Part 21

Two figures were wading through the water. They gained the nearer bank; they climbed up. When on dry land again they no longer crawled, but clambered as rapidly as might be up the steep ascent to the wall. Jack felt growing interest and excitement as they came up foot by foot, with no attempt at concealment. They were within four yards of the wall.

"Quien vive?" asked Don Casimir in clear low tones.

"Silencio!" said the first of the two figures, holding up a warning hand. "I am a friend; help me up."

The wall was some fourteen feet in height, and there was no apparent means of assisting the man below.

"If two of your men let down their muskets, I can catch hold of them," said the man in a whisper.

The hint was acted on. Don Casimir beckoned up two of his men, who laid themselves flat on the wall, lowering their muskets until the man below was able to grasp a barrel in each hand. Then they gradually drew up the weapons hand over hand, and the man with them. Don Casimir, with drawn sword, kept a sharp look-out to assure himself that the new-comers were alone, and that this strange incident was not part of a French plot to rush the wall.

In half a minute the spokesman was standing beside the little group.

"Do I see Don Casimir?" he said, looking keenly at the Spaniard, who had given a start of recognition as his features came into view above the parapet.

"Yes, Senor," replied Don Casimir with a bow. "This is a strange meeting."

"Strange indeed! Ah, what an hour it has been! I thought we should never have got through. Turn where we would, the French seemed to have sentries everywhere."

"Except yonder, Don Miguel," said Jack quietly, coming a little more distinctly into view.

Miguel made a quick turn at the sound of his voice, and with a scarcely perceptible pause said:

"Ah! my dear young friend, who would have thought of seeing you here? What a pleasant meeting! Yes, as you say, except yonder. But, as it happens, the sentry yonder is now keeping guard in another world." He tapped the hilt of his sword significantly. "We were not in the mood to brook delay, and he was--well, one Frenchman the less."

"All the same, they have replaced him pretty soon," remarked Jack dryly, "unless that is his ghost."

He pointed, as he spoke, to the form of a sentry leaning on his musket at the spot that had been described to him by Don Casimir as the customary post.

"It is strange," replied Miguel musingly; "one might have expected a commotion--when they found the body. But, yes--no doubt they hush these things up. It would reflect on their discipline."

Don Casimir, who had been looking from one to the other in some astonishment, here interposed.

"But--do I understand, Don Miguel, that you have come through the French lines?"

"Why, certainly, my friend; how else should I be here? We are from Seville, from the Supreme Junta, with despatches. We have ridden post-haste four hundred and fifty miles in six days, as my friend here must know, and by a miracle have succeeded in eluding the wolves yonder. But that reminds me--I should lose no time in delivering my despatches to the captain-general. I suppose he is still in the Aljafferia? How goes it in Saragossa? I fear you have been hard pressed."

"Yes, indeed," replied Don Casimir. "But the pack of wolves outside is being thinned. Every yard costs a man."

"Ah! I shall have much to hear," said Miguel, with a meaning look at Jack; "and on my side I have not a little to tell. Adios, Senores!"

With a low bow he turned away, followed by his companion, whom Jack had at once recognized, when he gained the summit of the wall, as the one-eyed servitor of evil memory. There was no look of recognition in the man's fixed stare as he left the group a few paces behind his master. Jack, however, was amused to note the attitude of Pepito, who stood fingering his little knife with an air of tragedy worthy of Mr. Kean himself.

"It was a daring feat," said Don Casimir, looking into the moonlit distance as if gauging the difficulties that must have beset any attempt to approach Saragossa from that side. "Indeed, except yourself, I believe no one has got in for at least three weeks past. But we have always known Don Miguel as a match for any Frenchman. He gave many proofs of astuteness during the first siege. He is not easy to beat when readiness and resourcefulness are needed. It is strange," he added after an interval, during which his eye rested on the figure of the French sentry, "very strange. I could have sworn it is the same man--the man I missed an hour ago. But, of course, it cannot be."

