The Firebrand

When the dinner was ready Sergeant Cardono announced it to Rollo as if he had been serving a prince. And what was the young man's astonishment to find a table, covered with a decent white cloth, under the shelter of a limestone rock, spread for three, and complete even to table napkins, which the sergeant had tied into various curious shapes.

As they filed down the slope the sergeant stood at attention, but when El Sarria passed he quickly beckoned him aside with a private gesture.

"You and I will eat after the foreigners," he explained.

El Sarria drew himself up somewhat proudly, but Sergeant Cardono whispered in his ear two or three words which appeared to astonish him so much that he did as he was bid, and stood aside while John Mortimer and Etienne de Saint Pierre seated themselves.

But Rollo, who had no great love for eating, and considered one man just as much entitled to respect as another, would not sit down till El Sarria was accommodated also.

"May it please your Excellency, Don Ramon and I have much to say to each other," quoth the Sergeant, with great respect, "besides your honour is aware – the garlic – the onions – we of this country love them?"

"But so do I," cried Rollo, "and I will not have distinctions made on this expedition. We are all to risk our lives equally and we shall all fare equally, and if we are caught our dose of lead or halter-hemp will be just the same."

Here El Sarria interrupted.

"With respect," he said, "it is true that this gentleman hath some private matters to communicate to me which have nothing to do with the object of our mission. I crave your permission that for to-day I may dine apart with him!"

After this there was no more to be said. El Sarria helped the sergeant to serve the meal, which was at once the proof of his foraging ability and his consummate genius as a cook. For though the day was Friday, the soup was very far from maigre. The stew contained both lamb and fresh pork cut into generous cubes with a sufficiency of savoury fat included. A sausage had been sliced small for seasoning and the whole had been so smothered in garbanzos, haricot beans, rice, mixed with strips of toothsome salt fish, that John Mortimer bent and said a well-deserved blessing over the viands.

"I don't usually in this country," he explained, "but really this is what my good old father would call a manifest providence. That fellow of ours will prove a treasure."

"It seems so," said Rollo, a little grimly, "that is, if he can scout and fight as well as he can cater and cook."

For himself the young Scot cared little what he ate, and would have dined quite cheerfully on dry bread and water, if any one would have listened to his stories of the wonders of his past life or the yet more wonderful achievements of his future. He would have sat and spun yarns concerning the notches on Killiecrankie at a dyke-back, though he had not tasted food for twenty-four hours, with the utmost composure and relish. But his companions were of another kidney, being all valiant trencher-men – John Mortimer desiring chiefly quantity in his eating, while Etienne, no mean cook himself, desiderated rather variety and delicacy in the dishes which were set before him.

At all events the dinner was a great success, though the Sergeant, who evinced the greatest partiality for Rollo, often reproached him with eating little, or inquired anxiously if the sauce of a certain dish were not to his taste. Rollo, in the height of his argument, would hastily affirm that it was delicious, and be off again in chase of some deed of arms or daring, leaving the Sergeant's chef-d'œuvre untasted on his plate.

At this the Sergeant shook his head in private to El Sarria.

"It will stand in his way, I fear me," he said sententiously; "was there ever a notable general yet who had not a fine belly to wag before him upon horseback? 'Tis as necessary as the cock's feathers in his hat. Now there is your cut-and-thrust officer who is good for nothing but to be first in charges and to lead forlorn hopes – this colonel of yours is just the figure for him. I have seen many a dozen of them get the lead between their ribs and never regretted it before. But it is a devil's pity that this young cockerel is not fonder of his dinner. How regardeth he the women?"

This last question was asked anxiously, yet with some hope. But this also El Sarria promptly scattered to the winds.

"I do not think that he regards them at all! He has scarcely looked at one of them ever since I first knew him."

Sergeant Cardono groaned, seemingly greatly perturbed in spirit.

"I feared as much," he said, shaking his head; "he hath not the right wandering eye. Now, that young Frenchman is a devil untamed! And the Englishman – well, though he is deeper, he also hath it in him. But the colonel is all for fighting and his duty. It is easy to see that he will rise but little higher. When was there ever a great soldier without a weakness for a pretty woman and a good dinner? Why, the thing is against nature. Now, my father fought in the War of the Independence, and the tales that he told of El Gran' Lor' – he was a soldier if you like, worthy of the white plumes! A cook all to himself closer at his elbow than an aide-de-camp – and as to the women – ah – !"

Sergeant Cardono nodded as one who could tell tales and he would. Yet the Sergeant Cardono found some reason to change his mind as to Rollo's qualifications for field-officership before the end of their first day apart from Cabrera.

It was indeed with a feeling of intense relief that the little company of five men separated from the white and red boinas of the butcher-general's cavalcade. Well-affected to them as Cabrera might be for the time being, his favour was so brief and uncertain, his affection so tiger-like, that even Sergeant Cardono sighed a sigh of satisfaction when they turned their horses' heads towards the far-away Guadarrama beyond which lay the goal of their adventuring.

Presently the tongues of the little cavalcade were unloosed. El Sarria and Sergeant Cardono having found subjects of common interest, communed together apart like old friends. John Mortimer and Etienne, who generally had little to say to each other, conversed freely upon wine-growing and the possibility of introducing cotton-spinning into the South of France. For Etienne was not destitute of a certain Gascon eye to the main chance.

