The Firebrand

"Let the burro enter also," commanded Rollo. "Thrice I have been stopped on the way, and if our enemies find the ass without they will be the readier to believe that I have hidden my treasure with you!"

Then in the little whitewashed refectory, before the simple table on which the fathers, now sadly reduced in numbers, took their repasts, Rollo told his story. And, sinking on her knees devoutly before the great crucifix that hung over the mantelpiece, the little Queen repeated her childish prayers as placidly as if she had been at her nurse's knees in the royal palace at Madrid, with the sentries posted duly, and the tramp of the guard continually passing without.

CHAPTER XXXVI

DEATH-CART

Thus came the little Isabel of Spain into sanctuary. That the respite could only be temporary, Rollo knew too well. The monks were stout and willing men, but such arms as they had belonged to almost primitive times, chiefly old blunderbusses of various patterns from the middle of the sixteenth century to the end of the eighteenth, together with a halberd or two which had been used from time immemorial in the Hermitage kitchen for breaking bones to get out the marrow, chopping firewood, and such like humble and peaceful occupations.

Two of the remaining brothers of the Ermita were as other men, plain, simple and devout, ready to give up their lives, either by dying of disease at their post of duty, or by the steel of cruel and ignorant men, as the martyrs and confessors of whom they read in their breviaries had done in times past.

The cook-almoner on the other hand proved to be a shrewd little man, with much ready conversation, a great humorist at most times, yet not without a due regard for his own safety. Him the little Princess knew well, having often stolen off through the gardens and down the long "Mall" to taste his confectioned cakes, made in the Austrian manner after a receipt which dated from the time of the founder of blessed memory, Henry the Fourth of that name, and often partaken of by Catholic sovereigns when they drove out to the lofty grange and Hermitage of the Segovian monks of El Parral.

The fourth and principal friar proved upon acquaintance to be a man of another mould. He was a tall square-shouldered man, now a little bent with age, but with the fires of loyalty burning deep within eyes of the clearest and most translucent blue. His hair was now quickly frosting over with premature infirmity, for not only was his constitution feeble but he was just recovering from a dangerous attack of pneumonia. Altogether Brother Teodoro was a northern-looking rather than a Spanish man. It was not till afterwards that Rollo discovered that he belonged to the ancient race of the Basques, and that in his day he had fought as a bold soldier in the partidas, which rose in the rear of Napoleon's marshals when he sent his legions across the Pyrenees. Indeed, he had even followed El Gran' Lor to Toulouse when the battered remnants of that great army skulked back home again beaten by the iron discipline of England and the gad-fly persistence of the Spanish guerrilleros.

It was with Brother Teodoro then, as with a man already walking in the shadow of death, that Rollo in quick low-spoken sentences discussed the possibilities of the Hermitage as a place of defence. It was clear that no ordinary military precautions and preparations would serve them now. The four brethren were willing, if need were, to lay down their lives for the young Queen. But saving the pistols and the limited ammunition which Rollo had brought with him in his belt, and the bell-mouthed blunderbusses aforesaid, rusted and useless, there was not a single weapon of offence within the Hermitage of San Ildefonso of greater weight than the kitchen poker.

The Basque friar laid his hand on his brow and leaned against the wall for a minute or two in silent meditation.

"I have it," he said, suddenly turning upon Rollo, "it is our only chance, a ghastly one it is true, but we are in no case for fine distinctions. We will get out the death-cart and gather us an army!"

Rollo gazed at the monk Teodoro as if he had suddenly lost his wits.

"The death-cart! What is that?" he cried, "and how will that help us to gather an army?"

The Basque smiled, and Rollo noticed when he did so that his eyebrows twitched spasmodically. There was a broad scar slashed across one of them. This man had not been in the army of the Gran' Lor for nothing. For in addition to the sabre cut, he had great ideas under that blue-veined, broad, sick man's forehead of his.

"Yes," answered Teodoro, calmly, "our brother, whose duty it was to collect the bodies of the plague-stricken, died two days ago, and the oxen have not been in the town since. As for me, I too have been sick – a mere calentura, though for a time the brethren feared that the plague had laid its hand on me also; and as for those other two, they have enough to do to keep up their ministrations among the living. To give the last sacrament to the dying is, after all, more important than to cover up the dead. At such times one has to remember how that once on a time the Virgin's Son said, 'Let the dead bury their dead!'"

He was silent a little, as if composing a homily on this text.

"But all things work good to the chosen of God," he said. "To-night we will make of these very dead an army to defend our little Queen – the Lord's anointed. For in this matter I do not think as do the most of my brothers of the Church. I am no Carlist, God be my witness!"

Rollo was still in a maze of wonder and doubt when they arrived at the little stables attached to the long low building of the Hermitage and began to harness the oxen to the cart. He prided himself on his quickness of resource, but this was clean beyond him.

"One of us must abide here," continued the monk. "I am still sick unto death, so that I greatly fear I can give you no help. Bleeding and this calentura together have left me without power in my old arms. But lend me your pistols, of which you will have no need. I am an old soldier of the wars of the Independence, and have not forgotten mine ancient skill with the weapons of the flesh. Do not fear for the little Princess. Only make such speed as you can."

And with the utmost haste the Basque instructed Rollo as to his behaviour when he should reach the town, whilst at the same time he was helping him into the dress of a Brother of Pity and arranging the hood across his face.

