Part 24

"I wish I knew, my dear madame. She was arrested at the same time as I; and if I knew, I could do something to help her. But that's just the pith and kernel of my trouble. As to what will come next I have not a much clearer idea than you, Mrs. Curwen. But something will probably happen to-morrow."

"We may be sure of that," she returned quickly. "And when can we all go away to some safe un-dynamity country?"

"I think I shall be able to answer that better to-morrow."

"It's all to-morrow, it seems to me. And in the meantime don't you think you'd better go to bed somewhere? You're about fagged out."

"I am too anxious to sleep."

"And when was anxiety relieved by sitting up all night and worrying with it? There, I've rung the bell, and you can tell the waiter to have a room got ready instantly for you. We shall all feel easier if we know you're in the place. I'm sure you can't do anything to-night, and by the morning you'll have a clear head, some more plans, and enough energy for another burst of this kind of thing."

When the waiter came I yielded, under protest, and ordered a room.

"I must have a long chat with Mayhew first," I said.

"Not to-night, if Mercy and I have any influence with Mr. Mayhew," she returned, and Mercy agreed. Then, to my surprise, Mayhew, in a half-shamefaced but very serious manner, said: "I think Mrs. Curwen is right, Ferdinand."

"What, you as well, Silas?" and as I looked at him he smiled and shrugged his shoulders.

"No one thinks of questioning Mrs. Curwen's commands," he answered.

"Oh, already? Then I'd better give in, too," and with that I went, feeling indeed the truth of what she said--that I could do nothing that night.

She was right, also, that I was in sore need of rest, and, despite my anxieties and my declaration that sleep would be impossible, my head was no sooner on the pillow than I fell into deep slumber, which lasted until a sluggard's hour on the following morning. It was ten o'clock before I awoke.

I found Mrs. Curwen alone, and my vexation at having been allowed to lie so late must have shown in my face, for she said directly: "There's no one to blame but me, Lord Glisfoyle. I would not allow you to be called. I don't believe in my prescriptions being half taken."

"I have a great deal to do," I answered, somewhat ungraciously.

"That's no reason why you should try to do it with half your energies sapped for want of sleep. Mr. Mayhew has been here for you and tried to get to you; but I wouldn't let him," she said assertively.

"He is learning obedience diligently, it seems," I observed.

"He is a very good fellow, and I strained my influence with him, I can tell you," she retorted, with a smile of some occult meaning.

"He is the prince of good fellows, and the staunchest of friends, and I congratulate you on having such influence to strain."

"Oh, men are not difficult to manage, if properly handled."

"Some of us, that is; but I hope he has been duly attentive in my absence," I said, casually, and with a glance.

"What was the poor man to do? He couldn't very well leave us in the lurch, I suppose? You were away, and we'd positively no one else."

"To say nothing of his own inclinations," I added.

"To say nothing of his own inclinations," she repeated. "Mercy is not exactly the kind of girl to scare a man away from her, I should hope."

"A supposition that might be extended to include----"

"What do you mean?" she asked quickly, as I stopped.

"Whom should I mean but"--looking at her pointedly--"Madame Chansette, shall I say?" She laughed.

"Yes, we'll say Madame Chansette."

"And yet--well, it doesn't much matter whom we say; but at any rate he's a thoroughly genuine fellow, and--you can fill in the rest. But, by the way, where is Mercy?"

"She is having a French or Spanish lesson, I think; I'll tell you all about it when you've finished your breakfast, and not a minute before. But about Mr. Mayhew, tell me, what is he at the Embassy here? He seems to speak as though he was a kind of mill-horse. Are there no prospects for him? Has he no influence to push him on?"

"Yes, he has one, I think I may say two friends now who will see to that. I'm one of the two--and I think I'm speaking to the other," I said, quietly. "And between us we ought to do something. But he's as proud as Lucifer, and a mere hint that we were at the back of anything of the kind would make him kick."

