The Firebrand

Not a word more was uttered between the two. La Giralda, for no reason that she would acknowledge even to herself, had conceived an infinite respect for Sergeant Cardono, and wa...

On the whole Rollo could not complain of his reception at the Abbey of Montblanch. His heart had indeed been at war within him as he took his way up the long zigzags of the hill...

With small compunction El Sarria turned Don Tomas over with his foot and coolly appropriated the cloak he had discarded, as also his headgear, which was banded with gay colours,...

It was indeed Ramon Garcia, who on a stout shaggy pony, a portmanteau slung before and behind him, followed his masters with the half-sullen, wholly downcast look of the true Ga...

But, indeed, the problem before Rollo was one difficult enough to cause him to postpone indefinitely all less immediate and pressing evils. As they lay hid among the reeds, and...

Rollo judged aright. It was indeed no time for love-making, and, to do the young man justice, he did not connect any idea so concrete with the impulsive kiss he had given to Con...

The startling announcement of the Sergeant at once set the whole party in motion. Their suspicions of the morning were cast to the winds, as the Sergeant and La Giralda in turn...

Out of the darkness Rollo and the Sergeant stepped quickly into the room. Whereupon, small wonder that the lady should scream and fall back into her chair, the waiting-maid drop...

Yet on the side of Rafael and little Dolores Garcia there was something to be said. Ramon, had he known all, need not have become "El Sarria," nor yet need young de Flores, the...

"And now, gentlemen," said Monsieur Etienne grandly, "where is the young gentleman who traduced in my hearing the fair fame of Dona Concha Cabezos? _Ma foi_, I will transfer my...

The change in the aspect of affairs would have made a greater difference to most companies of adventurers than it did to that of which Master Rollo Blair of Blair Castle in the...

Thus ended the princely Abbey and its inmates. And so it stands unto this day, a desolation of charred beams, desecrated altars, fire-scarred walls roofless and weed o'ergrown,...

Meanwhile, leaving the grave in the shaded corner of the farm garden, La Giralda went out with many strange things moving in her heart. More than once she had seen her own child...

Upon the village of Sarria and upon its circling mountains night descended with Oriental swiftness. The white houses grew blurred and indistinct. Red roofs, green shutters, dark...

It was not, however, so simple a matter as Rollo supposed to obtain an audience with the Queen-Regent of Spain. Her daughter, willing, but by no means eager to see her mother, h...

The day wore in the mill-house of Sarria precisely as many thousands of days had done before. The foreman came for the keys from his master's bedroom at six of the clock. He won...

The news which Sergeant Cardono had to communicate was indeed fitted to shake the strongest nerves. If true, it took away from Rollo at once all hope of the success of his missi...

But Rollo himself, our firebrand from the slopes of the Fife Lothians--what of him? The foxes that Samson sent among the cornfields of Philistia, with the fire at their tails, r...

Concha and El Sarria sat down on an outcrop of red sandstone rock, and gazed back at the prospect. There below them lay the camp and the house in which was imprisoned the reigni...

Ramon Garcia, called El Sarria, lay crouched like a wild beast. And he was a wild beast. Yet he smiled as he blinked into the midnoon heat, under his shaggy brows, from his den...

"I too have a mission, I would have you know," said Concha, a dangerous coquetry showing through her grave demeanour, "a secret mission from the Mother Superior of the Convent o...

The town of Aranda lay to the left, perched high above them on the slopes of the Sierra de Moncayo. Rollo looked past the crumbling grey turrets of the little fortalice and over...

Five, six, seven, eight of the ten slow minutes passed away, and beyond a glance at the clock and a more absorbing interest in the furze on his chin, Senor Munoz had not moved....

The severe confessor solemnly preceded them, a candle in his hand. Rollo thought that Father Anselmo had the air of perpetually assisting at an excommunication, a burning of her...

It was almost time for starting. The two sentries lay on their faces, trussed and helpless, with gags in their mouths. El Sarria and Rollo had dropped down upon them as if from...