"The moonlight may be deceptive," suggested Jack; but as he left the spot to return to his quarters he looked thoughtful.

*CHAPTER XXII*

*Juanita*

The Brave Antonio--A Survey--Towards the Coso--A Deed of Daring--The Senorita Receives--Old Friends--Mig Prig--Don Fernan--An Ambush--Jose Pinzon--The Call of Duty

Next morning, as soon as it was light, Jack started for a round of his district. The Casa Alvarez was a large square house, standing in the middle of a small plaza of its own. Exactly opposite its front, which faced towards Santa Engracia, there were two smaller houses, known as the Casas Vega and Tobar, the backs of which were separated from each other by a narrow lane leading towards the convent. Each of these houses was the last of a block of contiguous buildings, and they were, in fact, the only houses in their blocks which were still intact, the rest being more or less in ruins. The front of the Casa Tobar looked into a street running parallel with the lane and entering the Plaza Alvarez on the side nearest the ramparts. On the other side of the street ran a row of houses parallel to the Casa Tobar block. These also were mainly in ruins. The house exactly opposite the Casa Tobar was known as the Casa Vallejo, and this, while at present unharmed, was the immediate object of the French attack. Thus in the vicinity of the Casa Alvarez there were three parallel blocks of buildings along which the French were working simultaneously. Two of the blocks were terminated by the Plaza Alvarez, and the last house in each was in a line with the Casa Vallejo. The Casa Vallejo terrace was separated by a lane from the ramparts, for the defence of which Jack was not responsible.

The features of the locality were pointed out to him by a young Spanish lawyer, Don Cristobal Somiedo, who had taken a voluntary part in the struggle, and had acted as lieutenant to Jack's predecessor, Don Hernando de Solas. It was he, toe, who introduced Jack to his little corps. It consisted of about 380 men, of whom no more than 250 could be regarded as really fit for duty, and even of these, as they paraded before him, many looked as though they should be in hospital wards. The majority of them were regulars, but nearly 100 were guerrilleros driven into the city, before the actual investment began, by the advance of the French. Among the rest were once well-to-do shopkeepers, whose businesses had been ruined, and whose houses and shops had in many cases been destroyed by the French bombs or mines. They were fighting side by side with artisans from the lower quarters of the city, and peasants from the country-side, all distinctions of class and occupation being forgotten in the common peril. Regulars and irregulars all bore marks of the toils and dangers of their strenuous life--some in their tattered garments, others in ghastly wounds, others in their haggard cheeks and fever-lit eyes. But only one spirit animated them all: the determination to spend their last energies in the defence of the city.

Passing down their ranks, Jack was struck by one face that seemed familiar to him, and he stopped before the man, endeavouring to recall the circumstances in which he had seen him.

"Buenos dias, Senor," said the man, a stout thick-set fellow wearing a heavy skin cloak. He smiled somewhat sheepishly as he saluted his new commandant.

The tone of voice brought back to Jack's memory the roadside encounter with a man on the way to Medina, and the subsequent meeting in the inn.

"The brave Antonio, is it not?" he said with a smile.

"Si, Senor," replied the man.

"I am glad to see you engaged in such excellent work."

Passing on, Jack was introduced by Don Cristobal to Pablo Quintanar, the chief of the guerrilleros, and learnt that the man, though subordinate to the commander of the district, expected a certain amount of consideration as head of an independent party of peasant-warriors. Jack was not taken with the man's appearance. He had a sinister look and shifty eyes, and replied in curt ungenial tones to the few words addressed to him.

"Antonio, the man you spoke to just now," added Don Cristobal, "is second in command of the guerrilleros, and a much better man, in my opinion, than the chief. You appear to know him, Senor?"

"I met him once," was Jack's brief reply.

