LIKE A FALLING STAR
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 Concha.
She it was who had saved his life at Sarria. She was perilling her own
in order to accompany and assist his expedition. She had drawn up the
ladder he had foolishly forgotten. Yet, in spite of the fact that he was
a young man and by no means averse from love, Rollo was so clean-minded
and so little given to think himself desirable in the eyes of women,
that it never struck him that the presence of La Giralda and Concha
might be interpreted upon other and more personal principles than he had
modestly represented to himself.
True, Rollo was vain as a peacock--but not of his love-conquests.
Punctilious as any Spaniard upon the smallest point of honour, in a
quarrel he was as ready as a Parisian _maitre d'armes_ to pull out sword
or pistol. Nevertheless when a man boasted in his presence of the
favours of a woman, he thought him a fool and a braggart--and was in
general nowise backward in telling him so.
Thus it happened that, though Concha had received no honester or better
intentioned kiss in her life, the giver of it went about his military
duties with a sense of having said his prayers, or generally, having
performed some action raising himself in his own estimation.
"God bless her," he said to himself, "I will be a better man for her
sweet sake. And, by heavens, if I had had such a sister, I might have
been a better fellow long ere this! God bless her, I say!"
But what wonder is it that little Concha, in her passionate Spanish
fashion understanding but one way of love, and being little interested
in brothers, felt the tears come to her eyes as Rollo's step waxed
fainter in the distance, and said over and over to herself with smiling
pleasure, "He loves me--he loves me! Oh, if only my mother had lived, I
might have been worthier of him. Then I would not have played with men's
hearts for amusement to myself, as alas, I have too often done. God
forgive me, there was no harm, indeed. But--but--I am not worthy of
him--I know I am not!"
So Rollo's hasty kiss on the dark balcony was provocative of a healthy
self-reproach on both sides--which at least was so much to the good.
Concha peered out into the darkness towards the south where a few stars
were blinking sleepily through the ground-mist. She could dimly discern
the outline of the town lying piled beneath her, without a light,
without a sound, without a sign of life. From beyond the hills came a
weird booming as of a distant cannonade. But Concha, the careless maiden
who had grown into a woman in an hour, did not think of these things.
For to the Spanish girl, whose heart is touched to the core, there is
but one subject worthy of thought. Wars, battles, sieges, the distresses
of queens, the danger of royal princesses--all are as nothing, because
her lips have been kissed.
"All the same," she muttered to herself, "he ought not have done it--and
when I have a little recovered I will tell him so!"
But at that moment, poised upon the topmost spike of the great gate in
front of her, she saw the silhouette of a man. He was climbing upwards,
with his hand on the cross-bar of the railing, and cautiously
insinuating a leg over the barrier, feeling meanwhile gingerly for a
foothold on the palace side.
"He is come to do evil to--to Rollo!" she said to herself, with a slight
hesitation even in thought when she came for the first time upon the
Christian name.
But there was no hesitation in the swift assurance with which she set
the rifle-stock to her shoulder, and no mistake as the keen and
practised eye glanced along the barrel.
She fired, and with a groan of pain the man fell back outside the
enclosure.
The sound of Concha's shot was the first tidings to the besieged that
the gipsies had really arrived. Rollo, stealing lightfoot from post to
post, pistol in hand, the Sergeant erect behind the vine-trellis on the
balcony between the rearward doors, Etienne and John Mortimer a little
farther along on the same side of the chateau, all redoubled their
vigilance at the sound. But for the space of an hour or more nothing
farther was seen or heard north, south, east, or west of the beleaguered
palace of La Granja.
The gipsies had not had the least idea that their intention was known.
They expected no obstacles till the discharge of Concha's piece put them
on their guard, and set them to concerting other and more subtle modes
of attack. It was too dark for those in the chateau to see whether the
wounded man lay where he had fallen or whether he had been removed by
his comrades.
Rollo hastened back to Concha and inquired in a low voice what it was
she had fired at. Whereupon she told him the story of the man climbing
the railings and how she had stayed his course so suddenly. Rollo made
no remark, save that she had done entirely right. Then he inquired if
she had recharged her piece, and hearing that she wanted nothing and was
ready for all emergencies, he departed upon his rounds without the least
leave-taking or approach to love-making. In her heart Concha respected
him for this, but at the same time she could not help feeling that a
Spaniard would have been somewhat warmer in his acknowledgments.
