacinth twilight it floated, a canopied platform of purple velvet, crusted with silver and gold; under the glittering roof a virgin, who seemed to stand praying in a garden of tall lilies, lit by a sacred silver flame.

The crowding lilies, as the That thought, I knew, would leap to many minds; but they would be the minds of foreigners; and I, being Spanish, understood. I saw what this procession of emblems meant to these people, rich and poor alike. They were being reminded, in the realistic and dramatic way which appealed best to their imaginations, of all Christ had suffered for them, of all the mother-woman had endured. The gems, which to alien minds were incongruous, crystallized their tears, their love, their gratitude; and Our Lady's jewels were the jewels of the poor—rich possessions which could not be taken from them, joys for ever, objects of their highest pride.

[pg 245] Bending in gentle grief, the fair face bowed, the graceful figure passed in fragrance of lilies, perfumed wax, and incense sending blue clouds from silver censors swung by white-robed boys. With her, as she moved, went music—our Lady's own music, sad and beautiful as moonlight on a lonely grave, cool as peace after hot pain.

Now the box in the tribune I had watched so long was filled with strangers. Pilar had been right. Carmona had given his place to friends. But with that soft, haunting music in my ears, sweet as remembered days of joy, I could not fear anything. Somehow I was at peace, with good thoughts in my mind and hope in my heart.

Brotherhoods in black, brotherhoods in purple, and Night folded over the great square, with its crowd of people. No one had gone away. Electric lights burst out and made the scene like the auditorium of some vast theatre; but the stage and auditorium were one. Then the full moon, yellow as honey, looked over the thronged roof-gardens of tall houses opposite the tribune, and sailed high in heaven.

It was past nine o'clock when Colonel O'Donnel touched me on the shoulder.

“We saw you long ago,” he said. “You are so tall. Shall we go home to dinner? But on Thursday you will have another chance.”

Thursday! and there were three days in between. I wished that he could have left me in my dream of peace as long as it might last.

XXX

The Hand Under the Curtains

Like a dream the three days passed; but not a dream of peace, for that I lost with the last echo of the Virgin music and the fragrance of her lilies.

Dick thought himself miserable, but I would gladly have changed my state of mind for his. Sometimes he hoped, sometimes he despaired, but at all times he was really very happy, if only he had known it. He enjoyed visiting the Murillos with Pilar and the Cherub when I had no heart to go. He borrowed the motor to whisk them out to Italica. He went with the O'Donnels late every afternoon for the drive in the fashionable As for me, I would not go, although Dick urged that, in the never-ending double line of fine carriages, we might meet the Duchess of Carmona's. But I did not dare to see Monica again after what had happened unless there were some hope that Pilar could speak for me, or that I could speak for myself. Still, I could not resist questioning the family in the evening. Had they heard tidings of her? Had they seen her?

Presently there was news, but not good news. The engagement was known, and was being talked of everywhere. The story was that the wedding would be soon, as the Duchess was not strong, and professed herself anxious to see her son married. Gossip said also that the marriage would be celebrated in Madrid directly after the festivities of the royal wedding were over, so [pg 247]that the young duchess, as the wife of a grandee of Spain, could become lady-in-waiting to the bride-queen, when The Cherub told me these things only because I insisted on hearing all; and on Wednesday evening I dragged further details from Pilar. They had passed the Duchess, Lady Vale-Avon, and Monica in the Carmona carriage, the handsomest in Seville; and the Duke had been on horseback, looking more attractive than Pilar had ever seen him in the There had been a procession on Wednesday, but it was not an affair of importance; and with Thursday, and the presence of the King, all the greatest events of this Early in the afternoon there was washing of poor men's feet by the great ecclesiastics in the cathedral, the King remaining at the Though it was a week for penitence and fasting, Seville—honoured by the King—thrilled with excitement. Thousands of strangers had poured into the town for this day, and the crowds were three times as dense as on Sunday. Though there had been [pg 248]disquieting rumours, whispers of anarchist plots and bombs, the police had been alert; the King had taken a swift gunboat up the Guadalquivir, instead of arriving by special train from Cadiz, had reached Seville safely; and now anxiety was forgotten. All the town poured into the Plaza de la ConstituciÓn more than an hour before there was any hope that the procession might begin; and I was in the crowd.

