The Firebrand

by S. R. Crockett

  CHAPTER XXVI

  DEEP ROMANY

  The news which Sergeant Cardono had to communicate was indeed fitted toshake the strongest nerves. If true, it took away from Rollo at once allhope of the success of his mission. He saw himself returning disgracedand impotent to the camp of Cabrera, either to be shot out of hand, orworse still, to be sent over the frontier as something too useless andfeeble to be further employed.

  Briefly, the boy's news as repeated by La Giralda to the Sergeant,informed Rollo that though the court was presently at La Granja and manycourtiers in the village of San Ildefonso, the royal guards through fearand hunger had mutinied and marched back to Madrid, and that the gipsieswere gathering among the mountains in order to make a night attack uponthe stranded and forsaken court of Spain.

  In the sergeant's opinion not a moment was to be lost. The object of thehill Gitanos was pure plunder, but they would think nothing ofbloodshed, and would doubtless give the whole palace and town over torapine and pillage. Themselves desperate with hunger and isolation, theyhad resolved to strike a blow which would ring from one end of Spain tothe other.

  It was their intention (so the imp said) to kill the Queen-Regent andher daughter, to slaughter the ministers and courtiers in attendance, toplunder the palace from top to bottom and to give all within theneighbouring town of San Ildefonso to the sword.

  The programme, as thus baldly announced, was indeed one to strike allmen with horror, even those who had been hardened by years offratricidal warfare in which quarter was neither given nor expected.

  Besides the plunder of the palace and its occupants, the leaders of thegipsies expected that they would obtain great rewards from Don Carlosfor thus removing the only obstacles to his undisputed possession of thethrone of Spain.

  The heart of Rollo beat violently. His Scottish birth and training gavehim a natural reverence for the sanctity of sickness and death, and theidea of these men plotting ghoulishly to utilise "the onlaying of thehand of Providence" (as his father would have phrased it) for thepurposes of plunder and rapine, unspeakably revolted him.

  Immediately he called a council of war, at which, in spite of the frownsof Sergeant Cardono, little Concha Cabezos had her place.

  La Giralda was summoned also, but excused herself saying, "It is betterthat I should not know what you intend to do. I am, after all, ablack-blooded Gitana, and might be tempted to reveal your secrets if Iknew them. It is better therefore that I should not. Let me keep my ownplace as a servitor in your company, to cut the brushwood for your fireand to bring the water from the spring. In those things you will find mefaithful. Trust the gipsy no further!"

  Rollo, remembering her loyalty in the matter of Dolores at the villageof El Sarria, was about to make an objection, but a significant gesturefrom the Sergeant restrained him in time.

  Whereupon Rollo addressed himself to the others, setting clearly beforethem the gravity of the situation.

  John Mortimer shook his head gravely. He could not approve.

  "How often has my father told me that the first loss is the least! Thisall comes of trying to make up my disappointment about the Abbot'sPriorato!"

  Etienne shrugged his shoulders and philosophically quoted a Gasconproverb to the effect that who buys the flock must take the black sheepalso.

  El Sarria simply recollected that his gun and pistols were in goodorder, and waited for orders.

  The conference therefore resolved itself into a trio ofconsultants--Rollo because he was the leader, Sergeant Cardono becausehe knew the country, and Concha--because she was Concha!

  They were within an hour or two's rapid march of La Granja over a passin the Guadarrama. The sergeant volunteered to lead them down into thegardens in that time. He knew a path often travelled by smugglers ontheir way to Segovia.

  "It is clear that if we are to carry away the Queen-Regent and herdaughter, we must forestall the gipsies," said Rollo.

  Concha clasped her hands pitifully.

  "Ah, the poor young Queen!" she cried. "Praise to the saints that I wasnot born a princess! It goes to my heart to make her a prisoner!"

  The Sergeant uttered a guttural grunt which intimated that in hisopinion the influence of the petticoat on the career of a soldier mightbe over-done. Otherwise he maintained his gravity, speaking only when hewas directly appealed to and giving his judgment with due submission tohis superiors.