Rollo alone rode gloomily apart. He was turning over the terms of his commission in his mind, and the more he thought, the less was he satisfied. It was not alone the desperateness of the venture that daunted Rollo, but the difficulty of providing for the Queen-Regent and little princess when captured. There were a couple of hundred miles to ride back to those northern fastnesses where they would be safe; for the most part without cover and through country swarming with Nationals and Cristino partisans.

Riding thus in deep meditation, Rollo, whose gaze was usually so alert, did not observe away to the right a couple of horses ridden at speed and rapidly overtaking their more tired beasts.

El Sarria, however, did not fail to note them, but, fearing a belated message of recall from General Cabrera, he did not communicate his discovery to his companions, contenting himself with keeping his eye upon the approaching riders.

Rollo was therefore still advancing, his reins flung loosely upon his beast's neck and his whole attitude betokening a melancholy resignation, a couple of lengths before his companions, when a sudden clattering of hoofs startled him. He looked up, and there, on her white mare, well-lathered at girth and bridle, was little Concha Cabezos, sitting her panting beast with the grace of the true Andaluse.

Her hair was a little ruffled by the wind. Her cheeks and lips were adorably red. There was a new and brilliant light in her eye; and after one curiously comprehensive glance at the company, she turned about to look for her companion, La Giralda, who presently cantered up on a lumbering Estramenian gelding. La Giralda sat astride as before, her lower limbs, so far as these were apparent, being closely clad in leather, a loose skirt over them preserving in part the appearance of sex.

Rollo was dumb with sheer astonishment. He could only gaze at the flushed cheek, the tingling electric glances, the air completely unconscious and innocent of the girl before him.

"Concha!" he cried aloud. "Concha – what do you here? I thought – I imagined you were safe at the Convent of the Holy Innocents!"

And from behind Sergeant Cardono marked his cheek, alternately paling and reddening, his stammering tongue and altered demeanour, with the utmost satisfaction.

"Good – good," he muttered under his breath to El Sarria; "he will make a true general yet. The saints be praised for this weakness! If only he were fonder of his dinner all might yet be well!"

CHAPTER XXV

THE MISSION OF THE SEÑORITA CONCHA

"I too have a mission, I would have you know," said Concha, a dangerous coquetry showing through her grave demeanour, "a secret mission from the Mother Superior of the Convent of the Holy Innocents. Do not attempt to penetrate the secret. I assure you it will be quite useless. And pray do not suppose that only you can adventure forth on perilous quests!"

"I assure you," began Rollo, eagerly, "that I suppose no such thing. At the moment when you came up I was wishing with all my heart that the responsibility of the present undertaking had been laid on any other shoulders than mine!"

Yet in spite of his modesty, certain it is that from that moment Rollo rode no longer with his head hanging down like a willow blown by the wind. The reins lay no more lax and abandoned on his horse's neck. On the contrary, he sat erect and looked abroad with the air of a commander, and his hand rested oftener on the hilt of Killiecrankie, with the air of pride which Concha privately thought most becoming.

"And in what case left you my wife and babe?" suddenly demanded El Sarria, riding up, and inquiring somewhat imperiously of the new recruit concerning the matter which touched him most nearly.

"The Señora Dolóres is safe with the good sisters, and as in former times I was known to have been her companion, it was judged safest that I should not longer be seen in the neighbourhood. Likewise I was charged with the tidings that Luis Fernandez with a company of Cristino Migueletes has been seen riding southward to cut you off from Madrid, whither it is supposed you are bound!"

Rollo turned quickly upon her with some anger in his eye.

"Why did you not tell me that at first?" he said.

Concha smiled a subtle smile and turned her eyes upon the ground.

"If you will remember, I had other matters to communicate to your Excellency," she said meekly – almost too meekly, Rollo thought. "This matter of Luis Fernandez slipped my memory, till it was my good fortune to be reminded of it by Don Ramon!"

And all the while the long lean Sergeant Cardono, his elbows glued to his sides, sat his horse as if spiked to the saddle, and chuckled with quiet glee at the scene.

"He will do yet," he muttered; "'twas ever thus that my father told me of the Gran' Lor' before Salamanca. Be he as stiff as a ramrod and as frigid as his own North Pole, the little one will thaw him – bend him – make a fool of him for his soul's good. She is not an Andaluse of the gipsy blood for nothing! He will make him a soldier yet, this young man, by the especial grace of San Vicente de Paul, only I do not think that either of them will deserve readmission to the Convent of the Holy Innocents!"

More than once Rollo endeavoured to extract from Concha to what place her self-assumed mission was taking her, and at what point she would leave them. It was in vain. The lady baffled all his endeavours with the most consummate ease.

"You have not communicated to me," she said, "the purport of your own adventures. How then can I tell at what place our ways divide?"

"I am forbidden to reveal to any save General Cabrera alone my secret instructions!" said Rollo, with such dignity as he could muster at short notice.

"And I," retorted Concha, "am as strictly forbidden to reveal mine to General Cabrera or even to that notable young officer, Colonel Don Rollo of the surname which resembles so much a borrico's serenade!"

That speech would have been undoubtedly rude save for the glance which accompanied it, given softly yet daringly from beneath a jetty fringe of eyelash.