Part 22

There was another pause, this time much longer, and then he seemed to force his agitation under control. And in the pause a thought flashed upon me. Sarita's solemn oath had meant Quesada's death-warrant as surely as though the warrant were in fact in existence and bore the sign manual of the King. He was a completely changed man when he next spoke with an altogether unnatural calm.

"Can I go now, Senor Carbonnell? I have work to do."

"And your men?"

"I shall withdraw them; the way is free to you. I would warn you to escape if you wish to go, for the soldiers are everywhere; and above all things avoid every Carlist haunt, for each of them is known. Sarita, we shall not meet again. Will you bid me good-bye?" and he went toward her as if expecting her to give him her hand; but not feeling quite sure of him, I stepped forward. Sarita said, in a cold hard tone:

"No. You are less than nothing to me, Colonel Livenza. I can have no kindly thought of, or for, a traitor like you. I hope we never shall meet again."

Believing what I did of his intention, and that if I was right, he was surely going to his death, I regretted her sternness.

"As you will. Some day, perhaps, you will think less harshly;" and without a word or a glance to me, he picked up his arms, and, while I unlocked the door, he sheathed his sword and thrust the revolver into the case he wore about his waist, and went out.

We heard him call to his men, and give them a sharp short command; the jingle of accoutrements as they mounted was followed by the sound of the horses' hoofs as they wheeled round and trotted away.

"What had we best do now, Ferdinand?" asked Sarita, when the sound had quite died away.

"You are convinced at last?"

"Don't," she cried, wincing in anguish. "I am so humiliated. To be set up for barter by these villains, and cheated and fooled. For the Holy Mother's sake don't let me think of it. Give me something to do. Take me somewhere, anywhere that I may try to forget my shame."

"By God's help that shall be to England, Sarita; and we will know no pause or stop till we are safe. We'll blunt the edge of this business by the excitement of the journey," I cried, little perceiving what the excitement would prove to be; and calling for Juan, I told him we would start at once, and that he must find us a way through the web which the soldiers had spread all round.

One precaution I took, due more to the fortunate accident that we had to wait a few minutes for the horses, than to any foresight of mine. I took the letter which Livenza had given me, and sealing it in an envelope which I obtained from Mother Calvarro, I addressed it to Mayhew at the British Embassy, with instructions to keep it with the papers I had previously entrusted to him.

Before we mounted I drew Juan aside.

"See, my lad, if anything happens to me and I get caught by the soldiers, I shall pass this envelope to you. You must guard it jealously, for it may mean life and liberty for hundreds of us; and take it to Madrid and place it in the hands of him to whom it is addressed, Mr. Mayhew, at the British Embassy. Here is money; and if you have to deliver the letter and do it safely, I will pay you very liberally." He gave me a faithful promise, and then I mounted.

"What were you saying to Juan?" asked Sarita.

"I was giving him some instructions in regard to our safety," I answered; not caring to start the fears of capture which were already present to my mind in disquieting force. With that we started.

*CHAPTER XXVIII*

*HOW LUCK CAN CHANGE*

As we left Calvarro's I rode with the utmost caution, for I felt by no means certain that Livenza, even in his changed mood, might not attempt some treachery. But I wronged him in that thought. He had cleared right away and had taken his men with him; and so soon as I was convinced of this, I drew rein and questioned Juan as to the possible roads that were open for us to take.

The position of Daroca made our difficulties vastly greater. The mountains were on three sides of us, and Juan admitted that he knew the passes very indifferently, while it was certain that the chief of them would be blocked with the soldiery. The one bit of open country was that by which I had ridden from Calatayud, and as that was also the country which our young guide knew well, I determined to go there.

From Calatayud I resolved to use the railway, not to Saragossa or Madrid but to work our way north through Old Castile and the Basque Provinces, and across the frontier to Bayonne; and I directed Juan therefore to make for Calatayud by the road I had travelled earlier in the night.

