The Firebrand

Then a quick loud cackle of laughter came from Fernandez. He had found something among the parchments.

"'Hereby I plight thee my troth,'" he read from a paper in his hand, "'for ever and for ever, as a true heart and a true lover, signed, Ramon.' This she has kept in a case in her bosom, I suppose, with the picture of the oaf," he added, "and is as like him as it is like St. Nicholas, the patron saint of all thieves. And, holy Michael in the seventh heavens! here is their marriage certificate all complete – a very treasure-house of connubial happiness. But these need not go into the strong box. I, Luis Fernandez, have made an end of them. The woman is mine, and so will I also make an end of these relics of folly."

He took the papers to tear them across, but the stout parchment resisted a moment. His brow darkened, and he clutched them more securely to rend them with an effort.

But a slight noise in the apartment and a cry from the Tia caused him to look up.

A knife was at his throat, and a figure stood before him, one huge hand pinning him to his seat.

"Ramon," he cried, his voice, which had been full of chuckling laughter, rising suddenly to a thin shriek. "God in heaven, Ramon Garcia!"

And with a trembling hand he tried to cross himself.

"Give!" said Ramon, in a hollow voice, and mechanically the miller placed the papers in his hands.

"'Fore God, Ramon, I thought you were dead!" gasped the man.

"No, friend, not dead," came the answer, "but Ramon Garcia come back in the flesh to settle certain accounts with his well-beloved comrade and brother of many years, Luis Fernandez, of the mill-house of Sarria."

CHAPTER XV

ROLLO INTERVENES

With eyes injected, wide open mouth, and dropped jaw the man sat all fallen together in his seat, the gold ornaments still strewed about him, the pencil with which he had been checking them fallen from his nerveless grasp.

"I have accounted for the old lady," said Rollo, who with the eager professional assistance of La Giralda had been gagging and securing the Tia. La Giralda with a wicked glee also undertook the office of searcher of her rival's person, into the details of which process the unlearned historian may not enter – suffice to say that it was whole-hearted and thorough, and that it resulted in a vast series of objects being slung upon the table, many of them plundered from Don Luis's own house and others doubtless secreted during the process of overhauling Ramon's strong box.

"Ah-ah, most excellent Tia, you will not refuse me a peseta as my share next time you go out a-caudle-ing!" said La Giralda, all in a grinning triumph when she had finished, and to fill the cup yet fuller, was adjusting her friend's gag to a more excellent advantage.

"Stay where you are, Luis Fernandez," said El Sarria, sternly, as he sat down with his pistols on either side of him. "I advise you not to move hand or foot, if you set any value upon your life. I shall have much to say to you before – before the morning!"

And the doomed man, recognising the accents of deadly intent in his late friend's voice, let his head sink into his hands with a hopeless moan.

"Meantime I will put these things in order," said the Scot, in whose military blood ran the instinct of loot, and he was beginning to throw all the objects of value indiscriminately into the open chest when El Sarria checked him.

"I will take only what is mine own – and hers," he said, "but meantime abide. There is much to be said and done first!"

Then he turned his broad deeply lined brow upon Fernandez, who looked into his eyes as the trembling criminal, hopeless of mercy, waits the black cap and the sentence.

Rollo had settled the Tia on the floor with her head on a roll of household stuffs which she herself had rolled up in her cloak for transport.

La Giralda asked her friend if she felt herself as comfortable as might be, and the Tia looked up at her with the eyes of a trapped wild-cat. Then the Scot stood on guard by the door which led to the staircase, his sword drawn in his hand. The picturesqueness of the scene at the table appealed to the play-actor in him.

El Sarria held the documents in his hand which Fernandez had been about to destroy, and waved them gently in his enemy's face as a king's advocate might a written indictment in a speech of accusation.

"You betrayed me to the death, friend Luis, did you not? You revealed my hiding-place. That is count the first!" he began.

And the wretched man, his lips dry and scarce obeying his will, strove to give utterance to the words, "It was all my brother's doing. I swear it was my brother!"

"Bah," said El Sarria, "do not trouble to lie, Luis, being so near the Other Bar where all must speak truth. You knew. You were the trusted friend. Your brother was not, and even if you were not upon the spot, as I thought, the blood-hounds were set on the trail by you and by no other."

Fernandez made no reply, but sank his head deeper between his hands as if to shut out his judge and probable executioner from his sight.

"Pass, then," said the outlaw, "there is so much else that it matters not whether you were at the Devil's Cañon or no. At any rate, you decoyed my wife here, by a letter purporting to be written to Dolóres Garcia by her husband – "

"Concha Cabezos lies. She was a liar from the beginning. That also was my brother. I swear to you!" cried the wretched man, in so pitiful an accent that for the first time Rollo felt a little sorry for him.