  Finally it was judged that they should make a night march over themountains, find some suitable place to lie up in during the day, and inthe morning send in La Giralda and the Sergeant to San Ildefonso in theguise of fagot sellers to find out if the gipsy boy of Baza had spokenthe truth.

  * * * * *

  San Ildefonso and La Granja are two of the most strangely situatedplaces in Spain. A high and generally snow-clad Sierra divides them fromMadrid and the south. The palace is one of the most high-lying uponearth, having originally been one of the mountain granges of the monksof Segovia to which a king of Spain took a fancy, and, what is moreremarkable, for which he was willing to pay good money.

  Upon the site a palace has been erected, a miniature Versailles,infinitely more charming than the original, with walks, fountains,waterfalls all fed by the cold snow water of the Guadarrama, and fannedby the pure airs of the mountains. This Grange has been for centuries afavourite resort of the Court of Spain, and specially during these lastyears of the Regent Cristina, who, when tired with the precision andetiquette of the Court of Madrid, retired hither that she might do asshe pleased for at least two or three months of the year.

  Generally the great park-gates stood hospitably open, and the littletown of San Ildefonso, with its lodgings and hostels, was at this seasoncrowded with courtiers and hangers-on of the court. Guards circulatedhere and there, or clattered after the Queen-Regent as she drove out onthe magnificent King's highway which stretched upwards over theGuadarrama towards Madrid, or whirled down towards Segovia and theplains of Old Castile. Bugles were never long silent in _plaza_ orbarrack yard. Drums beat, fifes shrilled, and there was a continuoustrampling of horses as this ambassador or that was escorted to thepresence of Queen Cristina, widow of Fernando VII., mother of Isabel theSecond, and Regent of Spain.

  A word of historical introduction is here necessary, and it shall be buta word. For nearly a quarter of a century Fernando, since he had beenrestored to a forfeited throne by British bayonets, had acted on theancient Bourbon principle of learning nothing and forgetting nothing.His tyrannies became ever more tyrannical, his exactions more shameless,his indolent arrogance more oppressive. Twice he had to invoke the aidof foreign troops, and once indeed a French army marched from one end ofSpain to the other.

  But with the coming of his third wife, young Maria Cristina of Naples,all this was changed. Under her influence Fernando promptly became meekand uxorious. Then he revoked the ordinance of a former King whichordained that no woman should reign in Spain. He recalled hisrevocation, and again promulgated it according as his hope of offspringwaxed or waned.

  Finally a daughter was born to the ill-mated pair, and Don Carlos, theKing's brother and former heir-apparent, left the country. Immediatelyupon the King's death civil war divided the state. The stricterlegitimists who stood for Don Carlos included the church generally andthe religious orders. To these were joined the northern parts of Navarraand the Basque countries whose privileges had been threatened, togetherwith large districts of the ever-turbulent provinces of Aragon andCatalunia.

  Round the Queen-Regent and her little daughter collected all the liberalopinion of the peninsula, most of the foreign sympathy, the influence ofthe great towns and sea-ports, of the capital and the governmentofficials, the regular army and police with their officers--indeed allthe organised and stated machinery of government.

  But up to the time of our history these advantages had been to someextent neutralised by the ill-success of the governmental generalshipand by the brilliant successes of two great Carlist leaders--TomasZumala
carregui and Ramon Cabrera.

  These men perfectly understood the conditions of warfare among theirnative mountains, and had inflicted defeat upon defeat on every Cristinogeneral sent against them.

  But a cloud had of late overspread the fair prospects of the party.Their great general, Tomas Zumalacarregui, had been killed by a cannonball at the siege of Bilbao, and Cabrera, though unsurpassed as aguerrilla leader, had not the swift Napoleonic judgment and breadth ofview of his predecessor. Add to this that a new premier, Mendizabal, anda new general, Espartero, were directing operations from Madrid. Theformer, already half English, had begun to carry out his great scheme offilling the pockets of the civil and military authorities by conveyingto the government all the property belonging to the religious ordersthroughout Spain, who, like our friend the Abbot of Montblanch, hadresolutely and universally espoused the cause of Don Carlos.

