ROLLO USES A LITTLE PERSUASION
Five, six, seven, eight of the ten slow minutes passed away, and beyond
a glance at the clock and a more absorbing interest in the furze on his
chin, Senor Munoz had not moved. The seconds hand upon the clock on the
mantelshelf was crawling round its miniature dial for the ninth time
with vast apparent deliberation, when a noise was heard from the
direction of the Queen's apartments.
There was a rapid gabble of tongues, a scurry of footsteps, the hissing
rustle of stiff silken skirts along narrow passages, and a voice which
exclaimed more and more shrilly, "The murderers! The cowards! Surely
they will never dare! Have they forgotten that I am a Queen?"
And with these words Maria Cristina of Naples burst like a whirlwind
into the room. Her long black hair streamed down her back. Her little
daughter followed, a comb still in the hand with which she had been
struggling to take the place of the lost Dona Susana, who, as before
related, had gone to visit her relations.
After these two Concha followed, in appearance calm and placid as the
windless Mediterranean on a day of winter.
Upon his mistress's entrance the Duke threw himself upon one knee. The
rest of the company bowed with grace or awkwardness according to their
several abilities, but the Queen-Regent did not heed them. She flew
instantly to her husband and raised him in her arms.
"Fernando," she cried, "what is this I hear? Did they threaten to kill
you if I would not grant them an interview? Well, here I am. Let them
slay me instead. What have you to say to me, gentlemen and cowards? What
I have to say to you is that I hope you may not live to repent having
used such compulsion with a woman and a Queen."
Again Rollo bowed very low, and was about to speak when the Queen
interrupted.
"And as for this hussy," she cried, turning upon Concha, "if I had my
way she should be indicted for witchcraft and burnt alive at the stake
as in the good times of the Holy Office. Yet you, Fernando, for whom I
daily risk my life, you defended her--yes, defended her to my very
face!"
"Beloved and most honoured," said the Duke, soothingly, "I did but
suggest that it would be better to convert the girl--to make a good
Christian of her----"
"Yes--yes," cried the Queen, stamping her foot, "but did you not add
that in that case you would like to be her Father-Confessor?"
"Certainly I did not, most gracious one," answered her husband,
soothingly, "you wholly mistook my meaning. All that I said was
no more than that many might be anxious to obtain the office of
Father-Confessor, being, as it were, eager to take the credit for the
restoration of so notable a penitent."
But Rollo had small patience with the bickerings of royal lovers at such
a time.
"I must crave your Majesty's strict and instant attention," he said,
suddenly dropping all ceremony. "I will only detain you for a moment if,
as I anticipate, I receive your consent to what I have the honour of
proposing to you."
At once the easily jealous woman froze into a Queen and fronted the
young man with a haughty stare.
"Your Majesty," he began, "I do not dwell upon our services of the past
night. They are known to you. Had it not been for my friends it is
probable that no one of your party would at this moment have been left
alive. Now the day is passing and you are no safer than you were last
night. It is necessary, therefore, that you put yourselves unreservedly
under the escort and protection of myself and my friends. We must leave
La Granja at once."
"Never!" cried Maria Cristina, fiercely. "Am I, the Queen-Regent of
Spain, to be thus badgered and commandeered? I have never suffered it
since I left my father's house in Naples. A boy and a foreigner shall
not be the first. My royal guards will assuredly be here in an hour at
the latest. The roads will be cleared, and as for you, you shall be safe
in prison cells, where, for your insolences, you ought to be lying at
this moment."
"Then," said Rollo, gravely, "I deeply regret that I am obliged to use
the only means that are open to me to fulfil my orders, and to induce
your Highness to place yourself in safety."
"And pray," cried Maria Cristina, indignantly, "from whom can you have
orders to place a Queen of Spain in restraint?"
In a moment Rollo realised that it was impossible for him to reveal his
position as an officer of the Carlist armies, but a fortunate
remembrance of some words dropped by the Abbot of Montblanch instantly
gave him his cue.