The boxes filled earlier than before, many of the ladies no longer in black, but wearing Paris hats and pale-tinted dresses, though to-morrow there would be black mantillas again, and red carnations. Pilar, Dick, and Colonel O'Donnel were in their places, and though the Duke's box was still empty, I was sure I should not be disappointed to-day. “He'll appear about the time the King does,” I was saying to myself, when suddenly there came a stir in the royal box. The mayor and town councillors walked in, looking important; four giant halberdiers of the royal guard took position, each in a corner of the box. Then rose a shout, “Viva el Rey!” and against the crimson velvet draperies the figure of the tall young King in white uniform stood out like a slender statue of marble.

He was accompanied by his sister, the Infanta, and her husband, three or four ladies, and a retinue of decorated officers; but for an instant I saw only the King, because—rebel as I was supposed to be—my hat waved as high and my cheers rang as loudly as any in the crowd.

I had not seen his face—that day at Biarritz long ago—when his automobile stopped for want of petrol. He had worn his motor-mask, and had not removed it, for he was incognito; but now, as he bowed in answer to the people's greeting, the young face was noble under the silver helmet. His smile brought a deep dimple to either cheek, and a pleasant light to the brown eyes. I was proud of my King, and found myself wishing that I could serve him, though it seemed that that could never be; and with a sigh for the perversities of fate I looked away, only to receive a shock of surprise.

[pg 249] Among the ladies with the Infanta were the Duchess of Carmona, Lady Vale-Avon, and Monica. With the officers and friends of the King stood the Duke, his dark face radiating satisfaction, as if this were the crowning moment of his life.

Not only was Monica with the man as his fiancÉe, but she was dressed, in compliment to him, like a girl of Spain. She wore a mantilla such as the Infanta wore, and so bright was her hair, so fair her skin framed in the black flounce of lace, that she was almost as much stared at as the King. On her breast, pinning the folds of the mantilla, there was a glint of crimson; and looking closely, I made it out to be a large brooch of rubies, forming the famous “No. 8 Do,” the motto of Seville. Only the Duke could have given her this, I thought; and she had accepted it!

There was no more hope, then. It did not matter that her unexpected presence in the royal box would prevent Pilar from speaking, or giving her my letter. Still, I clung desperately to the one chance left; the cathedral and the Miserere.

Hardly were the royalties and their friends settled in the red-draped box when the next brotherhood marched out from Las Sierpes, and halted their first A murmur of approval ran through the crowd, which pressed close, in spite of the police; and as all eyes for the moment turned upon the King, or upon the white-haired peasant singer, a thing happened which caught my attention.

The velvet curtain which hid the bearers of the Quick as that darting hand a thought flashed through my [pg 250]brain. In a few seconds the The passing of light is no more swift than was the flight of these thoughts; and without waiting to calculate the cost to myself, thinking only of the King and of the girl I loved, I instantly thrust both hands between the curtains, following the flowers as they were passed in. I grasped the bouquet firmly round the stiff base of the pyramid, and pulled it out before the hidden man who had received it knew that it had not been withdrawn by his confederate. It was all over in a second, and I had the bouquet. Also I had identified the man who pushed it through the curtains of the Whether my act had been wise or foolish, it was done, and the Prying cautiously among the tightly banked flowers, my blood quickened as I touched something round and hard, a thing about the size of a large orange, fastened into the centre of the pyramid by a network of thin wire. Intuition had not played me a trick. There was death in this bunch of roses, death for many, perhaps. Though it was of first importance to get the bomb as far away as possible from the King and from Monica, and to render it harmless, I would not give up my pursuit of the man in the black coat, who was fighting his way through the crowd, only a few yards in front of me,—a square-set figure, in the holiday clothes of a respectable workman. I saw only his back now, every muscle tense in his desire to escape the vengeance on his track; but I had seen his face for an instant, and could identify it anywhere.

[pg 251] What if, in his desperation, he turned, and in the hope of saving himself accused me of the crime he would have committed? It but needed that to ruin me—after Barcelona, and this long journey to Seville, where the King was due. Would any explanation I might make be credited, when the bomb was in my hand?

I pushed the crowding thoughts out of my mind. There were other things to think of—the bomb itself, what to do with it; and the man to be followed.

