THE SERGEANT AND LA GIRALDA
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 ever return, and when? What
might they not find? A Court deserted and forlorn, courtiers fleeing, or
eager to flee if only they knew whither, from the dread and terrible
plague? A Queen and a princess without guards, a palace open to the
plunder of any chance band of robbers? For something like this the imp
of the deserted village had prepared them.
At all events, the Sergeant and La Giralda went off calmly enough in the
direction of the town of San Ildefonso, driving their donkey before
them. For a minute, as they gained the crest, their figures stood out
black and clear against the coppery sunrise. The next they had
disappeared down the slope, the flapping peak of Cardono's Montera cap
being the last thing to be lost sight of.
The long, dragging, idle day was before the party in the dry ravine.
Etienne went to his saddle-bags, and drawing his breviary from the
leathern flap, began to peruse the lessons for the day with an attentive
piety which was not lessened by the fact that he had forgotten most of
the Latin he had learned at school. John Mortimer, on the other hand,
took out his pocket-book, and was soon absorbed by calculations in which
wine and onions shared the page with schemes for importing into Spain
Manchester goods woven and dyed to suit the taste of the country
housewives.
El Sarria sat down with a long sigh to his never-failing resort of
cleaning and ordering his rifle and pistols. He had a phial of oil, a
feather, and a fine linen rag which he carried about with him for the
purpose. Afterwards he undertook the same office for the weapons of
Rollo. Those of the other members of the expedition might take care of
themselves. Ramon Garcia had small belief in their ability to make much
use of them, at any rate--the sergeant being alone excepted.
These three being accounted for, there remained only Rollo and Concha.
Now there was a double shelf a little way from the horses, from which
the chief of the expedition could keep an eye on the whole encampment.
The pair slowly and, as it were, unconsciously gravitated thither, and
in a moment Rollo found himself telling "the story of his life" to a
sympathetic listener, whose bright eyes stimulated all his capacities as
narrator, and whose bright smile welcomed every hairbreadth escape with
a joy which Rollo could not but feel must somehow be heartfelt and
personal. Besides, adventures sound so well when told in Spanish and to
a Spanish girl.
Yet, strange as it may seem, the young man missed several opportunities
of arousing the compassion of his companion.
He said not a word about Peggy Ramsay, nor did he mention the broken
heart which he had come so far afield to cure. And as for Concha,
nothing could have been more nunlike and conventual than the expression
with which she listened. It was as if one of the Lady Superior's
"Holiest Innocents" had flown over the nunnery wall and settled down to
listen to Rollo's tale in that wild gorge among the mountains of
Guadarrama.
* * * * *
Meantime the Sergeant and his gipsy companion pursued their way with
little regard to the occupations or sentiments of those they had left
behind them. Cardono's keen black eyes, twinkling hither and thither, a
myriad crows' feet reticulating out from their corners like spiders'
webs, took in the landscape, and every object in it.
The morning was well advanced when, right across their path, a
well-to-do farmhouse lay before them, white on the hillside, its walls
long-drawn like fortifications, and the small slit-like windows
counterfeiting loopholes for musketry. But instead of the hum of work
and friendly gossip, the crying of ox-drivers yoking their teams, or
adjusting the long blue wool over the patient eyes of their beasts,
there reigned about the place, both dwelling and office-houses, a
complete and solemn silence. Only in front of the door several
she-goats, with bunching, over-full udders, waited to be milked with
plaintive whimperings and tokens of unrest.
La Giralda looked at her companion. The Sergeant looked at La Giralda.
The same thought was in the heart of each.
La Giralda went up quickly to the door, and knocked loudly. At
farmhouses in Old Castile it is necessary to knock loudly, for the
family lives on the second floor, while the first is given up to bundles
of fuel, trusses of hay, household provender of the more indestructible
sort, and one large dog which invariably answers the door first and
expresses in an unmistakable manner his intention of making his
breakfast off the stranger's calves.
But not even the dog responded to the clang of La Giralda's oaken cudgel
on the stout door panels. Accordingly she stepped within, and without
ceremony ascended the stairs. In the house-place, extended on a bed, lay
a woman of her own age, dead, her face wearing an expression of the
utmost agony.
In a low trundle-bed by the side of the other was a little girl of four.
Her hands clasped a doll of wood tightly to her bosom. But her eyes,
though open, were sightless. She also was dead.
La Giralda turned and came down the stairs, shaking her head mournfully.
"These at least are ours," she said, when she came out into the hot
summer air, pointing to the little flock of goats. "There is none to
hinder us."
"Have the owners fled?" asked the Sergeant, quickly.
"There are some of them upstairs now," she replied, "but, alas, none who
will ever reclaim them from us! The excuse is the best that can be
devised to introduce us into San Ildefonso, and, perhaps, if we have
luck, inside the palisades of La Granja also."
So without further parley the Sergeant proceeded, in the most
matter-of-fact way possible, to load the ass with huge fagots of
kindling wood till the animal showed only four feet paddling along under
its burden, and a pair of patient orbs, black and beady like those of
the Sergeant himself, peering out of a hay-coloured matting of hair.
This done, the Sergeant turned his sharp eyes every way about the dim
smoky horizon. He could note, as easily as on a map, the precise notch
in the many purple-tinted gorges where they had left their party. It was
exactly like all the others which slit and dimple the slopes of the
Guadarrama, but in this matter it was as impossible for the Sergeant to
make a mistake as for a town-dweller to err as to the street in which he
has lived for years.
But no one was watching them. No clump of juniper held a spy, and the
Sergeant was at liberty to develop his plans. He turned quickly upon the
old gipsy woman.
"La Giralda," he said, "there is small use in discovering the
disposition of the courtiers in San Ildefonso--ay, or even the defences
of the palace, if we know nothing of the Romany who are to march
to-night upon the place."
La Giralda, who had been drawing a little milk from the udders of each
she-goat, to ease them for their travel, suddenly sprang erect.
"I do not interfere in the councils of the Gitano," she cried; "I am
old, but not old enough to desire death!"
But more grim and lack-lustre than ever, the face of Sergeant Cardono
was turned upon her, and more starrily twinkled the sloe-like eyes
(diamonds set in Cordovan leather) as he replied:--"The councils of the
Rom are as an open book to me. If they are life, they are life because I
will it; if death, then I will the death!"
The old gipsy stared incredulously.
"Long have I lived," she said, staring hard at the sergeant, "much have
I seen, both of gipsy and Gorgio; but never have I seen or heard of the
man who could both make that boast, and make it good!"
She appeared to consider a moment.
"Save one," she added, "and he is dead!"
"How did he die?" said the Sergeant, his tanned visage like a mask, but
never removing his eyes from her face.
"By the _garrote_" she answered, in a hushed whisper. "I saw him die."
"Where?"
"In the great _plaza_ of Salamanca," she said, her eyes fixed in a stare
of regretful remembrance. "It was filled from side to side, and the
balconies were peopled as for a bull-fight. Ah, he was a man!"
"His name?"
"Jose Maria, the Gitano, the prince of brigands!" murmured La Giralda.
"Ah," said the Sergeant, coolly, "I have heard of him."