The Firebrand

The next moment the Castilian horsemen crashed full on the front of Cabrera's advance and hurled it down the side of the ravine, the General himself being borne away in the thickest of the surge.

Meantime another part of Espartero's command had bent round to the east and was by this time taking the Carlists on the flank. In thirty seconds the ridge of the barranco, which the six had defended so well, was deserted; even slow-going John Mortimer had been swept into the tide of pursuit.

But the Sergeant lay still, with the breast of his jacket opened, and his head on Concha's shoulder. She dropped warm tears over his face. Rollo, too, was there, and held the dying man's hand. He beckoned La Giralda to him and whispered a word in Romany. She nodded, and presently returned with the same great bulk of a man, brown as a Moor of Barbary, whom Rollo had encountered on the night of the plunder of San Ildefonso.

"Ezquerra," the Sergeant whispered, "I am spent. There is a spike in the neck-band this time. All that is honestly come by, I want you to give to this young lady. You will find it by itself under the hearthstone in my house at Ronda. The rest you will take no objections to, I know, on the ground of morals. Keep it for yourself!"

Concha glanced once up at Rollo and then, receiving his nod of approval, bent down and kissed the Sergeant.

The Andalucian looked up with that wondrous flavour of gay humour which distinguishes those born in the joyous province. His saturnine visage brightened into the sweetest smile. Very feebly he raised his hand to his brow in a last salute in acknowledgment of Concha's favour. His head fell back on her breast.

"A thousand grateful thanks, Señorita!" he said. And then noting the executioner he added, "Ah, Ezquerra, this is better than dying on the Plaza Mayor of Salamanca with the iron collar about one's neck!"

They were his last words. And so passed José Maria of Ronda, whom to this day every Spanish peasant holds to have been the greatest man Spain has seen since the dead Cid rode forth on Babieca for the last time to outface the Moors.

CHAPTER XLVII

MENDIZÁBAL

Rollo and his companions rode into Madrid amid the clamour and rejoicing of thousands, as indeed he might have done behind Don Carlos had he been successful in his first intention. Madrid was healthy and hungry. The plague had been stayed by the belt of barren country which cinctures the capital village of Spain. And as for fear, do not the inhabitants say that what happens not in Madrid, happens not at all!

Rollo, so long accustomed to the high clear silences of the sierra or the scarcely less restful valleys where the birds sing all day in the spring, felt himself closed in and deafened by the clamour, blinded by the brilliant colours, and in ill-humour with all things – chiefly, it must be confessed, because Concha, attired by the Queen's own waiting-maid from Aranjuez, sat in a carriage with the aplomb of a duchess.

They were all in high favour. For Muñoz (now more than ever the Power behind the Throne, and perhaps secretly proud of having played the man at the defence of the barranco of Moncayo) had quickly turned the tide of the Queen-Regent's displeasure. And at this period there was scarcely any honour that she would not have bestowed upon her preservers.

For in distracted hither-and-thither Spain of the early Carlist wars, it seemed nothing extraordinary to any one that Rollo should have saved their Majesties' lives with a Carlist commission in his pocket, or that Sergeant Cardono of the command of General Cabrera should have been shot dead by his superior officer while fighting vehemently for the opposite party. For these are incidents common to most civil wars and specially common in Spain, that land of adventurous spirits with little to do and plenty of time in which to do it. Indeed a feather or a favour, the colour of a riband or the shape of a cap, often made young men Carlist or Cristino, National or Red Republican, as the case might be.

On the third day after their arrival the privilege of a royal interview was granted to the young Scot. Rollo smiled as he thought of the first he had been favoured with, and of that other when he had started off a cavalcade consisting of two Queens and an outlaw under sentence of death with the loud "Arré!" of a muleteer.

But Rollo had learned to be calm-eyed before royalties. He was a Scottish gentleman, and had grown accustomed to Queens during these latter days. Court lords and the ruck of Madrid politicians stared at him in the corridors, but, affrayed by something in his eye, meekly or reluctantly according to their mood took the wall from him as he strode on, careless, hard-bitten, a little insolent, perhaps, in bearing. At last he stood in the great hall of audience, his plain well-worn coat and knee-breeches the secret scorn of every courtier. But a glance at Killiecrankie, once more a-swing by his side, was sufficient to sober too impertinent male interest, while the reputation of his exploits and the keen soldierlike face which he turned so pensively towards the window, awakened the liveliest interest in many a pair of dark eyes.

Somewhat after this fashion ran the prattle.

"Look! there goes the man who delivered the Regent and the young Queen! They say that both José Maria, whom every one thought dead, and El Sarria the outlaw were of his band. More than that, it is certain that one very near to the Queen-Regent's person was content to take service with him as a common soldier. How great and famous then must he be! And, above all, how certain of preferment! It were indeed well to cultivate his acquaintance. For what shall be done to the man whom two Queens and a Consort unite in delighting to honour? His threadbare coat? A mere eccentricity of genius, my love. His huge battered sword a-dangle at his side? It is said that he has slain over twenty men with that same blade! Decidedly not a man to be despised; speaks all languages, even the crabbed Gitano-Castilian like a native of Valladolid. He will marry a Spanish wife and become one of nosotros, as did O'Donnel, Duke of Tetuan, Sarsfield, Blake, and a score of others – all once poor and neglected, now thrice-hatted and set among the finest clay of the court potter."

Thus in the ante-chambers of Queens spake the wily, the wise, the far-seeing. And from such Rollo had many offers of service. But with a delicate politeness at which none could take offence he declined all these, making (as his father had advised him) his words at once "firm and mannerly."

