It was a mouse who gnawed a hole in the net that entangled the lion.
Now, I am no lion in importance, nor was Colonel O’Donnel’s messenger of
as little significance as a mouse; yet he was the last creature to whom I
would have looked for succour in a moment of stress. Nevertheless to him I
owed my rescue.
“A mistake, a mistake,” he chirped, jumping about, bird-like, just outside
the circle of struggling men. “I am a verger here; this gentleman was with
me. He did nothing. He is a most respectable and twice wealthy person, a
tourist whom I guide. He is innocent—no anarchist, no free-thinker. That
other—that pretended brother—has made a practical joke. See, he has run
away to escape consequences. There is nothing against this noble señor;
you have it on the word of a verger.”
Because it was bewilderingly dark, and they might have got the wrong man;
because, too, the verger was probably right, and it had been a joke played
upon them by a person who had now disappeared, the twelve or fifteen men
who surrounded me fell back shamefacedly, glad on second thoughts to melt
away before they could be identified and reproached for disturbing the
public peace, and spoiling the music to which their King listened.
I was free, but I would not leave the cathedral yet, for my hope was to
find Monica again. I wandered in every direction, while the verger went
off to bring Dick and the O’Donnels to meet me in the Orange Court.
Pilar’s delight in the first part of my story was dashed by the sequel. Of
course, she said, it must come right in the end, since Monica and I
understood each other at last. But just for the moment everything seemed
difficult. The Duke was sure now that I was Casa Triana, and not Cristóbal
O’Donnel. He would almost certainly make all the trouble he could, and a
man of his influence could make a good deal. As his attempt to stick a
dagger into me—by way of a quick solution—had been covered by the
_capucha_ of a _cofradìa_, I could not take revenge by laying a counter
accusation. I might say I had recognized his voice, and that I thought I
had recognized the dagger bought in Toledo; but I could prove nothing, and
the Duke would score.
Still, as the Cherub remarked consolingly, he could not do much worse than
force me out of Spain. Neither I, nor anyone else, had ever said in so
many words that I was Cristóbal O’Donnel. If people had taken my identity
for granted because of a few round-about hints, and because for a joke I
had borrowed a friend’s uniform for a day or two, nothing very serious
could be made out of that after all; and as Cristóbal really was on leave,
he need not be involved. He was a good officer, whose services were
valued, and I was not to worry lest harm should come upon him. I need
think only of Monica and of myself. Had I formed any idea of what to do
next?
“I must get Monica out of Carmona’s house,” I said.
“You’ll have to lie in wait and snatch her from under their noses next
time they show them,” suggested Dick; “unless—”
“Unless?”
“Carmona keeps his indoors until he’s arranged to have yours politely
deported.”
“I can’t be got rid of in an hour.”
“You could to-morrow.”
“I’m afraid you can,” sighed the Cherub, “and that, though I shall do my
best, I may be powerless to help you.”
“What if it were known that he saved the King yesterday?” Pilar asked her
father.
“The King is going away to-morrow. You know, he’s off to England in a few
days. Besides, the incident to-day will be hushed up. The King will know,
of course, and a few others; but it will be kept out of the
papers,—anyhow, until they’ve got their hands on both the men concerned.”
“I’ve still got to-night,” I said, “and it’s not eleven yet. I hoped that
in the confusion Monica had given her mother and Carmona the slip, and
that if I waited here I might find her again. I thought she might try to
get back to the chapel where we had our talk, trusting that I’d look for
her there. But she didn’t come, and I searched everywhere in vain before I
tried watching the crowd pass through the Court of Oranges. Now, I’m
certain that Carmona or Lady Vale-Avon must have pounced upon her while I
was surrounded, and forced her away. No doubt they’re at home long ago.
Why shouldn’t I appeal to the English consul, and say that the Duke of
Carmona’s detaining an English girl in his house against her will?”
“No use,” said the Cherub. “She’s under age, and she’s with her mother,
who’s visiting the Duchess.”
“Then I’ll go to Carmona’s door and make such a row that they’ll be
obliged to let me in.”
“You’d get into a police cell instead. A man’s house is his castle,
especially when it’s a palace and he’s a Duke.”
I was silenced. I knew the Cherub was right; but it seemed monstrous that
in this twentieth century such tyranny should divide a girl from her
lover.
When I had thought for a moment I said, “Anyhow, I shall go to the house
and try to bribe a servant. Once in, I’d not come out without Monica. I’ve
done two satisfactory things to-day by bribery and corruption, and I don’t
see why I shouldn’t bring it off the third time.”
“The Duke’s servants have been in the employ of the family for years, and
their fathers and grandfathers before them. No money would bribe them to
deceive their master and mistress,” said the Cherub.
“I shouldn’t have thought either the Duke or his mother capable of
inspiring such devotion.”