"Do you think you can hold out for a twenty-mile ride, Sarita?" I asked her, as I explained generally my plans.

"I could ride for five hundred if I could only get away from my racking thoughts," was her instant and vehement response; and with that I directed Juan to travel as fast as the ground and the condition of the horses would allow. I knew that a good remedy for her mental distress would be found in physical fatigue, and we rattled along therefore at a strapping pace and for a long time most part in silence. One caution I gave her.

"If you have any papers or anything on you which might cause you to be identified, you had better destroy them in case we are interfered with and you are searched. Until we are out of Spain I shall say you are my sister, and that we are leaving the country because of the troubled state of things."

"I have nothing. I came in this disguise," she answered, referring to the peasant's dress she wore. "Scarcely a convincing dress for Lord Glisfoyle's sister. But it doesn't matter. Nothing matters now," she added, with a sigh.

The truth of this reference to her incongruous dress became more apparent when the dawn broke and lightened. I had not given it a thought while we were at Calvarro's, nor while the darkness made the matter of costume a thing of no importance; but in the daylight it was altogether different. Still, as riding habits didn't grow on Spanish hills, there was nothing to do but to make the best of it, and get a change of dress at the first available opportunity. After all, there was that well-known excuse to fall back upon--the eccentricity of the English traveller.

I left Sarita almost entirely to her own thoughts, and for some hours we scarcely spoke to each other, until, as I had dismounted and was leading my horse up a hill by her side, she looked down and said with a smile:

"You are very good to me, Ferdinand, and very thoughtful for me. I cannot bear to speak much yet."

"That's all right. We shall have many years of chatter to make up for a few hours' silence," I answered, cheeringly. "I can guess pretty well how it is with you. Don't worry. Let's get out of this mess and we'll have all the more to talk about. What a young brick that Juan is. I don't know what we should have done without him. He'll pull us through yet," and it really began to look as though he would, for we were within a mile or two of Calatayud.

"And do I owe nothing to you?"

"We won't shout till we are out of the wood. But here we are at the top of the hill, and forward's the word again;" and soon after that we came in sight of Calatayud nestling down in the valley a good way below us, the smoke from a few early fires curling up lazily in the breezeless air.

"Thank God, there's the railway," I said, pointing to where a sinuous line of white steam marked the course of a train just leaving the station on its way to Madrid. Then I called Juan back. "I am not going to your grandfather's if I can help it, Juan. I have reason to know it will be dangerous. Is there a Royalist house in the place?"

"Yes, senor, there is Angostino's. But if there are any soldiers in the town they are sure to be there."

"All the more reason for them not to think I should go there, too. Now remember, the senorita and I are English people, brother and sister. I am Lord Glisfoyle"--and I made him repeat the name several times, and warned him to tell anyone who might question him that that was my name, and that I was an eccentric English nobleman. "You won't ride with us up to Angostino's, but as soon as we are close enough to the house to find our way, you'll take the horses--they might be recognised--and we shall walk there. And now I'm going to trust you. Take this letter and keep it. If you hear that I have been arrested, go as quickly as you can to Madrid and give it yourself to Mr. Mayhew, and tell him that I am arrested. But if I am not, then I shall want you to be ready to go on a journey with me later in the day or in the evening; I'll find means to let you know the time." He promised me, and when we came near enough to our destination Sarita and I dismounted, and he rode away with the horses.

"Now, Mercy--that's your name now, remember--for a bold face on things and no language but English; no character but that of eccentric English folk; and a prayer from the bottom of our hearts that my friend Rubio is not within a dozen miles of Angostino's. In that case we'll soon be at breakfast, and you'll soon be in bed--and the best place for you."

Scarcely anyone was astir in the narrow street, or in the inn itself, and swaggering in with the assurance of an irresponsible tourist, I asked for breakfast and a couple of rooms for myself and sister. I took care to put a good broad English accent into my Spanish, showed my money with vulgar ostentation, and made the most of my title.