Meanwhile I was moving on after that broad back of which I must not lose sight, and away from the neighbourhood of the royal box. I was in the lane of the procession, close in front of the long ranks of occupied chairs, and opposite the tribune. There were only two persons abreast in the moving line which carried me along, driven on by the police, but we were tightly packed, pressed against on one side by the knees of people in the chairs, on the other by the purple brotherhood preceding another Suddenly the cry of a water-seller struck my ear sharply. “Agua!—clear as crystal and cold as mountain snow. Agua!”

He was just before me with his earthen vessel. “Sell me your jar,” I said. “No, I don't want a glass of water. I want the jar—for a curiosity. Twenty pesetas for it.”

This offer saved questionings. The vessel with its contents was worth two pesetas to the vendor, perhaps, and, lest I should change my mind, its owner hastily handed over his jar and pocketed my silver. Even now I had to wait for an opening in the throng, till I had been pushed on as far as the lane leading from the square to the Plaza de San Fernando; and there, to my joy, I jostled against Ropes. Without a word of explanation, I said, “Follow that man in the cloth cap with the black coat and red tie. Get hold of him; take care he doesn't knife or shoot you. Don't let him go—and wait for me.”

This was all Ropes needed. “Right, sir,” said he, and forged [pg 252]after the black back, which in this freer space was gaining distance.

Unexpectedly relieved of my second task, carefully shielding the bouquet with the water-jar I worked my way into the lane, and struck the head of the earthen vessel against a stone coping.

The porous clay cracked like an egg-shell, the top coming off in one piece, with a few flying splinters; and I pressed the bouquet deep into the water.

This was the best I could do at the moment, though, if the bomb was made with picric acid, I had accomplished nothing. I could only hope; and pressing on I came up with Ropes, who had collared his man and jammed him against a wall.

Not a sound had the wretch uttered. He knew that, if he resisted, he would be instantly denounced and torn to pieces by a crowd not likely to wait for clear proof of such an accusation. Since he had failed, it was better to trust to the mercy of his captor and of the police than to the thousands wild with enthusiasm for the King. Fortunately for him, as for us, the crowd had something better to do than stop to watch what they took for some trifling private quarrel.

“He tried to knife me,” said Ropes; “but I stopped that. Knife's in my pocket. What next, sir?”

It was characteristic that he did not ask what the man had done.

“Give the brute up to the police,” I answered in English. “He was with another chap whom I've lost, in a plot to throw a bomb at the royal box; and the bomb's in this water-jar.”

For the first time Ropes' face lost its imperturbable expression. “What, sir!” he exclaimed, “after your troubles—excuse my mentioning them—you concern yourself in an affair like this!”

“I've no choice. We can't let this beast escape. If they have him, the police may get his mate. He looks a coward and sneak.”

“Beg pardon, sir, you have a choice. I've got the man. Give me the jar with the bomb, and I'll take the whole thing on my shoulders with the police, though it's a shame you should lose [pg 253]the credit. I've a clean bill; chauffeur to Mr. R. Waring, American newspaper correspondent. No need to bring you into it.”

“If you're blown up by the bomb—”

“Would get blown up just the same sticking to you, for I would stick like a burr, sir. (Now, no good wriggling, you beast, or gabbling about a mistake. There's no mistake, and you won't get away!) Better tell him what's in that jar, sir—my Spanish doesn't run as far—and that'll quiet him.”

“You can't manage the man and the jar.”

“Could manage two of each. There's a couple of civil guards. Now, if you've any kindness for me, sir, let go that jar; and don't be seen with me.”

I gave Ropes his way. But I lingered near enough to watch the scene which followed; and had that innocent-looking jar been broken, or had the contents of the soaked bouquet exploded of its own accord, I should have been near enough to share my chauffeur's fate.

He explained in broken Spanish, eked out with gesture; and the fact that he was English, with the most honest of English faces to vouch for his sincerity, helped him. The man in his grasp was CatalÁn, which was not in his favour at Seville. The civil guards looked at the jar with respectful interest, but did not offer to take it; and, after a moment of lively conversation, Ropes and his captive marched rapidly away with the men in red, black, and white.

At least, whatever happened now, the King was safe; and Monica was safe.