Having made acquaintance with his corps, and finding that the French had not yet commenced their morning movements, Jack proceeded to complete his survey of the position. Beyond the River Huerba he could now clearly see the long rows of French trenches, the parallels cut here and there by a series of zigzags constructed with incredible labour to secure the besiegers' approach to the walls. The French had actually made good their position on the near side of the river, immediately beneath the wall, towards Santa Engracia, but they had hitherto forborne to press their advantage, the height of the bank rendering it difficult for them to storm the ramparts in that quarter, and at the same time preventing them from blowing them up by mines.

It was clear that no French attack was to be expected from the Porta Quemada side of his district, for in order to reach him the enemy would have to push their way through some hundreds of yards of streets held by Don Casimir, who had proved himself a very capable leader. But on the Santa Engracia side he was exposed to what was plainly the enemy's principal attack. Their aim was obviously to reach the Coso, and to connect the wedge they were driving into the city in this quarter with the wedge already inserted at San Agustin.

They had made considerable progress since the capture of the Santa Engracia convent four days before. They treated each block of houses as a miniature fortress. There was no attempt to carry it by storm until the defences had been attacked by sap and mine. As soon as a house was blown up they rushed in and occupied the ruins, where they entrenched themselves with bales of wool, gabions, and sacks of earth, and began to drive mines under the next block.

Anxious to see for himself something of their method, Jack entered a house next to one recently blown up, and, ascending to the top story, peeped through a loop-hole pierced in the party wall. The roof of the next house had fallen in. Some charred beams were still smouldering. Here and there a tongue of flame licked the debris, and as the breeze blew in fitful gusts, dense clouds of smoke rose into the air.

"They don't do their work very thoroughly," said Jack to Don Cristobal. "The shell of the house is still standing. A good explosion would have shattered the whole place."

"They have changed their ways, Senor," replied the lieutenant. "At first they used big charges and completely destroyed the houses; but they found that when the ruins cooled, and they occupied the space, they had no shelter from our fire. Now they use smaller charges and throw down only the wall next to them, leaving the other walls and the roof uninjured. The roof next door was not brought down by the explosion, but by our own men setting fire to the shell."

"A counter-stroke, eh? Obviously two can play at their game. Well, it will be at least a couple of days, I should think, before the ruins are cool enough for the French to occupy the ground. Probably they are busy running a mine towards us."

A loud explosion at this moment shocked the air. Looking out of the window, across the barricaded streets, Jack saw a column of smoke pouring from a house to his left, at the corner of another block of buildings not in his quarter.

"One house nearer the Coso," he said. "Well, Don Cristobal, we must do what we can to check their progress in our direction. Our men are no doubt counter-mining."

"Not very successfully, I am afraid. We have no trained sappers and miners; only a scratch battalion formed from the workmen employed on the great canal of Aragon, a mile to the south, and they haven't been accustomed to work underground."

"We must give them some practice, then," said Jack as they left the house together.

Returning to the Casa Alvarez, which he had fixed on as his permanent head-quarters, Jack learnt that there had as yet been no sign of a French attack upon his district. The houses and barricades were well manned by the Spaniards. It was clear that their vigorous opposition had deterred the French from attempting an assault in force until they had made further progress with their mines. In pursuance of an idea that had occurred to him, Jack sent for the foreman of the canal labourers and took him at once into a small cabinet, where they remained closeted for more than two hours. At the end of that time the workman, carrying a sheet of paper, left the house, collected a gang of the labourers, and brought them, armed with various implements, into the Casa Alvarez, where he descended with them into the cellars.

Meanwhile Jack, leaving Don Cristobal in command, made his way to the Aljafferia Castle to see Palafox. His interview with the general was brief. He reported that he had taken over command of his district, rapidly surveyed it, and inspected his men. He mentioned what he had learnt of the recent operations of the French, and was informed by Palafox that he might regard himself as having a free hand in preparing measures of defence, though he would be expected to make a daily report to head-quarters. The business of the interview being concluded, Palafox said:

"You will be interested to hear that last night Don Miguel Priego--he is connected, I believe, with your father's house--got through the French lines by a stroke of matchless daring, bringing me despatches from the Supreme Junta. Their view of my country's prospects is brighter than Mr. Frere's; and Don Miguel tells me that, from information he gained during his wonderful journey across Spain, we may expect the siege to be raised within a week."

