Part 19

The soldiers, completely taken in, lowered their weapons, and were obviously interested in the smart capture.

"Who is he?" asked one, with a grin.

"He broke from the train, the brute," answered Cabrera, "and gave us all the trouble. I wish you'd tell the chief we've taken him on, and that he's safe in the lock-up. Come on, Garcia, or the beast may be up to some of his tricks again. Let's get him under lock and key;" and, shoving me forward, they pushed by the soldiers, who drew aside and wished them luck for this good day's work.

"Thank the Virgin, we hadn't to break their heads with their own guns," growled Cabrera; and the moment we were out of sight of the men we set off running again at full speed, and did not stop until we reached the house where we were to find horses. This was an inn, and both my companions were well known to the old man who came out to meet them. A white-haired, exceptionally dark-skinned, and most picturesque-looking old fellow, who greeted the two quietly, but cordially, and looked suspiciously at me.

"Who's this?" he asked.

"The most honoured guest who ever crossed your threshold, Tomaso," answered Cabrera. "Take off your hat to him; and if his name were whispered in your ear, you'd be ready to bow your head to his boots. We must have three horses instantly. The dogs are close on our heels."

The old fellow raised his hat and bowed his head, and the long white locks shone in the mellow light of the now dying sun. To act the part which Cabrera had thus assigned to me, I returned the bow, and in a quick, imperious tone, said:

"The horses, my good Tomaso, the horses, with all the dispatch you can show. Even minutes may spell danger."

"Your lordship can depend upon me," he returned, deferentially, and, turning, gave a sharp order to a groom who stood near. "You will take wine while you wait. It will be but a minute."

We entered the house, and food and wine being laid out in readiness, we ate and drank hastily; and the moment the horses were at the door I paid him liberally, and we mounted.

"Is the road clear, Tomaso?" asked Cabrera.

"Yes, senor, I believe so. Juan and Andreas rode forward with the senorita some four hours ago. I instructed them to ride with their eyes open, and if they saw anything suspicious during the first half-score of miles, one of them is to hide with the senorita and the other return and warn you. After that you will be safe, and among our own people. I wish you all God-speed on the journey, and glorious success at the end of it. If there is any trouble, Andreas or Juan will show you the mountain paths."

"The senorita?" I asked, pricking up my ears at his words.

"Aye, the blessings of the Holy Virgin rest ever on her lovely face--the Senorita Castelar," and he bared his old head again, with a look of deep enthusiasm on his rugged features.

I waited for no more.

"Forward, gentlemen," I cried. "Great work lies ahead of us."

It was full time we started. We had paused but a few minutes at the inn, but already in the distance behind us signs of commotion in the direction of the station were to be discerned.

Only one thought found place in my mind, however. It was not for the danger we had escaped, nor the work that lay ahead, nor the risk inseparable from this close companionship with the two Carlists, of whose desperate character I had had full evidence. Sarita was but four hours ahead of me, and we should meet at latest in Daroca.

*CHAPTER XXIV*

*A CHECK*

We were all three well mounted, and we rattled our horses along at a good pace, quickening soon into a smart gallop, until we felt that the risks of pursuit from Rubio's men or the soldiery were over, and then we slackened and took matters more leisurely. We had five and twenty miles to cover, and a good deal of the road was rough and hilly enough to make us desirous to save our horses as much as possible.

But the slower pace gave the greater opportunity for conversation, and in this I knew there must be a certain amount of risk that something might be said which would rouse my companions' doubts of my sincerity. So far they had an absolute conviction that I was heart and soul with them in the cause, that I was a very Carlist of Carlists, and one to whom they owed that kind of rough-and-ready obedience which a recognised leader might rightly demand.