It was not until eight o'clock, when I went to the quiet hotel where we had appointed to meet and dine, that I found out anything more. Then they told me that the King returned to his box after walking in the procession, and that, soon after, Dick had been surprised by a visit from a member of the police in plain clothes. The man had come to the O'Donnels' box, inquired if the American gentleman were Mr. Waring, asked if he had a [pg 254]chauffeur named Peter Ropes, and being answered in the affirmative had told the story of the bomb. Dick had then gone with the policeman to see Ropes, had made a statement concerning himself, his business, his car, his chauffeur, his occupation in life, and the friends with whom he was staying. All had proved satisfactory. Ropes had been thanked by the police for his promptness and presence of mind, and threatened with active gratitude from higher quarters. Both had been asked to remain within reach for a few days; and the episode was over.

But it was not until they heard my part of the story that Dick or the O'Donnels knew precisely where and how Ropes had come into the drama.

XXXIV

The Race

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thither we spurted, Dick studying a plan of the city as we flew along the straight road embanked above the sand. By the time we arrived in silver Cadiz he was able to say in which direction I must drive to find the chief hotel; and in an open place not far from the crowded port we stopped.

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

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

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

[pg 286] “Those beastly “Those beastly Somewhat comforted, I proposed to follow at once, but Dick wistfully reminded me that the afternoon was wearing on, and he was wearing with it. Soon he would be worn out, unless I gave him something to eat. It seemed years since that cup of coffee and roll of the early morning.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

XXXV

The Moon in the Wilderness

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The sky had cleared, and twilight would soon merge into moonlight; but we would need the moon and stars as well on the road we had to travel. In more than one place it was marked on my map by an ominous, thin black line which meant “Motorists, beware.” The country was sparsely populated; people whispered [pg 295]of Still, if we won through without serious mishap, we should save a day; for there was no train to Granada until morning, and Dick was as keen on the adventure, for the adventure's sake, as I was for another reason.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We rushed towards that wide valley, and on to the mountain town which dared to repulse Ferdinand. In the deserted streets the only sound was the singing of many springs, the same musical voices, the same strains that Lord Rivers heard close upon five hundred years ago, when he came with his English archers to help conquer the wild place. Down in the valley beyond, the river cried a warning to us; but we did not heed, even when the road surface changed again to gluey mud; squelching on, mile after mile, at the best pace we could, and saying always that soon we should be on the Vega. So the dawn stole up and quivered on the snows of the Sierra Nevada.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

XXXVII

Dreams and an Awakening

That night, in my villa above “the road of the great Moor-killing,” the nightingales were the only Once again I went down to look at Carmona's door, to find it still kept by guardia civile; and most of the day I spent in the Alhambra, seeing rooms and courts I had missed yesterday, looking down often into the I dined in the hotel garden, and before nine I was at the appointed spot in the road outside the high wall of my Carmen. The moments passed as I walked up and down, my cigarette a spot of fire in the growing moonlight; still the gypsy-faced girl did not come.

Twenty minutes late, said my watch, and as I stared at it, a man stopped in front of me.

“Is the noble seÑor expecting someone?” he asked.

I put my watch away and looked at him. The moon, obscured though it was by clouds, showed a tall figure, with strong shoulders, and a face which seemed in the night as dark as a Moor's. The man had lifted his hat from his thick black hair, and I said [pg 315]to myself that he was a model for an artist who wished to paint a gypsy.

Finding that I did not answer on the instant, he went on—

“The seÑor must forgive me if I have made a mistake; but my sister, who had an errand to do for a gentleman, has sent me in her place.”

“In that case you have made no mistake,” I said. “You have a message for me from your sister?”

“And from a lady. The message is, that if the seÑor will come to my house in an hour, he will find what he seeks.”

My blood quickened.

“What do I seek?”

“A lady who loves you, and has sent you this through my sister.”

The man produced a tiny white paper packet which I took, but would not open in his presence.

“Do you mean that the lady will, meet me at your house—to-night?” I asked.

“She hopes it, for there is no other place or way. My sister will bring the lady; but it is not a house, in your way of speaking, seÑor. It is a cave in the hillside which I have made my home, for I am a “You live above the AlbaicÍn, in the gypsy quarter, then?” I said.

“No, seÑor, nearer here than that. You must have seen, if you have walked about the neighbourhood, that there are many other caves which honeycomb the hillsides. To find mine you must go towards the cemetery, take the first turn to the right, follow the winding road which descends, then up a rough path, and stop at the first of the three gypsy caves. I must not wait for you, as I have to see that my sister and the lady arrive safely. But you cannot miss the place; and if I am not waiting at the door, open it without knocking and walk in. Is that understood, seÑor?”

