The Firebrand

The great folk partook as heartily as any, and (perhaps owing to their extreme youth) the pollos tasted much more tender than could have been expected, considering the fact that the Sergeant had found them industriously pecking and scratching in the dust of the farmyard upon his arrival, and that, while he dug the grave, he had sent La Giralda to drive them into a wood-shed, where presently they were captured en masse.

Rollo ate but little, for he was intensely excited. He had succeeded beyond expectation so far, and now he was beginning to see his way past all entanglements to the successful accomplishment of his mission. His plan was to proceed by unfrequented paths, such as were, however, perfectly familiar to his adjutant Sergeant Cardono, along the northern slopes of the Guadarrama till he should be able to look out across the fertile plain of the Duero towards the mural front of the Sierra de Moncayo.

Thence by forced marches across the valley, undertaken at night, he might hope in two stages at most to put his charges under the care of General Elio, the immediate representative of Don Carlos, who had established his headquarters there. Small wonder that Rollo grew excited. The worst seemed over – the myriad adventures, the perilous passes, the thousand enemies. Now the plains lay before him, and – Concha loved him.

If only this weight of responsibility were once off his mind – ah, then!

Poor Rollo! And indeed poor humankind in general! How often the wind falls to a breeze, heat-tempering, grateful, which comes in fits and starts, not severe enough to chill, yet long enough to cool the body weary of the summer heats, with a sense of grateful relief.

And it is precisely in the teeth of such a gentle-breathing, cheek-fanning earth-wind that the thunderstorm comes riding up overhead, its flanks black and ragged with rain and fierce spurts of hail, and in the midst of all the white desolating lightnings zigzagging to the ground.

CHAPTER XLII

A SNARE NOT SPREAD IN VAIN

The town of Aranda lay to the left, perched high above them on the slopes of the Sierra de Moncayo. Rollo looked past the crumbling grey turrets of the little fortalice and over the juniper-and-thyme covered foot-hills to the red peaks of the Sierra. From the point at which they stood Moncayo fronted them like a lion surprised at the mouth of his lair, that raises his head haughtily to view the rash trespassers on his domain.

The lower slopes of the mountain were tawny-yellow, like the lion's fell, but from the line at which the scant mane of rock-plants ceased, Moncayo shone red as blood in the level rays of the setting sun.

"There, there!" thought Rollo, "I have it almost in hand now. Beyond that flank lie Vera and the headquarters of General Elio!"

They were riding easily, debouching slowly and in single file out of one of the many defiles with which the country was cut up. The Sergeant and Rollo were leading, when, as they issued out upon the opener country, suddenly they heard themselves called upon peremptorily to halt, at the peril of their lives.

"Whom have we here? Ah, our highly certificated Englishman! And in his company – whom?"

The speaker was a dark-haired man of active figure and low stature, whose eyes twinkled in his head. He was dressed in the full uniform of a Carlist general. About him rode a brilliant staff, and from behind every rock and out of every deep gully-cleft protruded the muzzle of a rifle, with just one black eye peering along it from under the white Basque boina or the red one of Navarre.

And for the third time Rollo Blair, out upon his adventures, had come face to face with General Don Ramon Cabrera of Tortosa.

Yet it was with glad relief in his heart that Rollo instantly rode up to Cabrera, and having saluted, thus began his report, "I have the honour, General, to report that I have been fortunate enough to induce her Majesty the Queen-Regent of Spain and her daughter the young Queen Isabel to place themselves under my protection. I am proceeding with them to the headquarters of General Elio according to my instructions; and if it be at all convenient, I should be glad of an additional escort, that I may be able to bring my charges safely within the lines of Vera!"

The brow of General Cabrera had been darkening during this speech, and at the close he burst out with an oath.

"I know no such person as the Queen-Regent of Spain. I have heard of a certain light-o'-love calling herself Maria Cristina, widow of the late King Fernando the Seventh. And if this be indeed the lady and her brat, we of the true opinion owe you, Don Rollo, a debt of gratitude which shall not be easily repaid. For she and hers have troubled the peace of this country much and long. Of which now, by San Nicolas, there shall be a quick end!"

As he spoke he ran his eyes along the line to where Muñoz rode behind his mistress.

"And the tall gentleman with the polished whiskers? Who may he be?" he cried, a yet more venomous fire glittering in his eyes.

"That, General Cabrera," said Rollo, quietly, "is his Excellency the Duke of Rianzares."