"I am glad to hear it, Senor Capitan," said Jack gravely. Then, abruptly changing the subject, he continued: "Can you tell me where I should be likely to find Padre Consolacion?"

"At the Franciscan convent, no doubt; you will pass it on the way back to your district. The padre is doing grand work."

Jack thanked the general and took his leave. He was anxious to find Padre Consolacion and discover from him the whereabouts of Juanita Alvarez. As he walked along the Coso towards the Franciscan convent he came to the house where he had left the young Senorita whose acquaintance he had made on his first entrance to the town, and remembering the trinkets of hers he had in his pocket, he decided to call and leave them with her, and at the same time enquire after her welfare and the health of the fragile old lady whom they had rescued. Rapping at the door, he was in a minute confronted by a pleasant-looking old duenna, who, on learning the object of his call, at once asked him in.

"The Senorita said that if you called you were to be shown up, Senor. Follow me."

There was nothing unusual in this; in Spain a message is always delivered in person, be the messenger high or low. Jack followed the old woman into a vast salon, darkened by the closing of the shutters except at a small window at the back.

"The Senora is ill; the Senorita receives," said his guide, and went out, closing the door.

In a chair sat the old lady, looking vacantly around the room, mumbling her lips and fingering the ends of her lace mantilla. She paid no attention to the visitor, but the younger lady rose and came forward a few steps, then stood in an attitude of mingled enquiry and expectancy.

"You will pardon me, Senorita; I could not help calling to enquire--I am not sure of your name--"

"I don't think we mentioned it, Senor. And that reminds me of my own neglect--my unpardonable neglect. I should certainly have asked the name of our--deliverer."

At this word Jack looked uncomfortable. His fluency in Spanish seemed for the moment to have utterly deserted him.

"Oh," he exclaimed at a rush, "my name is Lumsden--Jack Lumsden."

"Ah! an English name, is it not? Then you are not a Spaniard. And yet you speak--just like one of ourselves."

Jack's reply was half-apologetic.

"Oh, well, I had a good deal of practice as a child. I used to live in Spain."

"And now?"

"Now--I'm in the army--the English army--lieutenant in the 95th regiment."

"Lieutenant?--May I congratulate you?"

"Congratulate me!" repeated Jack in some surprise.

"Yes; is it not permitted? Among us it is quite the custom to congratulate a friend on his promotion."

"Certainly, Senorita--" began Jack, wondering still more; but before he could collect himself the girl continued, with a twinkle of amusement in her eyes:

"Surely it is only the other day that you were an ensign. Can you have forgotten that too? You were not always so forgetful. I fear--"

"True, Senorita, I was a kind of ensign, though in the 95th we've no colours to carry. But--"

"I fear," she continued, after a scarcely perceptible pause, "--yes, that you are--well, not quite so nice as you used to be."

Her eyes were dancing with merriment, and in a flash Jack recalled the time, six years ago, when a little maid with just such eyes had been his occasional playmate in Barcelona. True, there was little other resemblance; she had been an elf-like girl, with tangled hair, thin cheeks, and the shy manner of a child unused to the society of children. Before him now stood a tall girl with a dignity and self-possession beyond her years, her rounded cheeks and bright eyes showing that the trials of the siege had as yet touched her but lightly.

"Juanita!" exclaimed Jack, almost below his breath. "Well, of all the extraordinary--of all the stupid--"

Juanita laughed outright--the old rippling laugh that Jack now remembered well.

"I hope, Senor Lumsden, you are not referring to me," she said.

"You must think me an ass," he replied, half-amused, half-nettled. "But," he added, seeing a loophole, "it isn't my fault. It's you who have changed, not I. And I came to Saragossa on purpose to see you. To think it was you all the time!"