So long as we were engaged together in escaping from the police there was little chance of their making any compromising discoveries about me; but every mile that carried us nearer to Daroca was also bringing me face to face with a very different position, in which a hundred pitfalls would threaten me with discovery in every direction. There were a thousand things I should be expected to know, and any number of people whom I ought to be able to recognise; and failure in any one of them might bring the glaring search-light of suspicion of treachery upon me. A mere hint that I was a spy would expose me instantly to the imminent peril of death.

These considerations made me thoughtful, as well they might, and I rode plunged in deep thought. But I could see no alternative except to leave everything to blind chance and just do what my wits might suggest as each crisis arose. Sarita was ahead, and, as I knew, in danger; and to Sarita I would go, let the peril be what it might, and come from either Government men or Carlists.

"Have you formed any plans, senor?" asked Cabrera, in his strong, deep voice, as we rode side by side. Garcia was riding some hundred yards ahead at my suggestion, to warn us of trouble should any threaten us, and we could only make out his form indistinctly in the evening gloom.

"How can we plan till we know what is happening with our friends? If all is well, we must carry on the fight; if all ill, we can only scatter and hide. A child can plan so far, and the wisest of us no farther. I am very anxious."

"You are right. Things have gone badly. Instead of the simultaneous risings, the Government have got their hands in first, and have dealt us a heavy blow," he answered, rather dismally.

"How came you to let the young Pretender escape? I saw you carry him off, with rare cleverness; and when you drove away with him I believed the day was won for Spain."

"In the devil's name I don't know how it was done," he answered, with genuine feeling. "For my part, I am shamed. I know only that once, when the carriage stopped, I saw a horseman and a riderless horse closing in on us, and got down to learn the cause, fearing trouble. It must have been the devil himself, I think, in the flesh, and hell organised a miracle to save the Pretender. The horseman rode me down--me, Juan Cabrera--and stretched me senseless on the road before I had a thought of his intention, and when I came to, the thing had happened. How many men there were with him, I know not--Garcia, who came running up at the close, swears that there was never more than one--but it can't be true. If ever we meet--and I should know him again in twenty thousand men--and there is an ounce of strength left in my arm, I'll use it to plunge a knife into the heart of the man who dealt that blow at me and Spain."

"Good. You were ever a man prompt to action, Cabrera; and you must have been bewitched." This touched his superstition, however.

"The Holy Saints forefend," he said, hurriedly, crossing himself. "But I believe it truth that he was no man, but the devil in the shape of a man. And, mark you, senor," he cried, eagerly, "what else could it be but wizards' work? Didn't Correja's horse fall and stun him at the very moment of all others when this could have happened? Aye, and what but the devil could send Garcia's horse galloping off at the same moment? But I'll never cease to search for him, and if I don't find him on earth I'll wait till I get to purgatory, and bribe the devil with gift of my soul to point him out to me. The curse of all hell upon him!" And then, somewhat incongruously, he crossed himself again, as though to give additional power to his curse.

"Aye, the Fates have been against us," said I: and not caring to push the subject further, and feeling profoundly thankful that his power to recognise me had fallen so far short of his most vindictive desire, I urged my horse to a canter, and we rode on in silence. But his talk made me feel how peril was here always close at my very elbow.

Presently the moon rose, and the brilliant, streaming light flooded the whole landscape until it was as bright as day. The road was fast getting rougher and more hilly; the country wilder and more rugged; and the mountains lay to our left, the peaks towering up to great heights, majestic and grand in the bathing moonlight. The air was solemnly still; only the sounds of our horses' feet, the creaking of the saddle leather, and the musical jingle jangle of the bits breaking the silence.

"We have covered many more than old Tomaso's ten miles, and should be safe," I said once, as we were walking our horses up one of the steep, short hills which now checked our progress constantly; but the words were scarcely out of my lips when Cabrera laid his hand on my bridle arm and checked his horse.

"Halt, senor. I hear Garcia coming back;" and a moment later his figure and that of another horseman were silhouetted on the top of the hill, and they came down to us at a sharp trot.

