Chapter 8

"Hoopey!" howled Rusty Snow, with such sudden gusto as to frighten his companions. The Duke stood up, trembling: he could not believe his eyes. Even Nita drew back with a scream of horror, which turned into dumfounded happiness as the unmistakable features of Warren Jarvis appeared in the bright glow.

"The Ghost Breaker!" exclaimed the Duke.

The Princess merely held out her hands, with a happy warmth which Jarvis could feel through her gloves.

"How did you spring out of the earth, just here?" she cried.

"Well, I got to the town a bit late. The old carry-all that brought me broke down three miles back and I stumbled along, knowing this was the only road which could bring you. I stopped here for something to eat--and the place is so old that not even the townspeople come there any more.... The food was older than the town."

He tossed his grip to Rusty, and turned toward the Duke.

"It strikes me that I won my bet, your Excellency!"

"Where did you come from? We thought you were drowned at sea."

"I _was_ nearly drowned when I slid down a rope, outside the ship and flopped into the harbor as she lay at the dock. After hiding under the cover of a lifeboat for twelve hours, I was so stiff that my quarter-mile swim was the hardest job I ever did. On shore I bought new clothes, and took the first train. Q.E.D."

"How did you get here ahead of us?" asked the Princess, still misbelieving her senses. "I knew you would make it--but how so fast?"

"I had a good day's start of you--even without this automobile. But let's get on up to that castle of yours, for I want to finish up my job and get back to America."

The Duke had been watching the expression of the American, trying in vain to fathom the mystery.

"This has been a wretched hoax--you have all been in league to trick me!" he began.

But Jarvis interrupted menacingly.

"Now, listen. No whining. I stood for a good deal--I knew about that wireless, and I guess tricks can be played both ways. May I ride with your chauffeur, your Highness?"

She nodded, and, the obstruction in the road removed, they journeyed on, slowly but more or less surely, toward the distant castle.

"We will stop at old Pedro's inn to-night, for I am frantic to hear of my brother," she said as they advanced. Carlos was too deep in thought to speak again.

And up at that same inn the usual nightly round of mediæval revelry was going on. This ancient structure, indeterminate in age and style of architecture, was built upon uneven ground. To save expense and trouble, in the distant days of its inception, it had been built upon two levels, without the excavating for foundations. Time and the weather had warped and twisted the old wooden floors and beams so that by this date it had numerous levels. Yet the remaining furniture was of substantial oak, and here and there could be seen evidence of the expenditure, in days long past, of good Spanish gold.

Asleep, with his head on the square table by the fireplace, was Pedro, the old proprietor. Two villagers sat at another table in the side of the big room playing cards, with wordy arguments about their winnings and losses.

A young woman of perhaps twenty-three, dark-skinned, dark-eyed and dark-tressed, crossed the floor from an adjoining room, to answer a knock at the door.

From the room she had left came the sound of singing and mandolines.

"Hello, Vardos--any more news?" she asked of the peasant who entered the portal bearing a basket of food.

"Still no word or sign of the Prince," he said apologetically, avoiding her scornful look. "Here's yesterday's basket untouched as usual."

"And you left to-day's basket at the castle gate?" she asked sharply.

"Yes, this is the fifteenth night," he replied, looking back at the door.

"You haven't given up hope yet?"

The man shook his head sadly.

"I gave up hope when he went in. I waited to-night until dark before I came away from the moat."

"Once to-night I thought I saw a light in the tower, Vardos."

"If you did, Señorita Dolores, it was an unblessed flame." He sank into a chair weakly. "Once when I called to-night a wail came back to me. It sounded like a sigh of the damned. It may have been only the wind through the grated window. But it chilled my heart."

"You are a silly coward," retorted Dolores. "But what then, Vardos?"

"When I called the second time something moved in the turret of the keep, and my soul was joyful. Then, with a harsh cry, a black ugly bird flew from the turret, straight toward where the sun had set.... On my left, mind you, the sinister side,--the left--the left!"

The castanets and music in the other room grew louder.

"Oh, if the good Princess were only here!" moaned the girl. "She could help. She could do something."