Nevertheless she comforted herself with the thought that he had trusted
her with one of the most important posts in the whole defence, and she
prayed fervently to the Virgin that she might be able to do her duty
there.
She thought also that, when the morning came, perhaps he would have more
time. For her, she could wait--here she smiled a little. Yes, she
acknowledged it. She who had caught so many, was now taken in her own
net. She would go to the world's end for this young Scot. Nor in her
heart of hearts was she ashamed of it. Above and beyond all courtesies
and sugared phrases she loved his free-handed, careless, curt-spoken,
hectoring way. After his one kiss, he had treated her exactly like any
other of his company. He did not make love well, but--she liked him none
the worse for that. In such matters (sayeth the Wise Man) excellence is
apt to come with experience.
And he would learn. Yes, decidedly he might yet do credit to his
teacher. To-morrow morning would arrive, and for the present, well--she
would keep her finger upon the trigger and a pair of remarkably
clear-sighted eyes upon the grey space of greensward crossed by black
trellises of railing immediately before her. That in the mean time was
her duty to her love and (she acknowledged it), her master.
Apart from these details of his feeling for Concha, however (which gave
him little concern), Rollo was far from satisfied with the condition of
affairs. He would rather (so he confided to the Sergeant) have defended
a sheepfold or a simple cottage than this many-chambered, many-passaged,
mongrel chateau. His force was scattered out of sight, though for the
most part not out of hearing of each other. It was indeed true that,
owing to his excellent dispositions, and the fortunate situation of the
balconies, he was able to command every part of the castle enclosure,
and especially the doors by which it was most likely that the chief
attempt would be made.
So occupied had Rollo been with his affairs, both private and of a
military character, that he had actually wholly forgotten the presence
of the Queen-Regent, her daughter and husband, within the palace of La
Granja. And this though he had come all that way across two of the
wildest provinces of Spain for the sole purpose of securing their
persons and transporting mother and daughter to the camp of Don Carlos.
Nevertheless so instant was the danger which now overhung every one,
that their intended captor had ceased to think of anything but how to
preserve these royal lives and to keep them from the hands of the
ruthless gipsies of the hills.
But circumstances quickly recalled the young man to his primary
purpose, and taught him that he must not trust too much to those whose
interests were opposed to his own.
Rollo, as we have said, had reserved no station for himself, but
constantly circulated round all the posts of his little army, ready at
any time to add himself to the effective forces of the garrison at any
threatened point. It was while he was thus passing from balcony to
balcony on the second or defending storey that his quick ear caught the
sound of a door opening and shutting on the floor beneath.
"Ah," thought Rollo to himself, suspiciously, "the Queen and her people
are safe in their chambers on this floor. No person connected with the
defence ought to be down there. This is either treachery or the enemy
have gained admission by some secret passage!"
With Rollo Blair to think was to act. So in another moment he had
slipped off his shoes, and treading noiselessly on his stocking soles
and with a naked sword in his hand he made his way swiftly and carefully
down towards the place whence he had heard the noise.
Descending by the grand _escalier_ he found himself in one of the narrow
corridors which communicated by private staircases with the left wing of
the palace. Rollo stood still in the deepest shadow. He was sure that he
could hear persons moving near him, and once he thought that he could
distinguish the sound of a muttered word.
The Egyptian darkness about him grew more and more instinct with noises.
There was a scuffling rustle, as of birds in a chimney, all over the
basement of the house. A door creaked as if a slight wind had blown it.
Then a latch clicked, and the wind, unaided, does not click latches.
Rollo withdrew himself deeper into a niche at the foot of the narrow
winding-stair which girdled a tower in the thickness of the wall.
The young man had almost resolved to summon his whole force from above,
so convinced was he that the enemy had gained a footing within the tower
and were creeping up to take them in the rear, when a sound altered his
intention. There is nothing more unmistakable to the ear than the
rebellious whimper of an angry child compelled to do something against
its will.
Rollo instantly comprehended the whole chain of circumstances. The
treachery touched him more nearly than he had imagined possible. Those
for whom he and his party were imperilling their lives were in fact to
leave them to perish as best they might in the empty shell of the
palace. The royal birds were on the point of flying.