“It isn’t devotion—it’s fear. To an unfaithful servant in that house—well,
almost anything might happen.”
“Have you any advice to give me, then?” I asked, in despair.
The Cherub shook his head. “The prudent thing would be to go away
to-night, and trust Lady Monica’s loyalty. She can’t be forced into
marrying the Duke, you know; and if she breaks the engagement he’ll have
to let her alone, for dignity’s sake.”
“That might be prudent; but of course I won’t do it.”
“Of course you won’t,” returned the Cherub, as if it went without saying.
“Very well, then; matters are desperate, and desperate remedies must be
tried; things can’t be worse than they are. I shall hang about Carmona’s
house early in the morning, and when the first person comes out I’ll go
in. If I don’t come out, you will know what’s become of me; and I don’t
suppose in these days even a Duke can kill a man without getting into
trouble?”
“He would merely have you arrested as a housebreaker,” said the Cherub.
“Well, I should have seen Monica first, and perhaps have got her on the
right side of the door.”
“We’ll have a go at the business together,” said Dick. “It would be more
sociable.”
“All right, thank you,” said I. “Then something’s settled; and these best
of friends can go home and sleep.”
“Sleep!” echoed Pilar scornfully. “Oh, if I were a man, and could do
_something_ to punish the Duke!”
“I wish you could set your bull at him,” said Dick. “Only, now I think of
it, it’s _his_ bull still.”
Try as we might, it was impossible to persuade either Colonel O’Donnel or
Pilar that they ought to return quietly to bed, if not to sleep. No, they
would do nothing of the kind. Besides, no properly disposed person within
ten miles of Seville would lie in bed that night. Processions would go on
till early morning. Many people would watch them, or spend the hours till
early mass in prayer in the cathedral, which would be open all night. Why
should not the O’Donnel family do as others did?
There was no answer to this; and it was finally arranged that, if they
wished to rest at all, it should be at the hotel in the Plaza de San
Fernando, where we had dined. That was to be the rendezvous; and the
Cherub would engage the verger we knew to watch the Duke’s house in the
morning, bringing news of our fate to the hotel—if we did not bring it
ourselves.
Never—if I live beyond the allotted threescore years and ten—shall I
forget that strange night of Holy Thursday in Seville.
Dick and I wandered through the streets, and in the Plaza de la
Constitución, where electric lamps and moonlight mingled bleakly, while
never-ending _cofradìas_ passed.
A sky of violet was like a veil of silky gauze, and as the moon slid down
the steeps of heaven the vast dome paled. One by one the stars went out
like spent matches; dawn was on its way. Electric lights flared and died,
leaving a pearly dusk more mysterious than any twilight which falls with
night.
The crowds had thinned; but silent brotherhoods moved through streets
where there was no other sound than the rustling of their feet, the tap of
their leaders’ silver batons. So faint was the dawn-dusk, that they were
droves of shadows on their way back into night, their candle-lights lost
stars. Now and then the clink of a baton brought to some half-shuttered
window a face, to be presently joined by other faces, peering down at the
dark processions of men and black-robed, penitent women.
Outside the great east door of the cathedral halted a _paso_, like a huge
golden car. Christ was nailed to a cross not yet lifted into place. A
Roman soldier, of exaggerated height and sardonic features, stood reading
the parchment with the mocking inscription about to be nailed above the
thorn-crowned head. His evil mouth was curled in a satirical smile. Two
centurions in armour sat their impatient horses, and gave directions for
raising the cross. The effect was startling; for in this pale beginning of
light, and the atmosphere of tingling exaltation which steeped the town,
it was difficult not to believe that the terrible carved figures of wood
had life, and that with the eyes of one’s flesh one beheld the world’s
great tragedy.
Somehow the impression of horror was but deepened by the fact that the
bearers had come out from under the curtains of the _paso_, to take off
the large pads they wore on their heads, to drink water, and smoke
cigarettes with the penitents who had rolled up the masks from their pale,
damp faces. They might have been comrades of the Roman soldiers, in their
obliviousness of that tortured form on the cross.
It was not yet five o’clock when Dick and I plunged into the cool gloom of
the cathedral, passing the spot where Carmona had struck at me, and the
chapel where I had taken Monica. The stones were slippery as the floor of
a ballroom, with wax dropped from innumerable candles, and the air was
heavy with the smoke of stale incense.
The searchlight of dawn could scarcely penetrate the black curtains which
throughout Holy Week had draped the cathedral; therefore a solitary beam,
like a bar of gold, slanted in through one superb window.
The amethysts, emeralds, and rubies of incomparable painted glass
transformed the yellow bar into a rainbow which streamed down the length
of the majestic aisle and struck full upon a golden altar. Then slowly the
jewelled band moved from the gold carvings, the flames dying as it passed.
