"ONLY EMPTY BOTTLES."
About the time the Free Lances were burying their comrade in the
cemetery of the convent the gate of San Antonio de Abad was opened to
permit the passage of a squadron of Hussars going outward from the city.
There were nigh 200 of them, in formation "by fours"--the wide causeway
allowing ample room for even ten abreast.
At their head rode Colonel Santander, with Major Ramirez by his side,
other officers in their places distributed along the line.
Soon as they had cleared the _garita_, a word to the bugler, with a note
or two from his trumpet quick succeeding, set them into a gallop; the
white dusty road and clear moonlight making the fastest pace easily
attainable. And he who commanded was in haste, his destination being
that old monastery, of which he had only lately heard, but enough to
make him most eager to reach it before morning. His hopes were high; at
last he was likely to make a _coup_--that capture so much desired, so
long delayed!
For nearly an hour bridles were let loose, and spurs repeatedly plied.
On along the _calzada_ swept the squadron, over the bridge Churubusco,
and past the _hacienda_ of San Antonio de Abad, which gives its name to
the city gate on that side. Thenceforward the Pedregal impinges on the
road, and the Hussars still going at a gallop along its edge, another
bugle-call brought them to a halt.
That, however, had naught to do with their halting, which came from
their commander having reached the spot where he had left the hunchback
in charge of the two soldiers.
He need not hail them to assure himself they were still there. The
trampling of horses on the hard causeway, heard afar off, had long ago
forewarned the corporal of what was coming; and he was out on the road
to receive them, standing in an attitude of attention.
The parley was brief, and quick the action which accompanied it.
"Into your saddle, _cabo_!" commanded the colonel. "Take that curiosity
up behind you, and bring it along."
In an instant the corporal was mounted, the "curiosity" hoisted up to
his croup by Perico, who then sprang to the back of his own horse. Once
more the bugle gave tongue, and away they went again.
The cavalcade made no stop in San Augustin. There was no object for
halting it there, and delay was the thing its commander most desired to
avoid. As they went clattering through the _pueblo_, its people were
a-bed, seemingly asleep. But not all. Two at least were awake, and
heard that unusual noise--listened to it with a trembling in their
frames and fear in their hearts. Two ladies they were, inside a house
beyond the village, on the road running south. Too well they knew what
it meant, and whither the galloping cohort was bound. And themselves
unseen, they saw who was at the head; though they needed not seeing him
to know. But peering through the _jalousies_, the moonlight revealed to
them the face of Don Carlos Santander, in the glimpse they got of it,
showing spitefully triumphant.
He could not see them, though his eyes interrogated the windows while he
was riding past. They had taken care to extinguish the light in their
room.
"_Virgin Santissima_! Mother of God!" exclaimed one of the ladies,
Luisa Valverde, as she dropped on her knees in prayer, "Send that
they've got safe off ere this!"
"Make your mind easy, _amiga_!" counselled the Condesa Almonte in less
precatory tone. "I'm good as sure they have. Jose cannot fail to have
reached and given them warning. That will be enough."
A mile or so beyond San Augustin the southern road becomes too steep for
horses to go at a gallop, without risk of breaking their wind. So there
the Hussars had to change to a slower pace--a walk in fact. There were
other reasons for coming to this. The sound of their hoof-strokes
ascending would be heard far up the mountain, might reach the ears of
those in the monastery, and so thwart the surprise intended for them.
While toiling more leisurely up the steep, any one chancing to look in
the hunchback's face would there have observed an expression
indescribable. Sadness pervaded it, with an air of perplexity, as
though he had met with some misfortune he could not quite comprehend.
And so had he. Before leaving the spot where the stiletto was taken
from him, he had sought an opportunity to step back into that shady
niche in the cliff where he had lost his treasures. The _monte_
players, unsuspicious of his object, made no objection. But instead of
there finding what he had expected, he saw only a pair of horse-halters:
one lying coiled upon the ground, the head-stall of the other caught
over the rock above, the rope end dangling down!
An inexplicable phenomenon, which, however, he had kept to himself, and
ever since been cudgelling his brains to account for.