“Yes,” I said.

[pg 316] “Then I will go to watch for my sister near the palace. At half-past ten, seÑor.”

“At half-past ten.” I echoed his words, and watched him out of sight as he tramped away in the direction which would take him to the AlbaicÍn. Then I hurried back to the villa and opened the packet. It contained the shield-shaped Toledo brooch by the gift of which I had infuriated Carmona; that, and nothing besides. But—unless it had been stolen from her—it was an assurance that she had sent the messenger, that she wished me to trust him.

Nevertheless, there was danger that I might fall into a trap in keeping a night tryst at the cave of a gypsy, especially a gypsy who had either deserted or been banished from the colony. But not to run this risk was to run a far greater one, that of losing the chance offered by Monica; and of such an alternative I could not even think.

If I told the man, Pepe, who looked after my wants at the villa where I intended to go, I might succeed in compromising Monica, in case she were so late that Pepe was alarmed. As her name must be kept out of the affair at any cost, I decided that due caution would be protection enough. Unless the news of my presence in Granada had reached Carmona in his bed, there was little fear of treachery; and when I slipped into my hip pocket the revolver bought in Madrid, I felt that I was safe.

It was a dark and lonely road, that way of the dead. Not a soul had I met when I reached a narrow path, a mere goat track, leading higher up the hillside to a row of four or five tiny lighted windows in the rock. These must, I knew, mark the cave dwellings of which the gypsy had spoken, some little offshoot from the main settlement by the AlbaicÍn. The door which I reached first was closed. No one stood waiting, but I opened it and went in.

A faint light, cast by a small paraffin lamp set in a niche hollowed out of the whitewashed rock, made darkness visible in a tiny room with a rough earthen floor. A red calico curtain [pg 317]at the far end signified a second cave-room beyond. No one was visible, no one answered when I spoke, and I sat down to wait on a dilapidated rush-bottomed chair which stood with its back to the red curtain.

After that, nothing.

And then, dreams.

There was one dream about a room, a large room it seemed to be, shadowy in the corners, and with walls where Christian and Moorish warriors fought in tapestry, leaping off sometimes on their stallions, and spurring back into place again.

In the room was a great bed with dark silk curtains. A man lay in it, but suddenly sat up, and looked eagerly at something which seemed to be myself, dead or dying. But I did not care. I knew who he was, and that we hated each other for some reason which I could not remember, but it was impossible to recall his name. That was twisted up in a thousand skeins of silk; or was it a woman's yellow hair?

The man exclaimed, “Good—very good,” more than once to someone I could not see. Then he said, when the someone else had spoken, “Only keep him till after I'm married. I don't care what you do with him after that. Fling him into a well, or let him go. Either way he can never find out or prove anything troublesome.”

This was all of that part of the dream, though there was another which came soon after, and was somehow connected with it. It was a dream about a long dark passage, which smelled like a cellar, and I was being dragged through it by two voices, a thing which did not appear at all out of the ordinary, though it was disagreeable.

After that, concrete thoughts were lost in one tremendous throbbing ache, which was in the back of my head at first, but spread slowly down the spine, until at last my whole body felt as if it had been pounded with giant hammers.

I had an idea at one time that I had fallen into the power of [pg 318]the Inquisition, and been tortured by the head screw and the rack, because often a man in a black This was appalling. I lived through many years of the horror, but I fell off the world at last on to another planet, where there came a period of peace.

When I waked up I was looking at my hands.

To my great surprise they were no longer brown and strong as a young man's hands ought to be, but of a sickly white, and so thin that I found myself laughing at them in a slow, soft way, as one laughs in one's sleep.

At first it did not seem to matter that I should have hands like that; but suddenly, with a rush of blood to the heart, I realized that it was unnatural, dreadful, that something hideous must have happened to me.

In a moment my head was clear, and I felt as if a tight band had been taken off my forehead.

Yes, something had happened, but what?

I looked round and saw a room unfamiliar, yet already hated. It was a small, but beautiful room, the walls covered with Moorish work, such as I had seen at the Alhambra. I lay on a divan-bed, in an alcove without windows; but in the room beyond, I saw one with a dainty filigree frame, supported by a marble pillar. There was also an archway, from which a curtain was pushed aside, and I could see the end of a marble bath.