"There is danger ahead, senor," cried Garcia, as he rode up. "Andreas has come back to meet and warn us. The soldiers are out in some force between here and Daroca. Young Juan has taken the senorita to a hiding-place until the road is clearer, and Andreas here will guide us by another way."

"Tell me all you know, Andreas," I said to the lad, a sharp, bright-looking fellow of about eighteen or twenty.

"All went well till we were some five miles from Daroca, senor. I was keeping to the main road, not expecting any interruption, when I heard from a friend, who had driven out from the town, that he had passed a number of mounted soldiers, on patrol work, and he believed that all the ways into the town were guarded."

"Did you yourself see any soldiers?"

"Not then, but soon afterwards, senor. I climbed a tree on one of the hillsides, and could make out several parties of them. Perhaps eight or ten soldiers, or a dozen may be, in each."

"Were any riding this way, or were they merely stationary?"

"Riding this way, senor, not fast, just patrol pace; and I saw them stop one or two peasant folk and question them."

"And then?"

"I saw I could not bring the senorita into the town, senor, and thought the best thing to do was to take her to a safe hiding-place and then ride back, as my grandfather told me."

The news set me thinking fast. It was ugly enough from the Carlist point of view, but it promised to prove a perfect Godsend to me. I should catch Sarita before she could get to Daroca and join the rest of her Carlist friends.

"Where is the hiding-place?" I asked next.

"It lies about a league from the main road, senor. The house of the farmer Calvarro; you will know him, senors," he said to my companions, who nodded.

"Very shrewdly chosen," declared Cabrera, readily.

"And very cleverly acted altogether, my lad," I added. "Can you bring us by a safe path to the house, and afterwards guide us into the town?"

"I can bring you to the house, senor; but I doubt getting into Daroca. That depends upon the soldiers' vigilance. I can try."

"Forward, then," I cried, eager to get to Sarita.

"It is a very difficult path--a mere mountain track in places--and we must go cautiously and slowly; but it is the only one," said the lad. He trotted back to the foot of the hill, where he put his horse at a low gate, and led us at a smart gallop--he could ride like a centaur, and his horse seemed as fearless as he was--across two or three fields, and away up the hill by the side of some vineyards; behind a wood, where the shadows were as dark as night, and the path absolutely indistinguishable.

"This is ominous news, Cabrera," I said, when the pace slackened.

"About the worst it could be," he answered, gloomily.

"I read it that Rubio has set the telegraph to work, having learnt, or guessed, that we were making for Daroca. And this is the reception prepared for us."

"True; but what are all these soldiers doing round Daroca? It means more than you fear, senor. They are going to strike, and strike hard at our very heart. If the headquarters in Daroca are seized, what hope is there for the cause?"

"We cannot tell yet. It may not be so bad as that. The cause is the cause of righteousness, and must succeed. We must wait."

"Wait, aye, it is always wait, till one's stomach sickens and pines on the diet," he cried, bitterly. "We must get into Daroca before the night's many hours older, let the soldiers swarm where they please."

"My intention is this--to go to this Calvarro's house, join the senorita, and either make a dash for the town with her, or send in on the chance of help getting out to us."

"One plan is as good as another, I fear. The Fates are fighting against us, senor; and when that's so, the best is no better than the worst, and the worst no worse than the best," he replied, growing more and more despondent as matters grew more threatening. That is ever the way with fatalists.

"These Fates have a human shape and a name well known in Spain, Cabrera--the name of Sebastian Quesada. It is his brain, and not fate, that is engineering the destruction of the cause."

"Then why wasn't he dealt with? Are there no arms strong to strike, no blades sharp to pierce, no wit cunning to find the means, no courage ready to give life for life? By the Holy Virgin, are we all cowards? Had I had my way, the young Pretender had never escaped! This comes of woman's work and silly fears and sickly sentiment. What is his life, or Quesada's, or of any one of them, more than that of the meanest of us? My arm, aye, and my life, too, could have been had for the asking. As if you could drive the wild beast of revolution with a silken thread; with your senorita here, and your senorita there! And now, the force we were afraid to use is to be turned to crush us."