"Indeed we thank you. I don't know what we should have done without you," said Juanita more seriously. "We could never have got away. Don't think me ungrateful; I knew you at once; but it was all so terrible, and I saw you didn't know me. And then, when all was over, I ought to have explained, but I--well--"

"Didn't," said Jack with a smile. "I see you haven't changed so much after all. The same Juanita, mischievous as ever."

"I'm afraid not, Jack. I'm years older than I was a few months ago. We were happy then; now everything is different."

The tears stood in her eyes.

"Yes," said Jack, "I had heard; that is why I came to see you."

They were silent; then Juanita, with a brave effort to smile, said:

"Now, Jack, tell me all about yourself."

In a few words Jack gave an account of what had happened to him since his arrival in Spain, Juanita listening with an interest and excitement that every now and then found expression in eager questions.

"But now," said Jack in conclusion, "it's your turn. I have many things to ask. Do you know, I met an old friend not long ago, who told me something about you."

"Oh! Who was that, and what was it?"

"Well, I called him an old friend--for your sake. It was Miguel Priego."

"Him!" Her shrug was expressive. "Why do you say for my sake?"

"Well, considering what he told me--"

"What did he say? Don't be mysterious."

"He said--that you were about to be married."

"Married! Good gracious! To whom?"

"To him!"

"To Mig Prig?"

Her scornful laugh was wholly convincing, and Jack could not help joining heartily in her merriment when he heard once again his boyish nickname for their common tyrant.

"That's all right, then," he said.

"But surely you didn't believe it?" added Juanita, with a touch of indignation.

"Well, time works strange changes, you know."

"Possibly," said Juanita, appreciating the retort; "but not so strange as that. Marry _him_!"

Her gesture was imperial in its disdain.

"Another of Miguel's lies!" said Jack. "But," he added thoughtfully, "there was usually a motive behind them. What can it be this time? He gave me so many details; said it had all been arranged between your father and Don Esteban; he was to have the business; and all the rest of it."

"Ridiculous! My father would have been the very last to think of such a thing. He distrusted him--with good cause."

And then she proceeded to give Jack a narrative from which, as the tale was unfolded, he gained more than an inkling of Don Miguel's designs.

More than two years before, when Napoleon formed his alliance with Spain, Don Fernan Alvarez, a shrewd observer of events, had suspected that the ostensible object of despoiling Portugal was only a ruse by which the emperor intended to make himself master of the whole peninsula. Foreseeing a period of confusion and anarchy, the old merchant resolved to take time by the forelock and set his house in order. He went to Barcelona, the headquarters of the business, and proceeded to realize his stock as far as possible, with the intention of converting it into bullion or valuables which could be laid aside as a provision for his own declining years and his daughter's future. On going into the accounts of the firm he found that Don Esteban Priego's books showed large deficiencies, threatening to more than cover his interest, not a great one, in the business. When the matter was brought to light, Don Esteban was much distressed. He had been for some time in failing health, and had left the management of his branch almost entirely in the hands of his son Miguel, who, however, when brought to book by his father's partner, indignantly protested against the implied charge of dishonesty, and declared that if there was anything wrong he at any rate was absolutely clean-handed. There was no time to investigate the matter fully. After a stormy interview Don Fernan left the office in charge of a trusted clerk, and, taking with him the large sum of money he had realized, together with the unsatisfactory books, set out for Saragossa a few days before Barcelona was seized by the French.

Owing to the disturbed state of the country he thought it wise to travel with an escort of some score of well-armed men, half of them his own retainers, half alguazils. From some undefined motive of prudence he kept his departure secret until the last moment. But, despite this precaution, the party was ambushed at dusk, at a lonely spot on the hills within two marches of Saragossa, by a horde of brigands. The escort made a stout resistance, but being taken entirely at a disadvantage by superior numbers they were overpowered. Don Fernan himself was severely wounded in the first moment of attack; several of his men were killed or disabled; and the rest, seeing their case hopeless, made their escape.