Everything went smoothly. A single gold piece converted a sleepy serving maid from a wondering and contemptuous critic of Sarita's dress into an obsequious servant, who led her away at once.

"Don't be long, Mercy, for I am as hungry as the deuce," I called after her, loudly.

"All right," she cried in reply, in a most winsome accent that no English girl could have copied to save her life.

Then the landlord, having heard that a rich Englishman had arrived, came hurrying out to me with a mouthful of breakfast, a rich smell of garlic, and a whole person eloquent of a desire to do my bidding and earn my money; and a few minutes saw me in the only private sitting-room in the place, a guest of less importance having been promptly dispossessed in my honour. There is nothing like a combination of impudence, money, and a character for English eccentricity if you want your own way on the Continent. And I never wanted mine more badly in my life nor got it more promptly.

"You are a magician, Ferdinand," said Sarita, as we sat at breakfast.

"But you are not Spanish," I whispered, warningly; "and an English brother and sister don't carry their eccentricity so far as to talk in any language but their own, Mercy."

"Then we can talk very little," she replied, in English.

"Which is precisely how English brothers and sisters do behave," said I, with a laugh.

"What about clothes?" she asked in some little dismay.

"I'll see to that. After breakfast you must go to bed. I don't want anyone to see you for one thing and I do want you to get some sleep; and while you sleep, I'll work the oracle."

"You will what?" she asked, wrinkling her brow at my slang.

"I'll get hold of some clothes somehow, if I steal them;" and as soon as breakfast was over, I went out to forage.

Juan was right in one respect. What soldiers were in Calatayud were at the inn, and sticking to my principle of the value of impudence, I went up to the two officers who were in command of the party, bade them good-day, and asked them if they spoke English. One of them replied that he did.

"Good," I said, heartily, and offered him my hand and asked him to give me a cigarette. "I can speak Spanish a bit, but our English tongues don't seem to fit the words somehow. Let me introduce myself, for I want a little advice. I am Lord Glisfoyle, an Englishman, travelling with my sister, and we have just heard of the death of a relative in London, and have to get there quickly. Which is the best way to go? I mean, considering the mess and excitement of all this Carlist business. I was at Daroca, and wanted to get up to Saragossa by rail; but yesterday you gentlemen had taken possession of the line, and I'll be hanged if I could get tickets. So we rode over here and left our baggage there. Here is my card;" and, as if searching for one, I pulled out a roll of English bank notes, which impressed them as much as I desired. "I haven't one, I see; I must have left my card case when I changed, I expect. Anyhow, it doesn't matter."

The officer was as obliging as courtesy demanded he should be to a rich English nobleman in a difficulty, and very soon we three were discussing my route over a bottle of the best wine which Angostino could find in his cellar.

The Madrid route was suggested; but I said I had thought of the other, and then my two companions worked out the train service in that direction. After that was settled we went out together and strolled about the streets chatting and smoking; and in the course of an hour I had acquired a good deal of useful information about the doings and plans of the military; while on my side I took them to the telegraph office and let them see the telegrams I sent off to London and to Mayhew at the British Embassy in the name of Lord Glisfoyle.

That business completed, they went off to their military duties, and I found shops where I could get some clean linen for myself and a costume of a kind for Sarita, to whom, trading on Spanish ignorance of such things, I ordered them to be sent in the name of Lady Mercy Glisfoyle. Then I sauntered in the direction of old Tomaso's house, and finding Juan on the lookout for me, I told him to be at the station that afternoon at four o'clock, to watch me but not to speak to me; and to take a ticket for the station where we had to change into the train for the north.