But soon after he had something else to think of: the time having
arrived when he was called upon to give proof of his capability as a
guide. Heretofore it had been all plain road riding; but now they had
reached a point spoken of by himself where the _calzada_ must be
forsaken. The horses, too, left behind; everything but their weapons;
the path beyond being barely practicable for men afoot.
Dismounting all, at a command--this time not given by the bugle--and
leaving a sufficient detail to look after the animals, they commenced
the ascent, their guide, seemingly more quadruped than biped, in the
lead. Strung out in single file--no other formation being possible--as
they wound their way up the zig-zag with the moonlight here and there,
giving back the glint of their armour, it was as some great serpent--a
monster of the antediluvian ages--crawling towards its prey. Silently
as serpent too; not a word spoken, nor exclamation uttered along their
line. For, although it might be another hour before they could reach
their destination, less than a second would suffice for their voices to
get there, even though but muttered.
One spot their guide passed with something like a shudder. It was where
he had appropriated the dagger taken from a dead body. His shuddering
was not due to that, but to fear from a far different cause. The body
was no longer there. Those who dwelt above must have been down and
borne it away. They would now be on the alert, and at any moment he
might hear the cracking of carbines--a volley; perhaps feel the avenging
bullet. What if they should roll rocks down and crush him and the party
behind? In any case there could be no surprisal now; and he would
gladly have seen those he was guiding give up the thought of it and turn
back. Santander was himself irresolute, and would willingly have done
so. But Ramirez, a man of more mettle, at the point of his sword
commanded the hunchback to keep on, and the cowardly colonel dare not
revoke the order without eternally disgracing himself.
They had no danger to encounter, though they knew not that. Neither
vidette nor sentinel was stationed there now; and, without challenge or
obstruction, they reached the platform on which the building stood, the
soldiers taking to right and left till they swarmed around it as bees.
But they found no honey inside their hive.
There was a summons to surrender, which received no response. Repeated
louder, and a carbine fired, the result was the same. Silence inside,
there could be no one within.
Nor was there. When the Hussar colonel, with a dozen of his men, at
length screwed up courage to make a burst into the doorway, and on to
the Refectory, they saw but the evidence of late occupancy in the
fragments of a supper, with some dozens of wine bottles "down among the
dead men," empty as the building itself.
Disappointed as were the soldiers at finding them so, but still more
their commanding officer at his hated enemies having again got away from
him. His soul was brimful of chagrin, nor did it allay the feeling to
learn how, when a path was pointed out to him leading down the other
side, they must have made off. And along such a path pursuit was idle.
No one could say where it led--like enough to a trap.
He was not the only one of the party who felt disappointed at the
failure of the expedition. Its guide had reason to be chagrined, too,
in his own way of thinking, much more than the leader himself. For not
only had he lost the goods obtained under false pretences, but the hope
of reward for his volunteered services.
Still the dwarf was not so down in the mouth. He had another arrow in
his quiver--kept in reserve for reasons of his own--a shaft from which
he expected more profit than all yet spent. And as the Hussar colonel
was swearing and raging around, he saw his opportunity to discharge it.
With half a dozen whispered words he tranquillised the latter; after
which there was a brief conference between the two, its effect upon
Santander showing itself in his countenance, that became all agleam, lit
up with a satisfied but malignant joy.
When, in an hour after, they were again in their saddles riding in
return for the city, a snatch of dialogue between Santander and Ramirez
gave indication of what so gratified the colonel of the Hussars.
"Well, Major," he said, "we've done road enough for this day. You'll be
wanting rest by the time you get to quarters."
"That's true enough, Colonel. Twice to San Augustin and back, with the
additional mileage up the mountains--twenty leagues I take it--to say
nothing of the climbing."
"All of twenty leagues it will be when we've done with it. But our ride
won't be over then. If I'm not mistaken, we'll be back this way before
we lay side on a bed. There's another nest not far off will claim a
visit from us, one we're not likely to find so empty. I'd rob it now if
I had my way; but for certain reasons, mustn't without permit from
headquarters; the which I'm sure of getting! _Carajo_! if the cock
birds have escaped, I'll take care the hens don't."
And as if to make sure of it, he dug the spurs deep into the flanks of
his now jaded charger, again commanding the "quick gallop."