CONCHA SAYS AMEN
Looking down from their station on the roof, Rollo and the friar could
see what appeared to be the main force of the gipsies drawing near
through the alleys of the wood. They approached in no order or military
formation, which indeed it was never their nature to adopt. But they
came with a sufficiency of confused noise, signalling and crying one to
another through the aisles of the forest.
"They are telling each other to spread out on the wings and encircle the
house on the north," whispered Rollo in a low voice to the Basque friar
by his side.
The monk laughed a low chuckling laugh.
"They will find the holy Hermitage equally well guarded on that side!"
he said. And as they stood silent the rose of dawn began slowly to
unfold itself over the tree-tops with that awful windless stillness
which characterises the day-breaks of the south. The glades of the wood
were filled with a glimmering filmy light, in which it was easy to
imagine the spirits of the dead hovering over their earthly tenements.
The gipsies came on as usual, freely and easily, land pirates on their
own ground, none able to make them afraid. They had been checked, it is
true, at the palace. The royal guard (so they imagined) seemed to have
returned unexpectedly thither, contrary to their information, but on the
other hand they had successfully plundered all the storehouses, cellars,
and _despachos_ of the great square.
Some of them still carried _botas_ of wine (the true "leather bottel")
in their hands or swung across their shoulders, and ever and anon took a
swig to keep their courage up as they came near. Some sang and shouted,
for were they not going to rout the lazy monks, always rich in money and
plate, out of their lurking places? Was it not they who had first tried
to make Christians of the Romany, and by so doing had shown the
government how to entrap them into their armies, subjecting the free
blood of Egypt to their cursed drafts and conscriptions?
"To the knives' point with them, then!" they shouted. "They who prate so
much of paradise, let them go thither, and that with speed!" This would
be a rare jest to tell for forty years by many a swinging kettle, and
while footing it in company over many a lonely and dispeopled heath.
Thus with laughter and shouting they came on, and to Rollo, peering
eagerly over the battlements, the white-wrapped corpses along the walls
seemed to turn slowly blood-red before his eyes--the flaunting crimson
of the sky above contrasting with the green of the woods, and tinging
even the white shrouds with its ominous hue. But still the gipsies came
on.
First of all strode the man who had called himself the Executioner of
Salamanca, Ezquerra, he who had saved the life of Jose Maria upon the
scaffold. He came forward boldly enough, intending to thunder with his
knife-handle upon the great door. But at the foot of the steps he
stopped.
Looking to either hand, he saw, almost erect within their niches, a
strange pair of figures, apparently wrapped in bloody raiment from head
to foot. He staggered back nerveless and shaken.
"What are these faceless things?" he cried; "surely the evil spirits are
here!" And in deadly fear he put his hand before his eyes lest his
vision should be blasted by a portent.
And from the other side of the Hermitage came an answering cry of fear.
"Be brave, Ezquerra!" called out one behind him; "'tis nothing--only
some monk's trick!"
Ezquerra over his shoulder cast a fierce glance at the speaker.
"Brother," he cried, "you who are so full of courage that you can supply
others, go up these steps and find out the trick for yourself!"
Nevertheless through very pride of place as their temporary leader,
Ezquerra set his feet once more to the steps and mounted. The shrouded
figures grew less red as he approached.
"After all it is some trick!" he shouted angrily. "We will make the
fools pay for this! Did they think to practise the black art upon those
whose fathers have used all magic, black and white, for ten thousand
years?"
So saying he set his hand to the face-cloth of the nearest figure and
plucked it away. Then was revealed to his affrighted and revolted gaze
the features swollen and bloated of one who had died of the Black
Plague.
At the same moment, and before his followers could set their hands to
their mouths or retreat a step, round both corners of the building there
came a double swarm of gipsies, running at random through the tangle of
the wood and streaming frantically along the paths.
The Executioner of Salamanca also turned and ran down the steps.