"At last, estanco-keeper!" cried Cabrera, riding forward as if to strike Muñoz on the face. "I, Ramon Cabrera of Tortosa, have waited a long time for this pleasure."

Muñoz did not answer in words, but, as before, preserved his imperturbable demeanour. His half contemptuous dignity of bearing, which had irritated even Rollo, seemed to have the power of exciting Cabrera to the point of fury.

"Colonel," he cried, "I relieve you of your charge. You have done well. I am the equal in rank of General Elio, and there is no need that you should convoy this party to his camp. I will assume the full charge – yes, and responsibility. By the Holy St. Vincent, I promised them twenty for one when they slew my mother in the Square of the Barbican. But I knew not from how evil a vine-stock I should gather my second vintage. A poor commandant's wife from a petty Valentian fort was the best I could do for them at the time. But now – the mother of Ramon Cabrera shall be atoned for in such a fashion as shall make the world sit dumb!"

While Cabrera was speaking Rollo grew slowly chill, and then ice-cold with horror.

"Sir," he said, his voice suddenly hoarse and broken, "surely you do not realise what you are saying. These ladies are under my protection. They have committed themselves to my care under the most sacred and absolute pledges that their lives shall be respected. The same is the case with regard to Señor Muñoz. It is absolutely necessary that I should place them all under the care of General Elio as the personal representative of the King!"

"I have already told you, sir," cried Cabrera, furiously, "that I am of equal rank with any Elio or other general in the armies of Don Carlos. Have not I done more than any other? Was it not I who carried my command to the gates of Madrid? Aye, and had I been left to myself, I should have succeeded in cutting off that fox Mendizábal. Now, however, I am absolutely independent, owing authority to no man, save to the King alone. It is mine to give or to withhold, to punish or to pardon. Therefore I, General Ramon Cabrera, having sworn publicly to avenge my mother, when, where, and how I can, solemnly declare that, as a retaliation, I will shoot these three prisoners to-morrow at sunrise, even as Nogueras, the representative of this woman who calls herself Queen-Regent of Spain, shot down my innocent mother for the sole crime of giving birth to an unworthy son! Take them away! I will hear no more!"

Thus in a moment was Rollo toppled from the highest pinnacle of happiness, for such to a young man is the hope of immediate success. He cursed the hour he had entered the bloodthirsty land of Spain. He cursed his visit to the Abbey of Montblanch, and the day on which he accepted a commission from men without honour or humanity. He was indeed almost in case to do himself a hurt, and both Concha and the Sergeant watched him with anxious solicitude during the remainder of the afternoon as he wandered disconsolately about the little camp, twirling his moustache and clanking Killiecrankie at his heels with so fierce an air, that even Cabrera's officers, no laggards on the field of honour, kept prudently out of his way.

The royal party had been disposed in a small house, a mere summer residence of some of the bourgeois folk of Aranda, and there, by an unexpected act of grace and at the special supplication of the Sergeant, La Giralda had been permitted to wait upon them.

The beauty of Concha was not long in producing its usual effect upon the impressionable sons of Navarre and Guipuzcoa. But the Sergeant, whose prestige was unbounded, soon gave them to understand that the girl had better be left to go her own way, having two such protectors as Rollo and El Sarria to fight her battles for her.

To the secret satisfaction of all the Sergeant did not resume his duties in the camp of Cabrera. The troop to which he belonged had been left behind to watch the movements of the enemy. For Cabrera had barely escaped from a strong force under Espartero near the walls of Madrid itself, by showing the cleanest of heels possible. Cardono, therefore, still attached himself unreproved to the party of Rollo, which camped a little apart. A guard of picked men was, however, placed over the quarters of the royal family. This Cabrera saw to himself, and then sullenly withdrew into his tent for the night to drink aguardiente by himself, in gloomy converse with a heart into whose dark secrets at no time could any man enter. It is, indeed, the most charitable supposition that at this period of his life Ramon Cabrera's love for a mother most cruelly murdered had rendered him temporarily insane.

Deprived of La Giralda, and judging that Rollo was in no mood to be spoken with, Concha Cabezos took refuge in the society of El Sarria. That stalwart man of few words, though in the days of her light-heartedness quite careless of her wiles, and, indeed, unconscious of them, was in his way strongly attached to her. He loved the girl for the sake of her devotion to Dolóres, as well as because of the secret preference which all grave and silent men have for the winsome and gay.