"Will railing at what hasn't been done help us to think of what we have to do?" I asked, sternly. "What sort of courage or wit is that which finds its tongue when the hour to act has passed? If those are your thoughts about the senorita, who has risked her liberty and her life to rush now into the thickest of the danger when peril is at its height, go back and save your skin. There is still time to fly; but don't plague us and pollute the air with your doleful cries."

"Good," cried Garcia, who had listened to us in silence. "That crack on your head, Cabrera, has knocked the wit out of you. What is it but the act of a jackass to bray in the face of danger?"

"By the God that made me, I am a fool and have fallen low to be the butt of your clumsy wit, Garcia, and, the Holy Saints help me, to deserve your gibes and have no answer. Senor, I beg your forgiveness; and if I grumble again, put a bullet in my head and I'll say it serves me right. The senorita, the Virgin bless her lovely face, shan't lack help while I can give it. But I'm the better for my growl."

We rode forward again then, the ground offering a little better going; and when we had to walk the horses next, I called the lad Andreas to my side and questioned him more closely as to what he had seen and heard of the doings in Daroca, and about our chance of getting into the town from the farm where he had left Sarita.

"I forgot to tell you, senor, that I hinted to Juan that if the senorita would let him leave her, he should try and make his way into Daroca--no one would suspect him--and find out how things were going there and return to Calvarro's with his report."

"You are a clever, farseeing lad;" and I gave him a liberal reward for his wit. "Now think, is there no way by which we could possibly steal into the town? It is most urgent."

"There is but one possible way, senor, and it is right on the other side of Daroca from Calvarro's. We should have to make a wide circuit over the shoulder of the hills to the north through the thick olive woods there. I know the route, but even on horseback it would take some hours to cover it."

"Still, at the worst it could be done?"

"Yes, at the worst, senor."

"And how long, think you, could anyone lie concealed at Calvarro's?"

"I can scarcely say, senor. It must depend upon how wide the soldiers push out their search parties, and how well those who guide them know the country. But they would have difficulty in finding anyone in Daroca to act as guide; and without a guide the soldiers themselves might pass and repass the place without suspicion."

"Even in daylight?"

"Yes, even in daylight, senor."

"And you think we shall find no soldiers between here and there?"

"I believe there is no chance of it--but Senor Cabrera knows the place and can answer that as well as I."

"Good, push on then with all possible haste," I said, and dropping back to Cabrera I told him that I had made a change in my plan.

"Andreas tells me it is still possible to get into and out of Daroca without being seen, and what I think should be done is this: Send one of the lads by the quickest way into the town to warn our friends and to prepare a party to come to us; and you, or perhaps better, both you and Garcia, go with the other lad to meet them by the longer way, and bring them to us at Calvarro's. We can make the place our headquarters for the time."

"I think you're forgetting one thing, senor," he replied, with a grim smile. "If there's a means of getting into Daroca, the senorita won't stop at Calvarro's, but will insist on going herself. Indeed, I shall be more than a little surprised if we find she hasn't gone before we reach Calvarro's at all."

Knowing Sarita as I did, I felt the truth of this.

"We will see," I said; and as our young guide again hurried us forward then I said no more. The way was more open for a mile or two now, and we rattled forward at a sharp trot in single file. Then came another steep climb up the shoulder of the mountain and down on the other side, both so steep that we had to dismount and lead our horses, and at the bottom I was told we were within a mile of our destination.

Instinctively then we rode in dead silence, keeping to cover for every possible yard of the way, Andreas leading some little distance ahead.

Suddenly we saw him halt, turn in the saddle, hold up a hand to warn us, and then slip from his horse and lead him right under the shadow of some olive trees. We followed his example, and a minute later he came back on foot.