"She's on her way," he told her hopelessly, "but what can she do--what can anyone do, with the imps of darkness all about her?"

"She would go straight into that castle after her brother. Ah, she is a great lady, with a great heart. Then will the villagers have it said that they let their own Princess go in alone, as they did their Prince?"

"God forbid that it should come to that!" muttered the Prince's retainer, as he handed her the basket. "Good-night, señorita."

As he started for the door the girl called after him.

"Will you go again to-morrow, Vardos?"

"Yes, señorita. I will go forever, until I know for sure that it is useless. Good-night."

His words as he passed through the old portal were drowned by the cheering and applause which followed some especial favorite who had ended a song.

Dolores looked sadly at the basket, the tears streaming down her face. She lifted the napkin, showing the simple but nourishing food which had been untouched by the missing Prince. She crossed herself, with a whispered prayer for his safety, crossing the room to the ancient pantry.

The dreams of Pedro were rudely interrupted. The big door suddenly opened to admit a character very different from the weaklings who made his tavern their rendezvous. He was dark-skinned as the rest of the crew, red-faced as old Pedro (from the same faithful indulgence in vintages), not younger than forty, yet aggressive, vibrating with physical power, elasticity, and an overweening insolence. His manner of approach--and he entered this tavern with the same studied grace with which he swaggered into half a hundred others--seemed to indicate that he delighted in disorganizing and terrorizing whatever he might find established and orderly--wherever he might find it!

Beholding the somnolent proprietor, he advanced quietly to the middle of the big room. Then, with malicious enjoyment of the effect, he banged his riding-crop violently upon the table, close to the tavern keeper's ear.

"Hey, you Pedro!" he roared. "Wake up, you blockhead--wake up, I say!"

There was only a response of snores.

"You, Pedro, attention! What's the matter here? Where are you? Wake up and stop your dreaming!"

At this the startled landlord leaped to his feet, bowing through force of habit.

"Ah, Señor Robledo! One thousand pardons!" he gasped timorously. "What can I do for you, sir?"

"You're a wretch of a tavern keeper," and the newcomer advanced upon the unhappy Pedro as though about to slay him for his drowsiness.

"Yes, señor! You are always right." The man humbly endeavored to collect his wits. "How may I serve your lordship?"

The bully swaggered, puffed his cheeks, and feeling that his host was finally awake to the seriousness of the situation, he cried out once more: "My horse stands outside by the post. He has been hard ridden, for I have come on an important mission. Varlet, go out and wash his mouth, dry him down, and don't give him water until he has cooled off. Are you finally awake, you idiotic Pedro?"

The tavern keeper gulped fearsomely, and bowed his most fetching bow, without result.

"My horse is almost dead on his legs. Be kind to him. I've had a hard ride over these miserable province roads. As for me--I want a flask of ... well ... of something decent. I know that's not in your line. Step lively now; and mind you, draw it from your private cask. My temper is no better than it should be, to-night."

The old man bowed and started to leave the big room.

The blustering guest howled at him once more, punctuating his remarks with the butt of the whip.

"Where's your daughter?"

The old man trembled and bowed once more.

"I'll call her," Pedro said apologetically. "She'll be right here, sir."

He went to the door at the right, and shouted quaveringly: "Dolores! Dolores! Dolores!... There, señor, she will come at once."

"And, Pedro--if that rat-infested larder of yours is empty, get it filled before the Duke arrives," added Robledo. "Yes ... the Duke. He is coming to-night. Don't stand and stare, but hurry up and see to my horse."

"Yes, señor!... Yes, yes!"

And he tottered away on his errands.

Dolores had entered in response to the call. At first she did not observe the newcomer, whose back was toward her.

"Yes, father," she began. "Why do you wish me?"

"Dolores," Robledo turned toward her impatiently. "Did you not know I had come?"

"Oh, it's you?" and there was a scornful sniff from the girl.

"Well, well, can't you say you're glad to see me?"

The jade was hard to impress, where others showed abjection before the terrorist.

"I can, but I won't. Where's my father?"

"Never mind your father--I want to talk to you."

"Is it so, Señor Robledo? Well, you won't in that tone."