  It was an early rumour of this intention which had so stirred theresentment of Don Baltasar Varela, and caused him to look about for someinstrument of vengeance to prevent the accomplishment of the designs of"that _burro_ of the English Stock Exchange," as his enemies freelynamed Mendizabal.

  But Cristina of Naples was a typical woman of the Latin races, and,however strongly she might be determined to establish her daughter onthe throne of Spain, she was also a good Catholic, and any oppression ofHoly Church was abhorrent to her nature.

  Upon this probability, which amounted to certainty in his mind, theAbbot of Montblanch resolved to proceed.

  Moreover, it was an open secret that a few months after the death of herhusband Fernando, Cristina had married Munoz, one of the handsomestofficers of her bodyguard. For this and other Bourbon delinquencies,conceived in the good old Neapolitan manner, the Spaniards generally hadthe greatest respect--not even being scandalized when the Queen createdher new partner Duke of Rianzares, or when, in her _role_ of honorarycolonel of dragoons, she appeared in a uniform of blue and white,because these were the colours of the "Immaculate Conception."

  But enough has been said to indicate the nature of the adventure whichour hero had before him, when after a toilsome march the party halted inthe grey of the dawn in a tiny dell among the wild mountains ofGuadarrama.

  The air was still bleak and cold, though luckily there was no wind.Concha, the child of the south, shivered a little as Rollo aided her todismount, and this must be the young man's excuse for taking his bluemilitary cloak from its coil across his saddle-bow, and wrapping itcarefully and tenderly about her.

  Concha raised her eyes once to his as he fastened its chain-catchbeneath her chin, and Rollo, though the starlight dimmed the brillianceof the glance, felt more than repaid. In the background Etienne smiledbitterly. The damsel of the green lattice being now left far behind atSarria, he would have had no scruples about returning to his allegianceto Concha. But the chill indifference with which his advances werereceived, joined to something softer and more appealing in her eyes whenshe looked at Rollo, warned the much-experienced youth that he hadbetter for the future confine his gallantries to the most common andordinary offices of courtesy.

  Yet it was certainly a restraint upon the young Frenchman, who, almostfrom the day he had been rid of his Jesuit tutor, had made it a maxim tomake love to the prettiest girl of any company in which he happened tofind himself.

  When, therefore, he found himself reduced to a choice between aninaccessible Concha and La Giralda, riding astride in her leathernleg-gear and sack-like smock, the youth bethought himself of hisreligious duties which he had latterly somewhat neglected; and, beingdebarred from earthly love by Concha's insensibility and La Giralda'sineligibility, it did not cost him a great effort to become for thenonce the same Brother Hilario who had left the monastery of Montblanch.

  So, much to the astonishment of John Mortimer, who moved a littlefarther from him, as being a kind of second cousin of the scarlet womanof the Seven Hills, Etienne pulled out his rosary and, falling on hisknees, betook him to his prayers with vigour and a single mind.

  Sergeant Cardono had long ago abandoned all distinctive marks of hisCarlist partisanship and military rank. Moreover, he had acquired, insome unexplained way, a leathern Montera cap, a short many-buttonedjacket, a flapped waistcoat of red plush, and leathern small-clothes ofthe same sort as those worn by La Giralda. Yet withal there remainedsomething very remarkable about him. His great height, his angularbuild, the grim humour of his mouth, the beady blackness of eyes whichtwinkled with a fleck of fire in each, as a star might be reflected in adeep well on a moonless night--these all gave him a certain distinctionin a country of brick-dusty men of solemn exterior and rare speech.

  Also there was something indescribably daring about the man, his air andcarriage. There was the swagger as of a famous _matador_ about the wayhe carried himself. He gave a cock to his plain countryman's cap whichbetokened one of a race at once quicker and more gay--more passionateand more dangerous than the grave and dignified inhabitants of OldCastile through whose country they were presently journeying.