"Touch the thing who will!" he cried; "I have done with it!"
And the entire attacking party with their knives and sledge-hammers
would in like manner have fled, but for a strange and unlooked-for event
which happened at that moment.
As Rollo peered over the low parapet, he saw a slight form rush suddenly
across the front of the fleeing gipsies, shouting at and striking the
fugitives. And even at that distance he was sure that it must be the
daughter of Munoz, whom he had left captive in La Granja. She had been
safely enough locked in the castle--how then had she escaped? He
remembered the Sergeant's last threat that he would have some
conversation with Senor Munoz. He wondered if the girl's escape had
anything to do with that. That it was not impossible to escape from the
palace, the presence of Concha Cabezos upstairs informed him.
But all theorising of this kind was stopped at sight of the vehement
anger of the girl, and of the evident power she had over these wild and
savage men. She did not even hesitate to strike a fugitive with her
clenched fist if he attempted to evade her. Nay, in her fury she drew a
knife from Ezquerra's belt and struck at the throat of the Executioner
of Salamanca.
So vehement was her anger and so potent her influence, that the girl
actually succeeded in arresting more than half the fleeing gipsies.
Some, however, evaded her, and she would stay her headlong course a
moment to send a fierce curse after them.
"She is crazed!" thought Rollo; "her wrongs have driven her mad!"
But the sight of that glimmering array of plague-stricken sentinels
waiting for them still and silent in the red dawn, was more than the
fortitude of the rallied forces could stand. Upon approaching the
Hermitage the gipsies again showed symptoms of renewed flight.
Whereupon the girl, shrilly screaming the vilest names at them and in
especial designating Ezquerra as the craven-hearted spawn of an obscene
canine ancestry, mounted the steps herself with the utmost boldness and
confidence.
"I will teach you," she screamed; "I, a girl and alone, will show you
what sacks of straw ye are frighted of. Do ye not know that the great
prize is here, within this very house, behind these defenceless windows
and cardboard doors? The Queen of Spain, whose ransom is worth twice ten
thousand _duros_, even if your coward hearts dared not shed her black
Bourbon blood. Behold!"
It was only by craning far out over the parapet (so far indeed that he
might easily have been discovered from below had there been any to look)
that Rollo was able to see what followed. But every eye was fixed on the
girl. No one among all that company had even a glance to waste upon the
skyline of the Ermita de San Ildefonso.
This was the thing Rollo saw as he looked.
The girl spurned the fallen face-cloth with her bare foot, and catching
the body of the dead man in her arms, she dragged it out of its niche
and cast it down the steps upon which it lay all abroad, half revealed
and hideous in the morning light. This done, rushing back as swiftly and
with the same volcanic energy to the occupant of the other niche, she
hurled him by main force after his companion. Then, panting and wan,
with her single tattered garment half rent from her flat ill-nourished
body, she lifted one arm aloft in triumph and cried, "There, you dogs,
that is what you were afraid of!"
But even as she stood thus revealed in the morning light, a low murmur
of terror and astonishment ran round all who saw her. For in the
struggle the girl had uncovered her shoulder and breast, and there, upon
her young and girlish skin, appeared the dread irregular blotches which
betrayed the worst and most deadly form of the disease.
"The Black Plague! The Black Plague!" shrieked the throng of besiegers,
surging this way and that like a flock of sheep which strange dogs
drive, as with wild and shrill cries they turned and fled headlong
towards the mountains.
The girl, speechless with wrath, and perhaps also with the
death-sickness far advanced within her, took a step forward as if to
follow them. But forgetful of where she stood, she missed her footing,
fell headlong, and lay across the dead sentinel whom she had first
dragged from his post.
The Basque priest looked over Rollo's shoulder and pointed downwards
with a certain dread solemnity.
"What did I tell you?" he said. "The finger of God! The finger of God
hath touched her! Let us go down. The sun will be above the horizon in
twenty minutes."