He intercepted her in the center of the room, catching her wrist and turning her about to face him.

"What do you want to say to me?"

"You little devil!... Come here, don't try to get away." The girl was tugging to release herself. "What's come over you these days? You are about as fond and sweet-tempered as a tigress. Anyone would think that you didn't care for me at all. What have I done, Dolores?"

"It is what you have not done. For fifteen days your Prince has been in need of you, and you have not had the courage to go to him. Let go my wrist."

Don Robledo laughed, yet with a quaver in his voice, for there was a depth of passion here, intensified by the spirited resistance of the girl.

"Who's the little spitfire trying to tear to pieces now?"

"You!" she snapped back. "Don Robledo--sword-fighter--toreador--fire-eater --hero of a hundred duels!... You--Don Robledo--_coward_!"

He clumsily chuckled her under the chin.

"I asked you to-day," she continued, as she threw his hand away from her face, "I begged you to go into the castle and rescue your Prince. I ask you now to answer the signal that I just saw in the tower window, where he can see our lights. Perhaps he has burned something, a scrap of paper, in the hope that some of you, his retainers, would notice it and come to his assistance. But--he doesn't know what a pack of cowards you all are, or he would have saved his matches. So, it's Don Robledo--_coward_!"

The big man snarled.

"Coward--never a coward in a fair fight in the open, and I'll meet the best man that walks the earth." Here he faced the inquisitive and thoroughly awed villagers. "Any two or three!"

He banged the table with his riding-crop to punctuate the emphasis.

"I don't ask you to kill one or two or three of these poor whimpering sheep of Seguro. I ask you to dare something, at risk to yourself. To go to the aid of your Prince.... There isn't a man among you--who _dares_! _Dios!_ How I could love _such a man_!"

They had not heard the thrum of the motors on the roadway outside. The door opened, and the first of the party to enter was the Duke. He walked quietly into the room, overhearing the words of Dolores.

"A pretty little speech!" he observed sarcastically.

"Your Excellency!" cried Robledo, taking off his hat. "Welcome back to Seguro."

"Yes, I am well come to Seguro."

The natives doffed their hats, and like Pedro bowed and howled in the time-honored peasant way.

"The Duke! The Duke!"

"Pedro, go out and help the Princess and her servants with the luggage. I want to speak to you alone, Robledo. Hurry, while the others are delayed with that execrable car. I walked a hundred yards to get here first."

He turned toward Dolores with a scowl.

"Those are charming sentiments for your fellow-townsmen, whose healthy common sense prevents them from rushing to a fool's death. Still, all fools are not dead yet. One of them will be here to-night. And you, señorita, will doubtless be pleased to look over him, as he has come all the way from America for the privilege of entering the castle and playing your hero."

Dolores looked at Robledo, as she parried:

"And did her Highness have to go all the way to America to find him?"

"Yes, indeed. He's from America, where all the fools come from!"

And the villagers joined in a merry chorus of intelligent laughter!

XIII

"GENTLEMEN, A MAN!"

Dolores had hurried upstairs, where she well knew there was a tiny attic in the rambling old building which acted as an excellent whispering gallery. Every word spoken in the larger room below could be heard from this vantage. She was no sooner secreted there than she heard the voice of the Duke.

"You received my telegram sent to San Fernandez?"

"Yes, Excellency. Antonio brought it over with the mail-bags."

"What about the Prince?"

"Ah, Excellency ... why ask? The same news as before. This stupid Vardos has been taking food to the castle every day, but he is too frightened to venture into the miserable old pile of stones. It is most droll, your Excellency."

"Well then, Robledo, I am satisfied as far as that goes. But you have work before you of a new character."

The swordsman struck a chair with his riding-crop. It seemed a favorite stage effect with him; the Duke was not slow in catching its significance.

"Just forget these little affectations, my good man," he said haughtily. "None of this blustering around me. I know that you do your work well, and at other times there is much to be desired. Now, in this case, you have a dangerous man to combat. And the combat must be final, no matter how difficult."

"How is he dangerous?" and there was a new note in Robledo's blustering voice.