How had I come to this place? Where was it, and how long had I been there? were the next questions I asked myself.

There was no more dreaming now. The room was real; and the whiteness and emaciation of my hands were real. A man must have been very ill, and for a long time, to have hands as white and thin as that.

Suddenly I sat up, crying aloud, “Monica!”

[pg 319] The sound of her name brought her image before me. What horrible thing had been done to me that I should have forgotten her very existence?

Strength failed, and I fell back, a dampness coming out on my forehead. Above all, what had been done to her? “Don't leave me alone,” she had begged; yet I had deserted her. I was—here.

The motoring days came back to me; happy, hopeful days in the open air. How long ago were they that I should be thus broken, that I should feel like a man grown old?

Slowly, and cold as the trail of a snake, a thought crawled into my mind.

I remembered a short story I had read once. It was by Gertrude Atherton, and at the time I had thought it the most harrowing story ever written. A woman had gone to sleep, young, beautiful, beloved. She had waked to find her hair grey, her hands old and veined. Twenty blank years of madness she had spent in a lunatic asylum, after being driven mad by a shock, waking to sanity at last only to find herself an old woman.

Had I been mad? Was I old now, with my wasted white hands?

Tingling with dread I touched my face. My chin was rough with a stubble of beard. I fancied there were hollows in my cheeks. Was my hair grey?

Somewhere there must be a mirror. I tried to struggle up and find it, that I might see my own image and know the worst; but a giddiness came over me, and I had to lie down again, or I knew that I should faint.

“I have Carmona to thank for this,” I said aloud, furiously. But then I asked myself, how did I know that there ever had been a Carmona, that there ever had been a girl called Monica Vale? Perhaps I had dreamed them both, in the time of madness.

There had been many dreams. Suddenly I remembered a man's voice saying: “Only keep him till after I'm married.” The voice had been Carmona's. I knew that now.

No, I had never been mad. A horrible trick had been played [pg 320]on me—in the gypsy's cave. I remembered that. Everything was blank since, except for the dreams. Perhaps some of them had been true. Perhaps, half-unconscious—(for somebody must have come out from behind that red curtain and struck me on the head)—I had been taken to him, that he might be sure it was the right man. Somebody had been ordered to keep me, until after—Again I sat up, with a groan. I must get out of this. I must save Monica from the man, and from her own mother. But—if it was already too late?

There was a sound in the room. From a door I could not see, someone had come in. A key had turned, and was being turned again. The dream of the Inquisition came back to my mind, for the man in the black “Who are you?” I asked. Although for many years I had spoken English, and Spanish only for a few weeks, it was mechanically that I used Spanish now.

“Your good friend,” came from under the “If you're my friend, you'll let me out of this place, wherever it is,” I said.

“But I am your doctor as well, and you are too weak to go out. This is the first time you have spoken sensible words, and now they are not wise.”

“I'm not too weak to hear how I came here, how long I have been, and—” He cut me short, with a wave of a yellow old hand. Under the “You must not excite yourself,” he said. “As for your coming here, I found you lying in the road one dark night, with your head cut open, and out of compassion I brought you into my house.”

“If you are a doctor, and have no reason to hide your face from me, why do you cover it up with a [pg 321] “It is the “Tell me how long since you played good Samaritan and picked me up by the roadside,” said I. “Then perhaps I shall try to be patient.”

“How long?” he echoed. “I can't tell you that. To a philosopher like me days and weeks are much the same.”

“Philosophers have often been in the pay of dukes,” I said.

“Those days have passed. I live my life without dukes.”

“Without the Duke of Carmona?”

“The Duke of Carmona? That is a mere name to me. Why do you speak it?”

“I think you can guess.”

“I fear that after all your brain is not clear. We must have a little more of the good medicine.”

Before I knew what he meant to do, he was out of the alcove, and out of sight in the room beyond. Again I tried my strength, and would have followed, but before I could do more than struggle up from the bed, the door had been unlocked, and locked again.

“He must keep the key in his pocket,” I thought.

I did not believe a word of the plausible explanations. The continued mental effort I had been making had cleared, rather than tired my brain; and I was out of that black sea of horror in which I had been drowning.