A door opened, and through it (though dimly) Rollo could see the great
waterfall glimmering and above the stars, chill over the snowy shoulder
of Penalara. He could not make out who had opened the door, but there
was enough light to discern that a lady wrapped in a mantilla went out
first. Then followed another, stouter and of shorter stature, apparently
carrying a burden. Then the whole doorway was obscured by the tall
figure of a man.
"Munoz himself, by Heaven!" thought Rollo.
And with a leap he was after him, in his headlong course dashing to the
ground some other unseen person who confronted him in the hall.
In a moment more he had caught the tall man by the collar and swung him
impetuously round back within the doorway.
"Move one sole inch and your blood be on your own head!" he muttered.
And the captive feeling Rollo's steel cold at his throat, remained
prudently silent. Not so the lady without. She uttered a cry which rang
about the silent chateau.
"Munoz! My husband! Fernando, where art thou? Oh, they have slain him,
and I only am to blame!"
She turned about and rushed back to the door, which she was about to
enter, when a cry far more sudden and terrible rang out behind her.
"_They have killed the Princess! Some one hath slain my darling!_"
At the word Rollo abandoned the man whom he was holding down, and with
shouts of "Cardono!" "El Sarria!" "To me! They are upon us!" he flung
himself outside.
There was little to be discerned clearly when he emerged into the cool
damp darkness, only a dim heap of writhing bodies as in some combat of
hounds or of the denizens of the midnight forest. But Rollo once and
again saw a flash of steel and a hand uplifted to strike. Without
waiting to think he gripped that which was topmost and therefore nearest
to him, and finding it unexpectedly light, he swung the thing clear by
the garment he had clutched. As he did so he felt a pain in his right
shoulder, which at the time appeared no more than the bite of a squirrel
or the sting of a bee. With one heave he threw the object, human or not
he could not for the moment determine, behind him into the blackness of
the hall.
"Take hold there, somebody!" he cried, for by this time he could hear
the clattering of the feet of his followers on the stairs and flagged
passages.
Outside under the stars something or some one larger and heavier lay on
the ground and moaned. As Rollo bent over it there came a rush of men
from all sides, and the young man had scarcely time to straighten
himself up and draw his pistol before he found himself attacked by half
a dozen men.
His pistol cracked and an assailant tumbled on his face, while the flash
in the pan revealed that he had already an ally. The Sergeant was beside
him, by what means did not then appear. For he had certainly not come
through the door, and at this Rollo drew a long breath and applied
himself to his sword-play with renewed vigour. The assailants, he soon
found, were mostly armed with long knives, which, however, had little
chance against the long and expert blades of the Sergeant and Rollo.
After proving on several occasions the deadly quality of these last,
they broke and ran this way and that, while from the windows above
(where the two royal servants were posted, with La Giralda on guard
between them), a scattering fire broke out, which tumbled more than one
of the fugitives upon the grass.
With great and grave tenderness Rollo and the Sergeant carried that
which lay on the grass within. In a moment more they had the door shut
and bolted, when from the rear of the hall came the voice of El Sarria.
"For God's sake," he cried, "bring a light! For I have that here which
is in human form, yet bites and scratches and howls like a wild beast! I
cannot hold it long. It is nothing less than a devil incarnate!"
* * * * *
Most strange and incomprehensible of all that the light revealed, was
the appearance of the giant El Sarria, who, his hands and face bleeding
with scratches, and seated on the final steps of the cork-screw
staircase, held in his arms clear of the ground the bent and contorted
form of a young girl. So desperate were her struggles that it was all he
could do to confine her feet by passing them under his arm, while with
one great palm he grasped two flat and meagre wrists in a grip of steel.
Yet in spite of his best efforts the wild thing still struggled, and
indeed more than once came within a hair's-breadth of fastening her
teeth in his cheek.
As he had said, there was more of the wild beast of the woods taken in a
trap than of human creature in these frantic struggles and inarticulate
cries. The girl foamed at the mouth. She threw herself backward into the
shape of a bow till her head almost touched her feet, and again
momentarily twisting herself like an eel half out of El Sarria's grasp,
she endeavoured, with a force that seemed impossible to so frail a body,
to reach the group by the door, where Munoz was still supporting the
Queen Maria Cristina.