"Unless he is stopped he may cause trouble for the traditions of Seguro. He is crafty as a _contrabandisto_, cunning as the snakes of the Pyrenees! He has been brought here by my cousin the Princess to make some special investigations." He laughed, with that cruel, mirthless inflection so characteristic. "She should have left that to me--and she will be sorry ere it is all over. This man has thwarted me twice already. Coming over on the steamer from America the scoundrel disappeared from the ship most remarkably, just when I had all arranged to put him into duress in Liverpool. I have yet to learn the secret of it. He must be discouraged ... you understand, Robledo?"

"Excellency, I can assure you that the Yankee pig will be convinced, in a language which he will understand, that his presence in the castle to-night is quite unnecessary. Have you any particular instructions?"

The Duke shook his head and grimaced suggestively.

"Any way you please, Robledo. You understand my general ideas on such subjects. Means are of no consequence to a born statesman. Results are the only permanent things in this world. However--I warn you. Don't underestimate your man. He will shoot; I imagine that he can shoot quickly and without a tremor."

"Ha, ha! Good opposition. I welcome such an antagonist--these fat-brained peasants about here are too simple to stimulate me to good work. I have been growing dull and commonplace--I am almost out of training, as they call it in the bull-ring."

"Come then, and I will give Pedro some money to buy drinks for the stupid dolts,--they can drink my health: it is none of the best these days, Robledo. My American trip was wearing. It is a wretched, unromantic hole--not a country, just a great mob of people."

"I can well believe your Excellency. This way, sir."

They returned to the big room of the tavern, and Dolores retired from the temporary confessional box. Her face showed mixed emotions--but predominating over any other influence was the great desire to serve the rulers of her family. Curiously loyal are these humble peasants of the inland Latin districts. Their lives follow the monotonous example of the generations before them: as their grandsires, their fathers were tradesmen of a certain calling, so do they follow the strata, contented to exist with the conventional beginning, moderately happy middle era, and inevitably stupid ending of their lives.

It is this which is so pleasing to the European aristocrats: no matter how bankrupt, incompetent, disreputable, the class theory which is recognized by the masses is, "Once a gentleman, always a gentleman."

It is inconceivable upon the Continent for a peasant's or even a tradesman's son or daughter to aspire to a higher level than that of the family. Exceptions to the rule are looked upon with distrust by superiors as well as the lowly equals: too much ambition is a temptation to the gods which is hardly respectable.

There is a smug contentment, then, in the feudal countries which is the surest bulwark of the "divine right of kings"--and courtiers! A pleasantly distended belly, a mellow thrill from cheap wine, a certainty about the repetition of regular meals and drinks, with enough clothes and shelter to maintain relative positions with the neighbors--this year, next year, and twenty years from now ... these things are the mess of pottage for which the Esaus of the kingdoms and principalities sell their birthrights and their souls!

Vardos--for instance--bodyservant and sole military retainer of a princely line which for generation after generation had considered itself in humiliating straits unless there were at least a thousand lances at beck and call--old Vardos had been thrown into a mental maelstrom by the sudden change in the lifelong existence. Sure of his meals and a modicum of money for occasional visits to taprooms, he was now placed in a position of responsibility, one where executive and aggressiveness were demanded. Here old Vardos failed, because he was a peasant true to his type. The poor fellow had struggled with his grief these fifteen days--now he felt, with a helpless aching of the faithful heart, that he must have been in a sense responsible for the death of his master. He had pleaded with the young Prince not to enter the accursed place.

Insanity and suicide though it seemed to be to him, he could not help it. That was bad enough--but with the prospect of the beautiful Princess going into the place as well: life had become a horrible thing to him.

He sought the wayside shrine down the crooked village street. He threw himself upon his knees before it, vowing candles to every saint who had granted petty favors to him in the past!

He faced the great cathedral, rearing its pale crest in the dim light from the stars, vast and exalted above the miserable squalor of those whose ancestors had created its grandeur with their inspired devotion. He told the Holy Family and the saints, with tear-choked voice, the quandary of his noble master, and begged that, though they should never grant him another request, somehow, somewhere, they find and bring a gallant adventurer who could turn defeat into victory, one more willing and competent than himself, to die!