Having done this good morning's work, I went back to the inn to have a couple of hours' sleep before leaving. I paid liberally and tipped royally, so that everyone about the place was sorry for my going. The two officers insisted upon accompanying us to the station to see me off; an attention which would have been very pleasant, had I not feared that he who spoke English might detect Sarita's accent; but I put a bold face on matters, and explained that my sister, Lady Mercy Glisfoyle, was very much fatigued, and had so bad an attack of neuralgia that she had to bandage her face and could not speak. And such was the confidence in me that even that simple ruse was not detected, and no suspicion was roused.

At the station the officer was good enough to take our tickets for us, and he thus saved me all troublesome questions. In fact every difficulty seemed to vanish as we faced it; and Sarita was actually in the train, and I was standing chatting with my two new friends, when the luck veered, and the crash came all suddenly. Nor was it any the sweeter to me because I had brought it on myself by a single piece of over-acting.

The telegram to Mayhew at the Embassy proved my undoing. It was tampered with or censored or something at Madrid. At any rate it came under the attention of the police there; and the name having been bracketed with that of Carbonnell, when the attempt had been made to arrest me at the Hotel de l'Opera, somebody's suspicions were roused, and instructions were sent to stop me. I was laughing with the officers and just going to bid them good-bye, when someone approached me.

"Lord Glisfoyle, I think."

"Yes, what do you want with me?"

"I am sorry, but there may be a mistake of some kind. I have instructions to ask you not to leave Calatayud for the present."

"From whom are your instructions?" I asked quickly, in very fluent Spanish, forgetting all about my English accent in my chagrin and surprise.

"They come from Madrid; and they speak of a certain Ferdinand Carbonnell in connection with you."

"I am an English nobleman, and at a loss to understand you. Do you mean you intend to stop my going away. You'll do so at your own risk; and unless you use force I shall certainly go."

"I trust you will not compel us to use force. I have no alternative but to obey my instructions."

At that moment I noticed the expression of the two officers and realised my blunder in showing my knowledge of Spanish. I was to pay a heavy price for it, too.

"I repeat I am an English nobleman travelling with my sister, and the English Government will not put up quietly with any interference of this kind. I am called by urgent business of a private character to London, and any delay will be serious. These gentlemen know that I have telegraphed to London announcing my immediate return."

"Your Spanish is far purer than I understood, senor," replied the English-speaking officer, drily. "I think you can explain matters sufficiently to dispense with any reference to me."

"As you please," I answered, loftily; and turning to the official, I said curtly, "I will do as you wish, and will just explain matters to my sister." I could think of no better excuse to get a word with Sarita. Speak to her I must--to urge her to continue the journey, and to give her money as I feared she had none. I turned to the carriage door and said coolly, in English: "I'm stopped, but you can go on; and must take this money. Wire to Mrs. Curwen when you reach Bayonne, and remain there. Please," I urged, backing the appeal with a glance. To my delighted surprise she consented, and with a light nod, I added: "I shall be on by the next train," and turned to the official, "I am at your disposal, senor."

But in the meantime the two officers had communicated their suspicions to the man, and he now said:

"I must ask the senorita, your sister, to alight and remain also. She shall be treated with every consideration."

"This is monstrous," I exclaimed indignantly; but my protests were unavailing, and we had to suffer the infinite chagrin and disappointment of seeing the train steam away without us. I masked my feelings under an assumption of indignation, however, and asked where we were to go.

"You can return to Angostino's, senor," said the official, very politely, "but you must permit that I remain in your company until I have further instructions."

"All places are alike to me after this scandalous outrage," I answered. Then, looking about me, I saw Juan watching us at a safe distance, and as we passed I gave him a meaning glance, and said aloud to Sarita, "We are arrested, you see," and he answered with a look to show that he understood and would do my bidding.

"I wish to telegraph to the British Embassy," I then said to the official.

"I regret, senor, but I can allow nothing to be done until I have further instructions," and there was nothing for me but to comply.

We went back to the inn to wait; but the delay was not long, for in reply to the telegram announcing the arrest there came a message for us both to be taken to Madrid.

"You will give me your word to make no attempt to resist us, senor?"