Travelling, still like a searchlight, it found the prostrate forms of
sleeping men exhausted by their vigils, snatched out of veiling darkness
kneeling women clad in black, and at last rested on the Holy Week monument
itself, paled its myriad candles, and made pools of liquid gold on the
vestments of priests who had knelt all night in adoration of the Host.
“Say,” said Dick, half whispering, “I don’t gush as a rule; but doesn’t it
look like the light of salvation coming to save lost souls?”
Not a hotel in Seville had shut its doors that night of Holy Thursday; not
a _concièrge_ had done more than nod and wake out of a broken dream, for
there had been an excited coming and going through all the dark hours.
At six o’clock Dick and I were at the _fonda_, inquiring for Colonel
O’Donnel and his daughter. They had come in at two, and were now asleep,
it seemed; but had left a note for the señores. In this note we were
assured that the friendly verger of last night’s adventure would be
lurking in the neighbourhood of Carmona’s house as early as six o’clock,
and should we want him we would know where he was to be found.
We took bedrooms, bathed, dressed again, and after hot coffee and rolls
decided that is was time to go on guard. To be sure, it was absurdly
early; but by this time the Duke’s household might be astir, and we must
not risk letting Monica be carried away before we had had a chance to
practise the gentle art of housebreaking.
The clocks of Seville were spasmodically telling the hour of seven when we
entered the narrow and dusky lane of the Calle de las Dueñas. So fast
asleep were the shuttered windows that our mission seemed a fool’s errand;
but as we came in sight of the Duke’s closed door the Cherub’s messenger
loomed out of the shadows.
Unshaven and haggard, his eyes glittered like black beads in the daylight;
and he greeted us excitedly. “Señores,” he began, “I was going to look for
you at the hotel. A thing has happened. The Señor Colonel told me I must
watch the house of His Grace the Duke, and let you know when you came if
anyone had been out or in. Who would think of people starting upon a
journey before the day is awake? But so it is. The Duke, whom I have seen
in other years, has gone away in an automobile with his honourable mother
and two other ladies.”
“You are sure it was he?” I asked, completely taken aback.
“Sure, my señorito. The car was a large grey car. And”—his face grew sly
as a squirrel’s—“I can tell you where it is going, if you would like to
know.”
“I want to know all you can tell,” I said.
“Well, the grey car arrived a little before half-past six, I should think.
In it there was only the young man who drives, dressed in leather. ‘What
is going to happen?’ I asked myself. It seemed better to wait and see than
run to the hotel to say, ‘there’s an automobile at the door for the Duke,’
and perhaps find it gone, no one could tell where, when I got back. But I
do not sleep on my feet. There are always ideas running in my head. I
pretended to be strolling past, and stopping for a look at such a fine
machine. Perhaps I had matches in my pocket, perhaps not; in any case I
asked the young man in leather to give me a light for my cigarette. He
did, and it was a natural thing to fall into talk. ‘You make an early
start,’ I said. He nodded. ‘Going far?’ ‘To Cadiz to-day, by Jerez.’ That
is all, honoured señores; but I tell it for what it is worth. A few
minutes later the grand people came out, and the automobile shot away.”
“Did they put on luggage?” I asked.
“All the automobile would hold.”
“By Jove!” exclaimed Dick. “Carmona’s thrown sand in our eyes this time.
Who’d have supposed he’d turn tail and run away like a coward in the midst
of the Holy Week show, with the King still in town?”
“I was a fool not to expect the unexpected,” I said. “If anyone except
Colonel O’Donnel’s man had told me I should have been between two minds
whether to accept the story or not. But O’Donnel called him a trusty
fellow; and he served me well last night. If we wait to verify his story,
by the time we find out it’s true the grey car will have got too long a
start. I don’t like Carmona’s stealing off. It looks as if there were
something up.”
“He showed last night that he was desperate,” said Dick. “I guess we’d
better get on the road before much grass grows.”
“You’re the best of friends,” said I. And paying the verger well for his
services, we hurried back to the hotel to find Ropes and have the car got
ready.
It was still very early, and the Cherub and Pilar had not had many hours
beauty sleep; but we could not leave for an indefinite absence without
bidding them good-bye; and we were on our way to knock at Colonel
O’Donnel’s door when Pilar appeared from the room adjoining.
A moment, and she understood everything. “You’ll follow!” she exclaimed,
without waiting to hear my plans.
“And I’ll go with him,” said Dick, looking wistfully at her; for he had
not had his answer yet, and who could tell when he would have it now, or
what it would be when it came?