"If poor A.B.C. were alive----"

"Then, my dear Mrs. Curwen, you would never have been in Madrid, and would never have known Mayhew." She shrugged her shapely shoulders, smiled, and then said with unusual earnestness: "And will you really let me help you in trying to get him a step or two up the ladder?"

"I mean to have him in London, and to make the people at home understand that he has a head on his shoulders fit for better things. Why, if Silas only had money to back his brains, there's nothing he might not do or be. But there, I've finished my breakfast!" I exclaimed, getting up from the table, thinking I had said enough. "And now, where is Mercy?"

"Will you shake hands on that bargain, Lord Glisfoyle?" she asked, her eyes bright with the thoughts I knew I had started. We shook hands gravely, as became such a compact, and I looked straight into her eyes, as I said in as earnest a tone as hers: "The woman who marries Silas Mayhew will have a husband in a hundred thousand, true, honest-hearted, straight and good right through. And now, where _is_ Mercy?" She returned my look, coloured slightly, and some reply sprang to her lips, but she checked it, and turning away, said: "Sebastian Quesada's sister came here, and the two girls are closeted together, waiting for you."

"And you have kept me here all this time!" I cried.

"I was bound to see to your health."

"You are as anxious for my health, I believe, as I am for your happiness," and with that I hurried away, leaving her blushing very prettily.

I found Dolores looking very white and worn, and in a mood of deep dejection. She and Mercy had been weeping together in the sympathetic exchange of such confidence and consolation as their ignorance of each other's tongue and mutual indifferent knowledge of the French language would allow.

"She is in terrible trouble, Ferdinand, do try and relieve her. Her heart is almost broken by the fearful strain of her sorrow," said Mercy, getting up to leave as I entered.

"You do not understand things, Mercy, but I will do what I can."

"Your sister is an angel, Lord Glisfoyle," said Dolores, as the door closed behind Mercy. "I am almost ashamed to come to you, but I could not keep away. She has told me what I knew, of course, how good and generous and noble you are. Cannot you do what I asked you yesterday? I heard of your second visit to us last night, and all through the night--such a night of agony for me--I have been feeding my soul with the hope that you came to make some agreement."

"Where is your brother? I am truly pained to see you like this."

"It does not matter about me; nothing of that kind can matter now," she answered in a tone deadened by sorrow. "I should not come to you for such a paltry object as my own troubles. It is for Sebastian I am thinking. But you don't seem to understand how I feel, how this fearful thing has shut upon me like the closing walls of an Inquisition prison cell, until whichever way I stretch out my hands I find ruin crushing in upon me," and she moved her hands like one distraught with terror and trouble.

"What can I do?" I asked, gently.

"Can't you try and see what all this has meant to me?" she asked wildly, ignoring my question. "What I suffered when I knew that Sebastian meant to ruin you, to involve you in this terrible Carlist business, to have you proclaimed as Ferdinand Carbonnell, the desperate Carlist leader, imprisoned and sent Heaven alone knew where, to suffer the fate and the punishment which such a man would rightly suffer? What could I do but step in to save you? You know his reluctance, the struggle we had, the wild words he spoke of your ruining him, and then how he broke his pledged word to me? And yet to save you meant to ruin him! Holy Mother of God, what was I to do?" and she wrung her hands. "I could not see you wronged in this way; and yet as my reward am I to see him dragged down, his reputation destroyed, his position degraded, his very name a foulness in the mouths of the populace? Is this your English sense of honour and recompense? No, no, I don't mean that. I know you are just and honourable. I am crazed with my trouble to speak such words to you."

"Where is your brother?"

"I do not know. You drove him to desperation last night. He left this house almost directly you had gone; and returned late, and was gone again this morning before I could get word with him. He is like a mad-man; and what he will do in his madness, who can tell?" The fears that lay beneath her wild words were the same as had been pressing so keenly on me, yet what to do to avert them was more than I could see.

"If you do not know where he is, what can we do?" I asked.