I had not been mad, and I could not have been in this house for many weeks, since the man in the [pg 322] I remembered Colonel O'Donnel's telegram, and his mention of a man in Granada whom Carmona valued above many doctors. It seemed not impossible that this person and my “good friend” were one and the same; but if—weak as I was now—I hoped to get out of his house alive, perhaps I had better change my tactics, and keep my suspicions to myself, until I should recover strength. If the man believed that he had convinced me of his innocence and kindly intentions, he would perhaps think it easier to let me live than to put me violently out of the way.

I made up my mind to cultivate a more reasonable spirit, until my body might help me defend other convictions. And one thing gave me courage to keep the resolution. The fact that my host was not willing yet to discharge me as cured, argued that there was still a strong motive for detaining me behind locked doors. The time of which Carmona had spoken in my dream had not come. He was not married yet, and I said to myself that he never would be, if it depended on Monica's consent to be his wife.

Since that hour in the cathedral of Seville nothing would make her believe me disloyal, I thought; therefore nothing could make her disloyal to me.

Knowing little of illness, I trusted that, after all, I had not been put away here for long. Maybe a few days of fever and delirium would waste the hands and bleach out the brown stain of sunburn. At the moment, though I was young, and had been strong, I would have no chance against even an old man; but if I ate, and could crawl up to take a little exercise, a day or two ought to make a vast difference.

I was still of this mind when the Weak as I was, I felt that I could have risen, but I determined [pg 323]to fight him with his own weapons. Making a faint effort, I fell back on the pillows, and closed my eyes.

“It will take many more glasses of milk before you need again ask ‘But when do I leave you?’ ” said the voice through the I agreed, and pleased myself with my strategy after the man had gone out, until to my alarm I was overcome with sleep.

He had put something into the milk.

XXXIX

Day After To-morrow

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

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

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

“Is he dead?” I called.

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

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

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

He stooped and picked up the crowbar.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Is this Carmona's house?” I asked.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Below stairs the place was dark save for the light which had streamed out into the Evidently my gaoler had been interrupted in the midst of his supper, and hearing a noise in the “Eat slowly, and not too much,” he said, with anxious eyes on my face, which must have been frightful, though he was too tactful to make comments. As I obeyed, he told me his story, briefly and disjointedly, as the points came back to him.

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

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

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

“Not Monica?” I broke in.

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

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

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

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

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

I nodded.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Or to kill one,” I amended.

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

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

“In the next street to this, there's a Moorish house of much the same sort, being torn down. They were selling old tiles to curiosity dealers one day, so I strolled into the “Does Pilar know?” I asked.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What day is this?” I asked.

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

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

XL

Through the Night

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

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

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

“Yes.”

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

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

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

“The trip would kill you.”

“It would kill me not to take it.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

At the hotel, we walked in without waking the dozing “To Madrid, top speed, quickest way,” was the word; and I hoped for a non-stop run, or as near it as possible.

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

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

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

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

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

Rain again, blurring villages, and sweeping through the stone streets of a town: fields once more, and at last Manzanares. There Dick insisted that we should stop for food, lest strength fail me when I should need it most; but I could not bear to go back to the It was eight o'clock when we got away from the cafÉ, where we had spent some twenty minutes; and the road was no longer clear. We were obliged to moderate our speed, and lost more time than we could afford getting on to Aranjuez.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“And she's succeeded.”

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

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

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

I was shocked, knowing how Pilar loved the noble brown beast, and how she had counted on possessing him. But, if I had had my wits about me, I might have guessed last night how matters stood. Dick had told me then that, in the impromptu scene between Carmona and the O'Donnels, with Seville railway station for the stage, “the name of Vivillo had unfortunately come up.” Now, Dick explained that Carmona had caught at the girl's hasty words, had written his agent at the “It was sheer spite,” went on Dick, “and Pilar was broken-hearted. If she hadn't blurted out Vivillo's name in a temper, the bull might have been safe. Carmona wouldn't have interested himself, as he trusts his agent in all business matters. It's true several of the grandee owners of bull-farms have been asked to give each a picked bull for the royal fight, which is expected to be the grandest affair of the generation; but Carmona could as well have given another instead of Vivillo.”

“It's like him,” I said. “Poor Pilar!”

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

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

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

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

“No, he won't. His seat's in a box. Hers has been given in “Perhaps Monica will be there,” I said quickly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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