"This Butcher of Tortosa," she said in a low voice to Ramon Garcia, "will surely never do the thing he threatens. Not even a devil out of hell could slay in cold blood not the Queen-Regent only, but also the innocent little maid who never did any man a wrong."

El Sarria looked keenly about him for possible listeners. Concha and he sat at some distance above the camp, and El Sarria was idly employed in breaking off pieces of shaly rock and trying to hit a certain pinnacle of white quartz which made a prominent target a few yards beneath them.

"I think he will," said Ramon Garcia, slowly. "Cabrera is a sullen dog at all times, and the very devil in his cups. Besides, who am I to blame him – is there not the matter of his mother? Had it been Dolóres – well. For her sake I would have shot half a dozen royal families."

"The thing will break our Rollo's heart if it cannot be prevented," sighed Concha, "for he hath taken it in his head that the Queen and her husband trusted themselves to his word of honour."

Ramon Garcia shook his head sadly.

"Ah, 'tis his sacred thing, that honour of his – his image of the Virgin which he carries about with him," he said. "And, indeed, El Sarria has little cause to complain, for had it not been for that same honour of Don Rollo's, Dolóres Garcia might at this moment have been in the hands of Luis Fernandez!"

"Aye, or dead, more like," said Concha; "she would never have lived in the clutches of the evil-hearted! I know her better. But, Don Ramon, what can we, who owe him so much, do for our Don Rollo?"

"Why – what is there to do?" said Ramon, with a lift of his eyebrows. "Here in the camp of Cabrera we are watched, followed, suspected. Do you see that fellow yonder with the smartly set boina? He is a miller's son from near Vitoria in Alava. Well, he hath been set to watch that none of us leave the camp unattended. I will wager that if you and I were to wander out fifty yards farther, yonder lad would be after us in a trice!"

"Ah!" said Concha, in a brown study. "Yes – he is not at all a bad-looking boy, and thinks excessively well of himself – like some others I could mention. Now, El Sarria, can you tell me in which direction lies Vera, the headquarters of General Elio?"

"That can I!" said El Sarria, forgetting his caution. And he was about to turn him about and point it out with his hand, when Concha stopped him.

"The miller's son is craning his neck to look," she whispered: "do not point. Turn about slowly, and the third stone you throw, let it be in the direction of Vera!"

El Sarria did as he was bid, and after the third he continued to project stones Vera-wards, explaining as he did so – "Up yonder reddish cleft the road goes, a hound's path, a mere goat's slide, but it is the directest road. There is open ground to the very foot of the ascent. Many is the time I have ridden thither, God forgive me, on another man's beast! Then cast him loose and left him to find his way home as best he could. There are good hiding-places on the Sierra de Moncayo, up among the red sandstone where the caves are deep and dry, and with mouths so narrow and secret that they may be held by one man against fifty."

Concha did not appear to be greatly interested in El Sarria's reminiscences. Even guileless Ramon could not but notice her wandering glances. Her eyes, surveying the landscape, lighted continually upon the handsome young Vitorian in the red boina, lifted again sharply, and sought the ground.

At this El Sarria sighed, and decided mentally that, with the exception of his Dolóres, no woman was to be trusted. If not at heart a rake, she was by nature a flirt. And so he was about to leave Concha to her own devices and seek Rollo, when Concha suddenly spoke.

"Don Ramon," she said, "shall we walk a few hundred yards up the mountain away from the camp and see if we are really being watched?"

El Sarria smiled grimly to himself and rose. The stratagem was really, he thought, too transparent, and his impression was strengthened when Concha presently added, "I will not ask you to remain if you would rather go back. Then we will see whom they are most suspicious of, you or I. A girl may often steal a horse when a man dares not look over the wall."

In the abstract this was incontestable, but El Sarria only smiled the more grimly. After all Dolóres was the only woman upon whose fidelity one would be justified in wagering the last whiff of a good cigarillo. And as if reminded of a duty El Sarria rolled a beauty as he dragged one huge foot after another slowly up the hill in the rear of Concha, who, her love-locks straying on the breeze, her basquiña held coquettishly in one hand, and the prettiest toss of the head for the benefit of any whom it might concern, went leaping upwards like a young roe.

All the while Rollo was sitting below quite unconscious of this treachery. His head was sunk on his hand. Deep melancholy brooded in his heart. He rocked to and fro as if in pain. Looking down from the mountain-side Ramon Garcia pitied him.