"Give me those compromising papers, and let me find him and prove that the danger he fears is at an end? He will then do anything you ask. You do not know him. He is stern, hard, implacable when opposed, but he is not dead to feelings of generosity. An act like that would touch him to the core, and he would do anything you asked--nay, let me know what it is you wish, and I would pledge myself that he would do it." She pleaded urgently and almost imploringly, but I could not yield.

"I cannot do that. Only last night he likened this struggle between us to a duel, and you would ask me to disarm myself and throw away the only means by which I can hope to win my way. I am sorry, deeply and sincerely sorry, but this is impossible."

"You would see him dragged into the dirt for the rabble to spit upon!" Her changing mood, as she was swayed first by thoughts for me and then by those for her brother, was painful to witness.

"He did not hesitate to have me treated as a criminal, senorita; he has set me at defiance and refused everything I asked; and I cannot put myself and others at his mercy. But I will do this. Let him set Sarita Castelar free, and stay this Carlist persecution, and I will give up the documents he fears, and say nothing of what I know. More than that I cannot offer you; and even that must depend upon the senorita being free before I am placed in a position which compels me to take action against him."

"What does that mean? How long will you give me? I must have time to find him. I cannot do anything without time. You are iron to me in your madness for this girl."

"Unfortunately I am not free to name any time." I was not. I did not yet know what measures Mayhew had taken, and whether he had communicated with the Palace. My summons to the King might come at any hour, and I was compelled to hold myself free to speak all I knew with regard to Quesada in my interview there. At the same time Dolores' acute distress of mind, and the knowledge of what she had done for me, filled me with a desire to help her; while personally, I was anxious to get Sarita from Quesada's grip at the earliest possible moment, and to leave Spain. Under pressure of these thoughts, I added: "This I can assure you, I would far rather the matter ended as you wish, and will give you every possible moment of time."

"I will go," she answered promptly. "I depend on you. You have given me some hope, if not much. If I fail with Sebastian"--and she closed her eyes and sighed in the agony of the thought--"I will let you know at once."

"And I will do nothing without first sending word to you," I promised in reply.

We parted then, and when she left the room I found Mayhew waiting for me in the corridor.

*CHAPTER XXXI*

*AT THE PALACE*

"Your lady visitors call early, Ferdinand," said Mayhew, rather drily.

"Yes, rather embarrassing, isn't it? But what news have you for me? What happened yesterday?"

"More than enough to prove that you are a person of considerable importance, I can tell you. When I got your message by that exceedingly sharp lad, Juan, that you were arrested, I went straight to the chief, and within an hour a protest was in the hands of the Spanish Government, couched in terms calculated to make them sit up, I promise you, and very soon the whole machinery was at work to get you out. They denied all knowledge of you, however; but I expect a good deal would have happened to-day if you hadn't been set at liberty. I told the chief this morning, however, that you were here, and he wants to see you. And that's about all--unless you want the details."

"Did you send any word to the Palace?"

"No, I kept that in reserve for to-day as a broadside, and, of course, I said nothing to anyone about the papers you left with me."

"Good; just as I should have expected from you. And now, I'm going to tell you the whole mess, and just see what's best to be done;" and I gave him a pretty full account of everything that had happened.

"You're right, it is a devil of a mess," was his comment when I finished. "What do you suppose Quesada's sister can do?"

"I haven't a notion. I'm just at the end of my wits, and can't for the life of me see what's to be done."

"There's one thing you may safely reckon on, and it isn't a pleasant thing anyway--that that beggar is sure to have a trump card up his sleeve that will most likely outplay your best. He's the most cunning beggar in all Spain. He's been in heaps of tight corners before, and wriggled out just when it seemed impossible. And he won't give in now, you bet. I tell you what he's likely to do--he knows just as well as lots of others, that he's the pivot of the whole Government; the one man for instance, who, in the popular view, can wage this threatened war with the States with some chance of success; and I wouldn't be one little bit surprised if he trumps you with a change of front and declares for war. You don't know as much as I do of Spanish politics, and can't, therefore, understand the holy mess that would follow here if the war came. He'd be the only man able to guide things; and in such a case you might hammer at him in vain."