Presently Cardono desisted from his examination of the body of the
waiting-woman. He shook his head murmuring--"Dead! Dead! of a certainty
stone-dead!"
And the Sergeant was a good judge of life and death. He had seen much of
both.
Then he came over to where El Sarria was still struggling awkwardly with
the wild and maniacal thing, as if he could not bring his great strength
to bear upon a creature so lithe and quick. At the first glance he
started back and turned his gaze on the royal group.
For that which he now saw, distorted with the impotence of passion and
madness, was no other than the little girl whom he had met in the camp
of the gipsies on the side of Guadarrama--the daughter of Munoz, the
plan-maker and head-centre of the whole attack.
The Sergeant stood a moment or two fingering his chin, as a man does who
considers with himself whether it is worth while shaving. Then with his
usual deliberation he undid a leathern strap from his waist and with
great consideration but equal effectiveness he buckled the girl's hands
firmly behind her back. Then with a sash of silk he proceeded to do the
like office with her feet.
Just as he was tying the final knots, the girl made one supreme effort.
She actually succeeded in twisting her body out of the arms of El
Sarria, and flung herself headlong in the direction of Munoz and the
Queen, spitting like a cat. But the Sergeant's extemporised shackles did
their work, and the poor tortured creature would have fallen on her face
upon the cold flags of the stone floor but that El Sarria caught her in
his arms, and lifting her gently up, proceeded to convey her to another
apartment where she might more safely be taken care of.
In order to do this, however, he had to pass close by the Queen-Regent
and her consort. It happened that the latter, who till that moment had
been wholly occupied by his cares for the recovery of his mistress, had
scarcely glanced either at the motionless heap staining the floor with
blood or at the wild thing scrambling and biting savagely in the arms of
El Sarria.
But the girl's struggles were now over for that time. Her fit of
demoniacal fury had apparently completely exhausted her. Her head lay
back pale and white, the livid lips drawn so as to show the teeth in a
ghastly smile, and her whole body drooped, relaxed and flaccid, over her
captor's arm.
The Queen-Regent was just able once more to stand upon her feet when El
Sarria passed with his burden. The eyes of Munoz fell upon the girl's
pale distorted features. He started back and almost dropped the Queen in
his horror.
"Whence came this she-devil?" he cried, "What is she doing here? Let her
be locked in a dungeon. Eugene will show you where. She will cut all our
throats else!"
"Has this child not the honour to be daughter to his Excellency the Duke
of Rianzares?" inquired the Sergeant, grimly.
"She is a maniac, I tell you! I put her in a madhouse and she escaped!
She hath sworn my death!" cried Munoz, his supercilious calm for once
quite broken up.
"And what is this that she hath done?" he cried, holding up his hands as
his eyes fell on the body of the nurse Susana. In another moment,
however, he had partially recovered himself.
"My beloved lady," he said, turning to his wife, "this is certainly no
place for you. Let me conduct you to your own chamber!"
"Not without the added presence of one of my people, sir," said Rollo,
sternly; "this had not happened but for your intention of secretly
deserting us, and leaving us to hold the castle alone against the cruel
enemy of whose approach we risked our lives to warn you!"
Meanwhile the Queen-Regent had been casting her eyes wildly and
uncomprehendingly around. Now she looked at the motionless form of the
girl in the arms of El Sarria, now at the dead woman upon the floor, but
all without the least token that she understood how the tragedy had come
to pass.
But suddenly she threw her arms into the air and uttered a wild scream.
"Where is my Isabel--where is my daughter? She was in the arms of the
nurse Susana who lies there before us. They have killed her also. This
devil-born has killed her! Where shall I find her?--My darling--the
protected of the Virgin, the future Queen of all the Spains?"
But it was a question no one could answer. None had seen the little
Isabel, since the moment when she had passed forth through the portal of
the palace into the night, clasped in the faithful arms of her nurse.
She had not cried. She had not returned. Apparently not a soul had
thought of her, save only the woman whose life had been laid down for
her sake, as a little common thing is set on a shelf and forgotten.
So, for this reason, the question of Maria Cristina remained unanswered.
For, even as a star shoots athwart the midnight sky of winter, so the
little Queen of Spain had passed and been lost in the darkness and
terror without the beleaguered castle of La Granja.