And the answer to this prayer was unburdening his own soul with semi-religious phrases, in a Kentucky accent, addressed with unwonted and even picturesque fluency at the stumbling, stodgy Rusty Snow, who trudged along loaded with luggage and an insatiate hatred of this "cussed foreign joint," as he labeled it to himself.

The Princess and her maid had, at Jarvis' suggestion, left them with the automobile in its latest quagmire, to reach the shelter of the inn. So it was that, as her vassal and his vassal struggled with the luggage in the dark, she reached the portal of the house of Pedro.

Robledo was hearkening carefully to certain careful instructions from the Duke of Alva, nodding with a smile of malicious portent at the final words.

"I will not fall short of my former reputation, your Excellency," declared the Don. "When a man reaches my time of life, after a success in the bull-ring as toreador, in the army as a duelist, and in the private retinue of so distinguished a nobleman as yourself, he has a certain pride in his ability.... Indeed, I regret that I must waste my talents upon a stupid pig of a Yankee."

Shaking his head, Carlos drew out his purse.

"The man is no idiot, unfortunately. He has completely won the confidence of the Princess, despite his obvious trickeries. Now, however, I would like to attend to a few little tasks of cleaning up after that miserable trip."

Pedro was approaching them subserviently, a humble, bobbing head betokening his anxiety to please the fine folk.

"Anything else, your Excellency?" he stammered, overcome with the pomp and majesty of the situation.

"Here, my good man, take this coin and have the brave lads in the taproom drink to my health and that of her Exalted Highness, the Princess Maria Theresa."

With studied carelessness, he dropped the coin upon the floor, and Pedro chased the rolling golden disk with surprising agility.

"Then bring me up some hot water, soap, and towels. You may prepare a hasty supper, as well--but let it be fit for a gentleman to eat!"

"Yes, yes! Your Excellency!" and Pedro nearly brought back his rheumatic spell by the renewed bobbing of the stiff old back, as he retreated to the barroom.

He returned promptly after breaking the gladsome tidings of the treat, and led the nobleman up the stairway, as a chorus of cheers rang out from the alcoholic ward.

"The Duke! The Duke! His Excellency the Duke of Alva!"

Robledo walked to the door, with his characteristic swashbuckler rhythm, and stirred them up to more enthusiasm.

"Louder, you beggars, or I'll give you something to yell about--louder, I say!"

Dolores had slipped through the doorway, facing the road.

Suddenly she danced in through the entry again, happy and exultant.

"Her Highness has come, father. Her Highness!"

Old Pedro stumbled toward the balcony and peered over at her querulously.

"Father, father!"

"What is it, Dolores?"

"Her Highness, the Princess!"

The old man bustled down the stairs, trembling with added excitement, just as Maria Theresa and Nita were bowed into the tavern by a villager who had accompanied them from the delayed machine.

The peasants trooped into the room from the tap, howling with mediæval enthusiasm.

"Your Gracious Highness does my humble inn great honor," began Pedro, as his local guests imitated the clumsy courtesy with varying ability.

"Thank you, Pedro," replied the Princess graciously as one would address a polite child.

She held out her hand to Dolores, who kissed it reverently, with a bow and a bend of the knee.

"Your Highness, we are poorly prepared for this great favor, ill prepared indeed," apologized Dolores. "Your exalted cousin gave us but short warning of your coming. Our humble tavern is hardly fitting for a great lady."

"My child, any place to remove the dust of travel will do for me." She turned toward the villager at the door. "Tell my chauffeur that when he repairs the car I shall want it kept in readiness to use again."

Nita advanced anxiously.

"Your Highness is not thinking of going to the castle to-night, surely?" Her voice was politely remonstrative, with a note of apprehensiveness for the welfare of her mistress.

"But I must have news," declared the young woman impatiently. "I am frantic with worry, and the things which José has told me. Come to a room, Nita."

"Ah, your Highness, you are too brave, too determined. You are all worn out with this long trip. Better to wait until daylight, if I may be so bold as to suggest to your ladyship. You are all unstrung just now."