Rollo and his companions rode into Madrid amid the clamour and rejoicing of thousands, as indeed he might have done behind Don Carlos had he been successful in his first intenti...

It was, as the soldier had said most truly, a cold morning to be shot in. But the Carlists, accustomed to Cabrera's summary methods, appeared to think but little of the matter,...

"I came to this venta, the proprietor of which, and all his relations, may God confound for liars and thieves! When I entered I paid for one week's good straw and barley in coin...

And this was the manner of his going. He sought the Sergeant upon his balcony, outside which climbed and writhed a great old vine-stem as thick as a man's leg. He was for taking...

A long strip of Moorish-looking wall and certain towers that glittered white in the sun, advertised to Rollo that he approached the venta of Sarria. Without, that building might...

Patiently and softly went the oxen about the little pottage garden of the friars, till, where the soil was sandiest and the ground most open, under a south-looking wall on which...

Looking down from their station on the roof, Rollo and the friar could see what appeared to be the main force of the gipsies drawing near through the alleys of the wood. They ap...

No Cristino bullet that ever was moulded could have stopped the man more completely. He stood again on the floor of the paven hall, pale, shaking like an aspen leaf, his whole l...

They walked on for a while in silence, Rollo too much thunderstruck and confounded to speak a word. His whole being was rent with the most opposite feelings. He was certainly an...

Thus came the little Isabel of Spain into sanctuary. That the respite could only be temporary, Rollo knew too well. The monks were stout and willing men, but such arms as they h...

Cabrera bit his lip for a moment, frowned still more darkly, and then burst into a roar of laughter. For the moment the _gamin_ in him was uppermost--the same curly-pated rascal...

The dead woman was carried into the mortuary attached to the smaller chapel of the _Colegiata_, and placed in one of the rude coffins which had been deposited there in readiness...

These were memorable days for all the three youths, who so unexpectedly found themselves within the Convent of Montblanch. The Cristino soldiery, having fraternised with the Abb...

Yet for all this brave adventure Concha was as far as ever from meeting with General Elio. She had not even reached Vera, where it sits proudly on the northern slopes of the Mon...

"At your ambassadorial service!" said the Senorita Concha, bowing still lower and holding out her skirts at either side with a prettyish exaggeration of deference; "what command...

There remained Concha to be dealt with. Ah, yes, and also his companions El Sarria, Mortimer, and Etienne. Only--they did not count. What man does count when the one woman is in...

The great monastery of Montblanch was of regal, nay almost of imperial dignity. Though no emperor (as at Yuste) had here laid aside the world and assumed the cowl, yet mighty Ki...

The Carlist soldiers conducted Rollo and his three friends to the granary of the mill-house, where in the mean time they were permitted to recline as best they might upon the va...

"_Carai! Caramba! Car----!_ This bantam will outface us on our own dung-hill! Close in there, Pedro! Take down the iron spit to him, Jose! Heaven's curses on his long arm! A for...

"Then your venerability has been misinformed," cried Rollo, who thirsted for argument with the high ecclesiastic upon transubstantiation, consubstantiation, and all the other "a...

With eyes injected, wide open mouth, and dropped jaw the man sat all fallen together in his seat, the gold ornaments still strewed about him, the pencil with which he had been c...

The Abbot of Montblanch, Don Baltasar Varela, was supposed to be occupied in prayer and meditation. But in common with many of his abbatical brethren, he employed his leisure wi...

The dust-heat of the desolate plains of Old Castile was red on the horizon when the Sergeant and his companion started together on their strange and perilous mission. Would they...

At the great entrance gate they paused, uncertain which way to turn, for from the windows of the chapel a bright light shone forth upon the grey waste without, whitening alike t...

So saying, Rollo went out and locked the door behind him, leaving La Giralda with a loaded pistol seated beside it to prevent any egress, in case Fernandez had some way of openi...