"Had we not better wait?" urged Rollo. "They may return. Think of our
responsibility, of our feeble defences, of----"
"Of Concha," he was about to say, but checked himself, and added
quietly, "of the little Queen!"
The monk crossed himself with infinite calm.
"They will not return," he said; "it is our duty to lay these in the
quiet earth ere the sun rises. There is no infection to be feared till
an hour after sunrise."
"But the girl, the daughter of Munoz?" said Rollo, "did not she take the
disease from the dead?"
"Nay," said the Basque. "I have often beheld the smitten of the plague
like that. It works so upon very many. For a time they are as it were
possessed with seven devils, and the strength of man is vain against
them. They snap strong cords even as Samson did the Philistine withes.
Then--puff! Comes a breath of morning air chill from the Sierra, and
they are gone. They were--and they are not. The finger of God hath
touched them. So it was with this girl."
"I will follow you!" said Rollo, awe-stricken in spite of himself. "Tell
me what I am to do!"
The monk pressed his hand again to his brow a little wearily. "I fear,"
he said, "that it will fall to you to perform the greater part of the
work. For Brother Domingo, our good almoner, he of the merry
countenance, died of his fatigues early this morning, and the other two,
my brethren, are once more in the town bringing God to the dying!"
Instinctively Rollo removed his hat from his head.
"But," added the monk, "they dug the graves in holy ground before they
went!"
In silence Rollo permitted himself to be covered with an armour of
freshly tarred cloth, which was considered in Spain at that time to be
a complete protection against plague infection. The monk Teodoro was
proceeding to array himself in like manner, when Concha appeared beside
them and held out her hands for the gauntlets.
"The little Princess is asleep," she said eagerly; "I am strong. I have
as good a right to serve God as either of you--and as great is my need!"
The Basque gazed at her curiously. Her hair was still wholly covered by
the sailor's red cap. To the eye she appeared a mere boy in her page's
dress, but there was at all times something irresistibly attractive
about Concha's face. Now her lips quivered sensitively, but her eyes
were steady. She continued to hold out her hands.
"I demand that you permit me to serve God!" she cried to Brother
Teodoro.
The monk shrugged his shoulders with a pitying gesture and looked from
one to the other.
"I am an old dragoon," he said, "and under the guidons of _El Gran'
Lor'_ I have seen the like. It is none of my business, of course, but
all the same it is a pity. I should be happier to leave you watching the
slumbers of the Princess!"
"Ah!" cried Concha, earnestly, "if you are indeed an old soldier, and a
good one under guidon or holy cross--for this time let me be one also!"
"You are young--I pray you, think!" urged the Basque. "There is great
danger! Look at that maid yonder, and what she hath brought on herself."
"Ah," said Concha, softly--so softly indeed as to be almost
inaudible, "but the difference is that she did this thing for
hate--while--I--I----"
She did not finish her sentence, but raising her eyes, wet with
seldom-coming tears, to those of the stern-faced brother, she said
instead, "Give me the dress and let us be gone. The sun is rising!"
"If you are indeed determined, you shall have that of Brother Domingo,"
said Teodoro; "he was of little more than your height, and died, not of
the plague, but simply from doing his duty."
"Then let me die in no other way!" said Concha, putting it on as happily
as another maiden might dress for a ball.
These three went out to their terrible task, and as they were harnessing
the bullock cart once more and spreading a clean cloth over it, Rollo,
moved in his heart of hearts, came near. Never did two such lovers as
they meet more strangely arrayed. Yet he laid his black gauntlet across
her arm and whispered a word which Brother Teodoro did not hear, being,
as he took good care to be, much busied about the straps and
harnessings.
"I do not think that Love will let us die--yet!" he said.
"That is a prayer. Amen!" said Concha, in a whisper, lifting her eyes to
his.
It was a strange betrothing, and little said. But when at last he put
the ox-goad in her hands, Concha knew that the night had indeed passed
away and that the morning was come.