"Certainly I will not. I won't recognise your action in any way, and you can take the consequences of everything you do," was my hot reply. But it served no other purpose than to cause the man to have two subordinates with him in the carriage, thus preventing all attempt at conversation between Sarita and myself, other than a few words of English.

Sarita played her part well enough, showing a stolid, stoical indifference to everything, and maintaining the pretence of indisposition. But it was all of no avail. I had one consolation. Juan was in the train, and I knew that very soon Mayhew would be acting to effect my release; and I occupied the time and tedium of the journey by thinking out the far more serious problem of Sarita's arrest.

At Madrid the truth came out, of course, as I knew it would. Rubio was on the platform waiting for us when the train drew up. Recognising us both immediately, he rubbed his hands with pleasure over the importance of the arrest. He disregarded my angry protests, and in a few words sent my spirits down to zero.

"You are Ferdinand Carbonnell; I know that, and that would be enough, but there is more. This is Senorita Castelar, a most prominent Carlist, and you were stopped in the act of helping her to escape from the country under the pretence that she was your sister. For that even Lord Glisfoyle would have to answer. You are not in England, senor."

"No; but you'll find the English Government will have a word to say."

"That is for his Excellency the Minister to settle, and for the present you are both prisoners;" and without more ado he put Sarita into one carriage and me into another, with a sufficient guard to ensure our safety. Thus, instead of being well on the road to Bayonne as I had hoped, I found myself locked up in a filthy prison cell in Madrid, with a bitter load of misgivings and fears, and a host of useless lamentations and revilings for the shortsightedness and blunders which I had committed at the moment when Sarita's freedom lay in the hollow of my hand. I could have dashed my head against the wall in the bitterness of my self-reproach and futile regrets.

They would not let me communicate with a soul outside. I asked to send a letter to the British Embassy, and they answered that I was a Spaniard and a Carlist, and would be treated accordingly. I demanded an interview with Quesada, and they replied with the flout that I could see him when he made an appointment. I went so far even as to request that a message be sent to the Palace, and they laughed at me for a madman, and jeered and sneered the louder in proportion as I stormed and fumed and raged. Seeing that, I made up my mind to be sensible, and do the only thing I could do--wait.

Nor did I wait in vain.

The luck which had gone so well with me to a point, only to change at Calatayud with such ruinous consequences, veered round again the moment I reached Madrid, where there had been a witness of my arrest who was soon to bring me help.

I had been about three hours in the cell, and was passing the weary, baffling, irritating time in speculating how long I was to be left like a forgotten dog in the dirty kennel of a cell, and how long it would take Mayhew to get to work to find me and procure my release, when the door of the cell was unlocked and a warder told me to follow him.

"Where to?" I asked.

"There's a visitor for you."

"Bring him here, then," I answered, determined that anyone from the Embassy should see the filthy place in which I had been caged.

"Come with me," he said again.

"I will not," I answered, and curled myself up on the bare bench. At this he growled out an oath, and after a moment banged the door and locked it again. It was probably a novel experience for him to find any prisoner unwilling to get out of such a kennel at the first opportunity, and, in truth, when some minutes elapsed and he did not return, I was disposed to regret my own obstinacy.

But I heard his returning steps later on, the door was once more opened, and the brute said, in a tone of deference:

"The prisoner is here, senorita," and I jumped to my feet in intense surprise to find Dolores Quesada, holding up her skirts, and looking in dismay at the disgusting condition of the cell, and then with distress, sympathy, and concern at me.

*CHAPTER XXIX*

*QUESADA AGAIN*

"I must apologise for your brother's taste, senorita, in compelling me to allow you to find me in such a--palace," I said, with a wave of the hand about the filthy cell. "This is the hospitality he considers is my due."

The disgusting stench of the place turned her sick and faint, and anger flashed from her eyes. I was not at all sorry for her to see for herself the hole in which I had been caged.

"You must leave it at once, senor. It is horrible," she cried.