But there was no gleam of pity in the eyes of Ramon. Instead, he lifted a pistol and toyed with it a moment thoughtfully.

"Luis," he said, "your brother has his own sins to answer for. Beneath the fig-tree in the corner an hour or two ago, his sins ran him to earth. Whether at this moment he is alive or dead I know not – neither care. But you cannot saddle him, in the flesh or out of it, with your peccadilloes. Be a man, Luis. You used not to be a coward as well as a thief and a murderer."

But neither insults nor appeals could alter the fixed cloud of doom that overspread the face of Don Luis. He did not again interrupt, but heard the recital of El Sarria in silence, without contradiction and apparently without hope.

"You brought my wife here by this forged letter while you knew I was alive and while you were plotting your best to kill me. You procured my outlawry, and the confiscation of my property – which I doubt not you and the worthy Alcalde de Flores shared between you. You have kept my wife drugged by that hell-cat these many days, lest she should find out your deceit. You plotted to slay the child of her womb —my son, Luis, do you hear, my only son!"

The outlaw's voice mounted into a solemn and awful tone of accusation, like a man in hell calling the roll of his own past happinesses.

"Now, Luis Fernandez," thundered Ramon, after a period of silence, "what have you to say to all this? Have you any reasons to advance why you should not die by my hand?"

"Ramon, Ramon, do not kill me in my sins," cried the wretched man. "By the memory of our boyhood together let me at least receive absolution and go clean!"

"Even as you would have made me go unshriven by the mouth of the Devil's Cañon – even as this very night you sent forth to the holy ministry of the worm, and the consolations of the clod the young child, unblessed and unbenisoned, without touch of priestly hand or sprinkling drop of holy water! Even so, Luis, friend of my youth, according to the measure ye mete it shall be measured to you again. The barley bushel is good measure also for the rye!"

Rollo, standing by the door and looking over the heads of accuser and accused, saw through a window the first green streaks of a doubtful dawn drawn livid and chill athwart a black sky. He went across to El Sarria and whispered in his ear. Fernandez lifted up his head and eyed the Scot with a kind of dull curiosity as if he wondered what his part in the affair might be. And the keen and restless eyes of the Tia watched him also, from where she lay pillowed on her stolen bundle like a bound and helpless Fury.

In quick whispers Rollo urged a plan of action upon El Sarria, by which he hoped to obtain a reprieve and perhaps his life for the wretched man. But he did not advert to this, only to the necessity of haste, and to the perilous state of Dolóres. This was indeed his great argument. Whatever happened she must be cared for. The matter of the traitors could be arranged later. While Ramon sat considering, the active eyes of the young Scot discovered a small iron-faced door open at one corner of the chamber. He went across and pulled aside the curtain which half concealed the entrance.

"A regular strong room, by Jove!" he cried; "here is everything comfortable for our friends while we settle our other affairs. We shall need our good Señor Don Luis, from time to time during the morning, but I doubt not he will oblige us."

Rollo sounded all over the strong room of the mill-house for any signs of another possible exit, but all was solid masonry. Besides which, the chests of valuables and papers, the casks of fine liquors and smuggled cigars proved that this was intended for a secret wall chamber in which to conceal the valuables of the house in case of alarm. Such hiding-places are not uncommon in the old houses of Spain, as Rollo knew, though this was the first he had seen.

"Give yourself the pain of entering, Señor," he said to Fernandez, and without waiting for any overt permission from Ramon, he caught up the old hag Tia Elvira in his arms and carried her, bundle and all, into the room.

"Here I am compelled to leave you for the time being in the dark, Don Luis," he said courteously. "But I think you will agree that your state is not the less gracious for that. I shall return immediately and present certain propositions for your consideration."

"You are an Englishman," cried Fernandez, "you will not stand by and see a man murdered in cold blood."

"The blood is none so cold that I can see," said Rollo, shrugging his shoulders. "I will do the best I can for you, Señor; only do not try any tricks with us. The least sign of further treachery will be fatal, and we have many friends about us."

CHAPTER XVI

DON LUIS IS WILLING

So saying, Rollo went out and locked the door behind him, leaving La Giralda with a loaded pistol seated beside it to prevent any egress, in case Fernandez had some way of opening the bolts from the inside known only to himself.

When Rollo returned from arranging these matters he found El Sarria's place vacant. But the young man following the direction of La Giralda's nod went out, and in a chamber about which hung a peculiar atmosphere of drugs, he found the outlaw on his knees by a woman's bedside.

Rollo stole forward on tiptoe, and in the pale glimmer of dawn he saw for the first time the features of Dolóres, the wife of Ramon the outlaw.