“Of course. I knew you would,” Pilar replied. And a light leaped up in her
dark eyes. If it meant nothing warmer, it meant approval. “You’ll want to
go at once. Oh, I _am_ sorry you’ll miss the fair. You don’t know what a
fairyland Seville is, with miles of streets and park roofed in with arches
of coloured lights, like jewels; and papa has a tent in the gayest place,
where we stay all day, and see our friends, and it’s such fun visiting the
booths and side-shows! But maybe next spring you’ll come back for the
_feria_ with your bride, Don Ramón; and as for you, Señor Waring—”
“As for me?” repeated Dick, anxiously. “Am I not to come back before
that?”
“You’re to come back when you like, and—papa will be glad to see you,” she
answered, just as any conventional little señorita might have answered.
But at least she had the kindness to blush; and I would have moved away to
give Dick a last chance if at that moment the Cherub had not come out of
his room.
Instantly Pilar dashed into explanations, and between the three of us he
soon had the history of events.
No one on earth looks less practical than the dreamy-eyed, soft-voiced
Cherub; yet it was he who thought of practical details which we had
forgotten. He it was who reminded us that it would not be prudent to take
Ropes away from Seville. As the man who said he had discovered the bomb,
his evidence would be wanted, and if he disappeared it would look
mysterious. His real connection with the Marqués of Casa Triana might be
unearthed by the police; and because of that miserable affair at
Barcelona, whose consequences were continually cropping up, some hideous
story might be concocted and believed.
Dick and I unhesitatingly decided to take the Cherub’s advice, and leave
Ropes behind. He was engaged in getting the car ready, and would no doubt
be disappointed to hear that he was to be temporarily abandoned; but he
would see the wisdom of such a course, and might be trusted to guard my
interests. As for Dick, he might turn his back on the proceedings in
Seville without danger, for he posed only as the employer of a man who had
found the bomb; besides, as I suggested without glancing at Pilar, he
could come back in a few days in case he were wanted to give evidence.
Thus it was settled; at eight o’clock we had said good-bye to Pilarcita
and the Cherub, softening the farewell with a hopeful “_au revoir_”; and
with Ropes staring disconsolately after us, we flashed out of the Plaza de
San Fernando.
I drove, with Dick beside me, for there was no longer need for subterfuge.
Carmona knew me for what I was, and I could help Monica more by defying
him than by playing the old waiting game, of which I was tired.
It seemed strange to be racing across country again in the car, after
those fevered days in Seville. With the steering-wheel in my hand, the
steady thrum of the motor seemed to say, “You’ll do it; you’ll do it;—I’ll
help you to do it.”
The air was made of perfume—orange blossoms and acacias; and the vast
flowery plain where Seville is queen gave us a tolerable road, on which
the car ran lightly. Soaring snow peaks of fantastic shapes walled the
green arena of rolling meadows, and the day was like a day of June.
Save for the grey Lecomte, scarcely a motor had we seen since leaving
Biarritz, except in Madrid; but now, when I tried to decipher the road
hieroglyphics, the dust showed more than one track of pneus. Cars had come
to Seville from Madrid for _Semana Santa_, and had evidently run out this
way for a spin more than once. As I had not Ropes’ detective talent I was
unable to distinguish the Lecomte’s tyre-marks from others.
In sight of the conspicuous church tower at Utrera—ancient home of
outlaws—we came upon a dusty white line diverging to Ecija. Pausing to
question a road-mender, I remembered Colonel O’Donnel’s story of the Seven
Men of Ecija, and the curious bond between them and the Dukes of Carmona.
But what brought the tale to my mind—unless it was the name of Ecija on
the road-map and signpost, or the fact that we were now in the real heart
of brigand-land—I could not have told.
Yes, said the road-mender, he had seen an automobile go by—a big one, not
long ago, steering as if for Jerez. Was it grey? He would not be sure, but
at all events the thing was so grey with dust that had there been another
colour underneath, no one could have seen it. Ladies in the car? Well, he
was not positive, for it had gone by like a cannon-ball in a cloud of
smoke; but there were several persons inside, and it was the only motor
which had passed him to-day. Several cars had appeared in the distance
yesterday, but they had turned back on the Seville side of Utrera.
One automobile, a big one, apparently grey, and with several persons
inside, had gone by at a tremendous pace not long before. That sounded as
if the car we chased could not be far away. Our eyes searched the
tell-tale dust, and found the sleek, straight trail of a pneu in the midst
of wobbling cart tracks. We had but to follow that straight trail, then, I
said, to come up with Carmona and interfere with his new plans.
Now we were racing through a wide region of salt marsh, where within
enclosures grazed hundreds of fierce black bulls, sooner or later to die
in the arena. The country became desolate, and curiously sad. We met no
more peasants’ carts or laden donkeys as the road began to undulate among
the foothills of distant mountain ranges.
“What an ideal place for a band of Colonel O’Donnel’s _bandidos_, eh?”
said Dick; then drew in his breath with a sharpness that cut the sentence
short, as we whirled round a hummock at a turning of the road.