Thank you, but he was content to wait. He had been sent for by the Queen-Regent. Till then – but at that moment, after a preliminary peep from behind a curtain, the Princess herself ran skipping across the hall, and, catching Rollo by the hand, bewildered him with a chatter of joyous questionings.

Where was Concha? Would her brother never come back? Why had he not been at Aranjuez? She sent him a kiss. (The which Rollo promised without fail to deliver, and what is more, meant to keep his word.)

Yes (he answered with amusement), perhaps one day the Princess would see Concha's brother again. It was certainly very dull in Madrid. Royal palaces were as little to his liking as to that of the Princess.

Then the little lady had her turn. Did he remember when he had hidden her underneath the great brass pot among the hay? Did he know that once a straw had tickled her beneath the chin so funnily that she came near to bursting out laughing? Rollo did not know, but the very thought turned him cold even among that throng of courtiers, all casting sidelong glances and trying to get near enough to listen politely to the conversation without appearing to do so. He seemed to be once more threading his way through the scattered groups of gipsies, the dark brows of Egypt bending suspiciously upon him and the royal storehouses flaring up like torches.

"Ah, there he comes – just like him!" cried the little girl, stamping her foot after the pattern of her mother; "now you and I will have no more good talk. But I shall wait for you at the gate when you come out. There – now bend down. I want to give you another kiss for that pretty boy, the brother of that Concha of yours!"

As she ran off Rollo found a friendly hand on his arm, and lo! there at his elbow was Don Fernando Muñoz, Duke of Rianzares, come in person to convey him into the presence. His manner was characterised by the utmost cordiality, together with a certain humanity altogether new, which made Rollo think that a few more barrancos to defend would do this favoured grandeeship a great deal of good.

Rollo had expected to be ushered into the presence of her Majesty in person, but instead, a plain English-looking man stood alone in a little room, the window of which commanded a vast and desolate prospect. There was a tall chair with a golden crown over it at the top of a table covered with red cloth, while several others, all uncushioned and severely plain, were ranged regularly about it.

The English-looking man came forward bluffly, and put out his hand to Rollo. He looked more like a healthy fox-hunting squire, just intelligent enough to sit in Parliament and make speeches against reform and the corn laws, than the political confidant of a Queen of Spain.

Then in a moment it flashed through Rollo's mind that this hearty Anglo-Iberian could be none other than Mendizábal himself, the Prime Minister of Spain, the scourge of monks and monasteries, the promised regenerator of the finances of Spain. Another thought crossed his mind also. He had actually not so very long ago practically accepted a commission to kill this man if he should chance to cross his path.

Yet the remembrance did not dim the brightness of the young man's smile as he took the other's hand.

"Ten to one he will talk to me about the weather," said Rollo to himself, "to me who ought at this moment to be inserting a twelve-inch Manchegan knife between his ribs."

And it fell out even as he had anticipated.

"You have been favoured with fine weather for your many adventures," said the Prime Minister of the Queen-Regent; "it is almost like an English June, clear, but with a touch of cold in the mornings and after sunset."

Rollo modestly supplied the appropriate conversational counter.

"Your name strikes me as in some way familiar," said Mendizábal; "was not your father Alistair Blair of Blair Castle, a client of mine when I was a banker in London and operating on the Stock Exchange?"

"He was, sir," quoth candid Rollo, "not greatly to his advantage – or mine!"

The Premier coloured a little but did not alter his friendly tone.

"Well, perhaps not," he said; "I myself lost every penny I possessed in the world at the same time. Our Spanish stocks were not so favourable an investment as they have become since we obtained recognition and a guarantee from England. But when I have been turned out of my present occupation, I wish you would permit me to look into your affairs. Your father's old vouchers should be worth something now. You have not, I hope, had to sell the old place of your ancestors?"

"No," said Rollo, carelessly; "an ancient retainer of the family lives in the castle with his wife. There is a dovecote in the yard, so they eat the pigeons which eat the farmers' crops, who in turn forget to pay their rents. Thus the ball rolls. And indeed the years have been so bad of late that I have not asked them!"

"You prefer a life of adventure abroad?" asked the Premier, who had not ceased to look at Rollo with the most earnest attention.

Rollo shrugged his shoulders slightly at the question.

"I do not know," he said simply, "I have not tried. The most ordinary affairs turn out adventurous with me. But then, I would rather undergo any conceivable hardship than live on in one place like a beetle pinned to a card, able only to waggle my feet, till a merciful death put a limit to my sufferings."

Further conversation was cut short by the entrance of the Queen-Regent. Her husband conducted her to the door or rather portière curtain of the council-room, and immediately withdrew – a slight waving of the tapestry, however, affording some reasons for suspecting that his Excellency the Duke of Rianzares had not removed himself the entire distance required by etiquette from the councils of his Sovereign.

Maria Cristina extended first to Mendizábal and then to Rollo a plump hand to kiss.

"I have to thank you," she said to the latter, not ungraciously, "for the many and great services you have rendered to me, my daughter – and – to other friends also. The result has certainly been most fortunate, though the manner of service at times left something to be desired!"

Then as Rollo kept his head modestly lowered, the Queen-Regent relented a little, thinking him covered with confusion at her severity, which indeed was far from being his real state of mind.

"But after all you are a brave man, of excellent parts, and personable to a degree – "

"Which in this age and country goes for no little!" said Mendizábal, bowing to the Queen as if he intended a compliment. "You have heard how our soldiers chant as they go into battle:

"'Old Carlos is a crusty churl,
But Isabel's a sweet young girl!'"

The Queen bowed, with however a little frown upon her face. She was never quite sure whether her Prime Minister was laughing at her or not. Then she returned to the subject of Rollo.