"Soldiers, on the road down there," he whispered, pointing ahead of us. "We have to cross the road and must wait. You may leave your horse, senor, he is trained like the rest, and will stand for hours if need be. We can creep forward and watch them."

He and I went forward then, and he led me to a point from which, ourselves unseen, we could see the road below.

"How came they here?" I whispered, "so close to Calvarro's?"

"I don't understand it; but they are not on the direct road there; merely patrolling, I think, on chance."

"I can see five," I whispered; "how many do you make out?"

"There are seven horses, senor."

"By heaven! you're right. Two must be scouting on foot. And there go two more."

The party had halted, and, as I spoke, two of the men left the rest, and, clambering over a gate on the other side of the road, were soon out of sight among the shadows of a grove of trees. The rest dismounted then, and, holding their horses, lighted cigarettes and stood chatting together.

"Can you hear what they're saying, Andreas?"

"No, senor; but we ought to know where they're going. I can get close down to them, if you wish, and may be able to hear their plans."

"Yes, go, but for God's sake be careful; our lives or theirs may turn on what you do."

Without a word he slipped away from my side, and with the silence and adroitness of a trained Indian scout he vanished, leaving me a prey to deep anxiety.

I watched the soldiers in the road below in a fever of suspense for any sign that they suspected his presence; but they gave none. The voices reached me in an indistinguishable murmur, broken by an occasional laugh and an oath in a louder tone. Now and then the horses moved and the accoutrements rattled and jingled; and once or twice a match was struck as some one or other of the men lighted a fresh cigarette.

This suspense continued for several minutes, and presently two of the soldiers who had been away returned, and were greeted with eager questions by their comrades.

Then a new fear alarmed me: that scouts would be sent up to where we lay concealed; and a confused medley of thoughts of how we should act in such a case and of the possible consequences rushed into my head, increasing my anxiety and alarm a thousandfold.

It was the fear of neither capture nor death that stirred my pulses so keenly. We were strong enough, having the advantage of surprise, to more than cope with so small a party. But if the tussle came and any of the men were killed, as they were sure to be, the consequences to Sarita and myself would be incalculably compromising. If I was to have help from the Palace, I must be able to ask for it with clean hands; and if I were known to have taken part in a fight with the soldiery in which lives were lost, my hope of help would be gone.

Moreover, my own feeling was one of unutterable aversion from shedding blood, or sanctioning it to be shed. Whatever excuse the Carlists might have in their own minds for violence, I had none. I was not one of them, except by the accident of this association for Sarita's sake; and for me to raise my hand to take a man's life in such a case would be murder and nothing short of it.

Many thoughts of this kind beat themselves into my brain in the terrible minutes that followed the return of the two scouts, until I was tempted to go back to my companions and at all hazards order a retreat and find some other plan of getting to Calvarro's farm and to Sarita. Had Andreas been by my side at the moment, I should have done it, but without him we were powerless; and to leave him behind would have been an act of treachery and cowardice as well as folly.

Those minutes of suspense were wellnigh equal in intensity to a death agony.

*CHAPTER XXV*

*AT CALVARRO'S*

The tension of suspense was broken at length. I caught sight of the figures of the second couple of scouts on their return as they crossed a patch of moonlight at a little distance, and almost at the same moment a hand was laid on my shoulder, and the lad Andreas stood at my side. He came as silently as a shadow out of the darkness.

"We must fly, senor, there is danger," he whispered. "They will send out other scouts in this direction as soon as the last return. But I can trick them."

We hurried back to our companions, and Andreas, holding his horse's bridle, led the way. I told the other two to follow, and myself brought up the rear, glancing back now and again in great anxiety lest the soldiers should catch sight of us. But the lad knew his business, and a sharp turn up the hillside to the right brought us under the cover of a wood, and gave us an effective hiding-place.

We followed him in silence, and even the horses seemed to share a sense of the danger, so warily did they move. They were indeed, as Andreas had said, perfectly trained animals; and to that training we owed our safety that night.