"But these documents, Livenza's statement, my own knowledge, Sarita Castelar's evidence!" I cried, in protest.

"Strong enough in England, perhaps; but he'd deny everything; and do you think anyone's going to care two pence about them if the nation is in danger. He'd say the letters were forgeries; pop Livenza into prison, or bribe or threaten him to change face; the lady is already safe in his charge, and as a Carlist wouldn't be believed even if she were at liberty; and your statement would be listened to politely, and then disregarded as that of an enemy of Spain and a friend of America. I'm sorry to discourage you, but you asked my advice and that is--don't count on your weapons as he called them, and don't believe for a moment that you can really do him any harm. He sits too firm in the saddle."

"But he told his sister that I could ruin him, and he showed the fear by wanting to make me fight him."

"Mere play-acting, Ferdinand, nothing more. He wanted to get the papers back quietly if he could, and the quietest and safest way would have been to have you arrested as Carbonnell, the Carlist, and sent somewhere into the far provinces, and probably knocked on the head by the way or shot in mistake--the kind of mistake that does happen at times. His sister appears to have cut that plan short, and naturally he tells her she must get the papers back, if she could. But if she couldn't, it didn't follow that he wasn't quite prepared to face you. Don't make the mistake of thinking he will give up a jot or tittle of any plan he has, whether public or private; he never has been known to yet, and even you will never make him, strong as your case would be in any other country and against any other man. It's part of his constitution, my dear fellow. He's got all the energy and resource of a present day American with all the confounded pride and stiff-necked doggedness of an Old Castile noble. A rummy combination, but the devil to fight."

"I shan't give in," I said, firmly. "And that I take it your advice is that I should."

Mayhew shrugged his shoulders significantly.

"I'd make it different if I could. I'm very sorry, for I can guess what it means to you; but you've no chance;" and he shook his head, hopelessly. "Shall we go and see the chief?"

"I shan't give in," I said again; but I am free to confess that his counsel of despair had great effect upon me, and I went to the Embassy in a very despondent mood.

I was closeted with the chief a considerable time, while I gave such account of my experiences as I deemed advisable, and was questioned and cross-questioned, and advised and congratulated in the customary official manner, and finally counselled to return to England. A pointed question from me drew the reply that this last advice was the result of a request from the Spanish Government, and I did not fail to see in it the hand of Quesada.

My answer was an evasive one, to the effect that I would go so soon as I had wound up such private affairs as I had to conclude in Madrid.

I rejoined Mayhew, feeling both ill at ease and out of temper. A half-day had passed, and I had done nothing toward effecting Sarita's release; while the hours were flying, and no word came from Dolores. My apparent helplessness in other respects increased my anxiety to hear that she had been successful with her brother; for I was fast coming round to Mayhew's gloomy view of the position.

Then came another complication. When we went to the Hotel de l'Opera, I found there an urgent summons from the Palace. News of my arrest and liberation had reached the young King, and he desired me to go to the Palace that afternoon. I scribbled a note to Dolores Quesada, telling her I could not wait for news from her after three o'clock--the hour appointed for the interview, and sent Mercy with it, Mayhew accompanying her.

The reply to this put the climax to my anxiety. It ran thus:

"Alas, my friend, I can do nothing. I have just seen Sebastian, who is now in a quite different mood. He laughs at the thought of your doing him any harm. 'Let him do his worst. He can but break himself on the wheel of his own efforts;' were his words. I am distracted with misery."

I showed it to Mayhew, who read it thoughtfully.

"It could not be worse," he said. "He has put the senorita in a safe place, and is going to play the trump card that I was sure he had in reserve somewhere. You should have accepted his challenge and shot him. Only one thing can beat Quesada--and that's death."