"Hold your head well down," so ran the monk's rubric for the dread office, "repeat in a loud voice 'Bring out your dead! Bring out your dead!' No more than that and no less. With the butt of your ox-staff strike the doors whereon you see painted the red cross, and those that remain will bring out whom the plague hath smitten."

The young man listened as in a dream. The oxen started at the friar's gentle chirrup. The ox-staff was placed in Rollo's hand, and lo, he was guiding the meek bent heads softly towards the town before he even realised that he was now to encounter a foe far more terrible than any he had ever faced in battle or at the rapier's point upon the field of honour.

The trees were as solidly dark as black velvet above him. The oxen padded softly over the well-trodden path. In the gloom he dropped his goad, and only became conscious when he tried to pick it up that the Basque had drawn over his hands a pair of huge gloves which reached down almost to his wrists. These had been carefully tarred outside, and doubtless furnished at least some protection against infection.

The great well-fed beasts, white oxen of the finest Castilian breed, a gift of the Queen-Regent to the brethren, were under perfect control; and though Rollo had only once or twice before handled the guiding staff, he had not the least difficulty in conducting the cart towards the town.

Indeed, so often had the animals taken the same road of late, that they seemed to know their destination by instinct, and gave the tall young monk in the hood no trouble whatever. The wheels, however, being of solid wood of a style ancient as the Roman occupation, creaked with truly Spanish crescendo to the agony point. For in all countries flowing with oil and wine no man affords so much as a farthing's worth of grease for his waggon-wheels. But upon this occasion the lack was no loss – nay, rather a gain. For even before Rollo's shout gained assurance and sonorousness, the creaking of the wheels of the cart far-heard scattered various groups of marauders about the streets of the town as if it had been the wings of the angel of death himself.

"Bring out your dead! Bring out your dead!"

Certainly it was a solemn and awful cry heard echoing through the streets in the chilly hours of the night. Here and there at the sound a lattice opened, and some bereaved one cried down to the monk to stop.

Then staggering down the staircase, lighted (it may be) by some haggard crone with a guttering candle, or only stumbling blindly in the dark with their load, the bearers would come. In a very few cases these were two men, more frequently a man and a woman, and most frequently of all two women.

"Bring out your dead! Bring out your dead!"

"Brother, we cannot!" a shrill voice came from high above; "come up hither and help us, for God's sake and the Holy Virgin's! She is our mother, and we are two young maids, children without strength."

Rollo looked up and saw the child that called down to him. Another at her shoulder held a lighted candle with a trembling hand.

"She is so little and light, brother," she pleaded, "and went so regularly to confession. Brother Jeronimo gave her the sacrament but an hour before she parted from us. Come up and help us, for dear Mary's sake!"

It went to Rollo's heart to refuse, but he could not well leave his oxen. He was a stranger to them and they to him; and his work, though well begun, was yet to finish.

While he stood in doubt, his mind swaying this way and that, a figure darted across to him from the opposite side of the street, a boy dressed in a suit of the royal liveries, but with a cloak thrown about his shoulders and a sailor's red cap upon his head.

"Give me the stick," he said in a muffled voice; "go up and bring down the woman. If need be, I will help you."

Without pausing to consider the meaning of this curious circumstance, where all circumstances were curious, Rollo darted up the staircase, his military boots clattering on the stone steps, strangely out of harmony with his priestly vocation.

He found the little maiden with the candle waiting at the door for him. She appeared to be about eight years old, but struck him as very small-bodied for her age. Her sister had remained within. She was older – perhaps ten or twelve. She it was who had pleaded the cause of the dead.

"Indeed, good brother," she began, "we did our best. We tried to carry her, and moved her as far as the chair. Then, being weak, we could get no farther. But do you help, and it will be easy!"

Rollo, growing accustomed to death and its sad victims, lifted the shrouded burden over his shoulder without a shudder. He was in the mood to take things as they came. The two little girls sank on their knees on the floor, wailing for their lost mother, and imploring his blessing in alternate breaths.

"Our mother – our dear mother!" they cried, "pray for us and her, most holy father!"

"God in heaven bless you," Rollo said aloud in English, and strode down the stairs. A knot of straggling gipsies furtively expectant stood about the door. The cart was still in the middle of the street with its attendant boy, in the exact place where Rollo had left it.

"Here, lend me a hand," he cried in a voice of command, as he emerged into their midst with his white-wrapped burden.

But at the mere sight of the monk's habit and of the thing he carried on his shoulder, the gipsies dispersed, running in every direction as if the very plague-spectre were on their track. The boy in the red cap, however, crossed the road towards him, and at the same moment the elder of the little girls sobbingly opened the lattice, holding the candle in her hand to take a last look at her mother.

The feeble rays fell directly on the boy's upturned face. At the sight Rollo stumbled and almost fell with his burden. The youth put out his hand to stay him. His fingers almost touched the dead.

"Hands off!" thundered Rollo, in fierce anger. "Concha Cabezos, how dare you come hither?"

The boy looked up at the man and answered simply and clearly —

"Rollo, I came because you dared!"

CHAPTER XXXVII

THE DEAD STAND SENTINEL

They walked on for a while in silence, Rollo too much thunderstruck and confounded to speak a word. His whole being was rent with the most opposite feelings. He was certainly angry with Concha. So much was clear to him. It was rash, it was unmaidenly to follow him at such a time and in such a guise. Yet, after all the girl had come. She was risking a terrible death for his sake. Well, what of that? It was right and natural that he should hold his life in his hands. All his life he had loved adventure as men their daily bread – not passionately, but as a necessity of existence.