  As Cardono and La Giralda departed out of the camp, the Sergeant drivingbefore him a donkey which he had picked up the night before wandering bythe wayside, El Sarria looked after them with a sardonic smile whichslowly melted from his face, leaving only the giant's usual placid goodnature apparent on the surface. The mere knowledge that Dolores wasalive and true to him seemed to have changed the hunted and desperateoutlaw almost beyond recognition.

  "Why do you smile, El Sarria?" said Concha, who stood near by, as theoutlaw slowly rolled and lighted a _cigarrillo_. "You do not love thisSergeant. You do not think he is a man to be trusted?"

  El Sarria shrugged his shoulders, and slowly exhaled the first longbreathing of smoke through his nostrils.

  "Nay," he said deliberately, "I have been both judged and misjudgedmyself, and it would ill become me in like manner to judge others. Butif that man is not of your country and my trade, Ramon Garcia has livedin vain. That is all."

  Concha nodded a little uncertainly.

  "Yes," she said slowly, "yes--of my country. I believe you. He has theAndalucian manner of wearing his clothes. If he were a girl he wouldknow how to tie a ribbon irregularly and how to place a bow-knot alittle to the side in the right place--things which only Andaluciansknow. But what in the world do you mean by 'of your profession'?"

  El Sarria smoked a while in silence, inhaling the blue cigarette smokeluxuriously, and causing it to issue from his nostrils white andmoisture-laden with his breath. Then he spoke.

  "I mean of my late profession," he explained, smiling on Concha; "itwill not do for a man on the high-road to a commission to commit himselfto the statement that he has practised as a bandit, or stopped a coachon the highway in the name of King Carlos Quinto that he might examinemore at his ease the governmental mail bags. But our Sergeant--well, Iam man-sworn and without honour if he hath not many a time takenblackmail without any such excuse!"

  Concha seemed to be considering deeply. Her pretty mouth was pursed uplike a ripe strawberry, and her brows were knitted so fiercely that adeep line divided the delicately arched eyebrows.

  "And to this I can add somewhat," she began presently; "they say (I knownot with what truth) that I have some left-handed gipsy blood in me--andif that man be not a Gitano--why, then I have never seen one. Besides,he speaks with La Giralda in a tongue which neither I nor Don Rollounderstand."

  "But I thought," said El Sarria, astonished for the first time, "thatboth you and Don Rollo understood the crabbed gipsy tongue! Have I notheard you speak it together?"

  "As it is commonly spoken--yes," she replied, "we have talked many atime for sport. But this which is spoken by the Sergeant and La Giraldais deep Romany, the like of which not half a dozen in Spain understand.It is the old-world speech of the Rom, before it became contaminated bythe jargon of fairs and the slang of the travelling horse-clipper."

  "Then," said El Sarria, slowly, "it comes to this--'tis you and not Iwho mistrust these two?"

 
"No, that I do not," cried Concha, emphatically; "I have tried LaGiralda for many years and at all times found her faithful, so that herbread be well buttered and a draught of good wine placed alongside it.But the Sergeant is a strong man and a secret man----"

  "Well worth the watching, then?" said El Sarria, looking her full in theface.

  Concha nodded.

  "Carlist or no, he works for his own hand," she said simply.

  "Shall ye mention the matter to Don Rollo?" asked El Sarria.

  "Nay--what good?" said Concha, quickly; "Don Rollo is brave as a bull ofJaen, but as rash. You and I will keep our eyes open and say nothing.Perhaps--perhaps we may have doubted the man somewhat over-hastily. Butas for me, I will answer for La Giralda."

  "For me," said El Sarria, sententiously, "I will answer for nowoman--save only Dolores Garcia!"

  Concha looked up quickly.

  "I also am a woman," she said, smiling.

  "And quite well able to answer for yourself, Senorita!" returned ElSarria, grimly.

  For the answers of Ramon Garcia were not at all after the pattern set byRollo the Scot.