"I will do my best all the same," I answered; and in this mood I set out for my interview at the Palace, revolving on the way all the possible expedients that I could adopt to win even part of my purpose against the powerful enemy who held his way with such grim tenacity and inflexible resolve.

My reception at the Palace might have flattered even Royalty itself. When I was ushered into the presence, the young King came running to me, laying aside all attempt at dignity, and smiling with pleasure as he held out his hands liked a pleased child.

"My Englishman of Podrida, at last!" he exclaimed, and he led me to the Queen Mother, who was graciousness itself.

"You have kept the words of gratitude too long prisoners in my heart, my lord. The Queen would chide you, but the mother's heart is too full for anything but welcome for the man who saved her son."

"I trust your Majesties will pardon me. The delay has been due to causes as full of trouble as of urgency."

"My son has told me of your daring rescue, but I wish to hear it again from you. I am so anxious to know all, that I would have the tale even before your own anxieties which, if we can, you must let us help you to dispel."

"I have the mask here, my lord," cried the King, with all a boy's eagerness, bringing it out of a pocket.

"The story is a very simple one, your Majesty," I said, and then in as few words as I could, I told it. She listened with the closest attention, questioning me now and again on such points as interested her most, or where she wished greater detail; and when I described how the King was seized and carried into the carriage, and again how I had found him fastened down and disguised, she clasped the boy to her, and her changing colour and quickened breath gave evidence of her concern and emotion.

"And you were alone through it all?" she exclaimed, when I finished.

"Fortune favoured me or I could not have succeeded, Madame. Had not the two men following the carriage met with an accident, I could have done nothing. As it was, the surprise of my attack did what no strength of arm or skill or wit could have accomplished."

"Do not call it fortune? It was rather the hand of Heaven guarding my dear son's safety, and you were the chosen instrument. And should you know those miscreants again?" Her tone hardened and her eyes flashed, as she put the question; and I thought then I could discern the feeling which had had as much to do with her impatience at my delay in coming to the Palace as her desire to thank me. She was burning with all a Spaniard's hot eagerness for revenge. But it was not my cue to strike at the agents, and my reply was guarded.

"It is possible that if they were face to face with me, I could identify them; but the thing was hurried, the work of no more than a few moments, and my English eyes are not sufficiently accustomed to distinguish between Spanish faces."

"Ah, I am disappointed," cried the Queen, frowning.

"But I can do more than identify the men who actually did the ill-work, Madame; I know by whose hidden hand the wires of the plot were pulled."

"Tell us that, and you will add a thousand times to the obligation that Spain and we owe you, my lord," she exclaimed, strenuously. "Who is the arch-traitor?"

"I shall have need of your Majesty's patient indulgence."

"And you will not ask it in vain, Lord Glisfoyle, if you do not seek it for these villainous Carlists, who would have robbed me of my son and dealt this foul blow at Spain." Then with a quick thought, she asked: "But how comes it that you, an English nobleman, here in Madrid no longer than a few weeks, can have learnt these things?" I believe I could detect a touch of suspicion in her manner; and the King looked up sharply into her face and then across at me.

"By a coincidence in regard to my name, your Majesty. I came to Madrid but a short time ago to join the staff of the British Embassy; I was not then Lord Glisfoyle; and by a chain of coincidences some of the plans of the misguided Carlists became known to me."

"Do you mean you knew of this intended plot against my son?"

"There are always rumours and reports, Madame, and such gossip was, of course, current in your capital--and equally, of course, well known to your Government and officials. But this was different; and the definite tidings came to me at a time and in a form which made it impossible for me to act otherwise than as I did."

"What was your name then, if not Lord Glisfoyle?" she broke in.

"Ferdinand Carbonnell, the younger son of my late father."

"Ferdinand Carbonnell! Ah, then----" the sentence remained unfinished, and I stood in silence watching her and waiting for the conclusion. I could guess her thought.

"Ferdinand Carbonnell is a well-known Carlist leader, Lord Glisfoyle," and she spoke in a tone that augured but ill for my success.