"I act," he said calmly, "under the immediate direction of the Holy
Father himself, at whose feet, in the Vatican of Rome, you shall one day
kneel to ask pardon of your sins."
This unexpected reply seemed to agitate the Queen-Regent, who, though
forced to create herself a party out of the men of liberal opinions in
her realm, was at heart, like all the Bourbons, a convinced and even
bigoted religionist. But Munoz, who had hitherto been silent, stooped
and whispered something in her ear.
"How am I to be convinced of that?" she cried, turning on him fiercely.
"I will not believe it even from you!"
"I regret," said Rollo, "that your Highness must be compelled to believe
it. Pray do me the honour of following my argument. The Holy Father
judges it necessary for the peace of this realm, and your own soul's
profit, that you should be placed in a situation where you may be able
to act more in accordance with what he knows to be your secret desires
for the welfare of the Church of which he is God's vicegerent on earth."
Rollo was glad to reflect that, in uttering these words, he was only
repeating the sonorous phrases of Don Baltazar Varela when the Abbot
delivered him his commission in his own chamber at Montblanch. He added
of his own accord a little prayer to the recording angel that he might
be guilty of no blasphemy in thus acting at second hand as an emissary
of Holy Church. After all, it was entirely the Abbot's affair, and Rollo
was anxious that it should so be understood above.
But the lady chiefly concerned continued obdurate. She would not budge
an inch. She professed an absolute certainty that her guard would appear
in a few hours, and with them her Father-Confessor, who would inform her
how to reply to any genuine and authentic message from his Holiness
Gregory the Sixteenth. Further than that she could not be moved.
"In that case," said the young man, "I will not conceal it from your
Highness that considerable discretion has been granted to me. Your
company and that of your daughter we must have upon our journey. It is
our intention to place you and her in a place of safety----"
"To steal us--to kidnap us, you mean!" cried the Queen, with the utmost
indignation.
"Your Majesty," continued Rollo, "I am not disputing about words. Our
actions of last night will best explain our intentions of this morning.
But with respect to this gentleman"--he turned to Senor Munoz as he
spoke--"I have no directions either to permit or compel him to accompany
us. Yet since we must act with the greatest speed and secrecy, it is
clearly impossible to leave him behind. I am compelled, therefore, to
put an alternative before you, which, having had an opportunity to
remark the Senor's courage, I am pained to declare. If your Majesty will
consent to accompany us at once and without parley, Don Fernando may do
so also. But if not, since we have not force sufficient to deal with
additional prisoners on such a journey, it will be my unhappy duty to
order the gentleman's instant execution."
A shriek from the Queen punctuated the close of this speech--one of the
longest that Rollo had ever made. But the Queen, hardly yet believing
in the reality of their threats, still held out. As for Munoz, he said
no word until Rollo abruptly ordered him to kneel and prepare for death.
"In that case," said the ex-guardsman, "permit me to put on a decent
coat. A man ought not to die in a dressing-gown. It is not soldierly!"
Rollo bade the valet bring his master what he wanted, and presently the
Duke of Rianzares, in his best uniform coat, found himself in a position
to die with credit and self-respect.
But so unexpected was the nerve and resolution of the Queen that it was
only when the Duke had been bidden kneel down between the halves of a
French window which opened out upon a balcony that Cristina, flinging
dignity finally to the winds, fell upon his neck and cried to her
captors, "Take me where you wish. Do with me what you will. Only
preserve to me my beloved Fernando."
Rollo turned away with a sudden easing of his heart and no little
admiration. He was glad that the strain was over, and besides, he would
rather have led the forlornest of hopes than have played twice upon a
woman's fears for her lover. But at his back he heard the Sergeant
whisper across to El Sarria, who, entirely unmoved, was uncocking his
piece with much deliberation, "'Tis a deal more than she would have done
for her _first_ well-beloved Fernando!"
* * * * *
In less than an hour the whole party was well on its way. The
Queen-Regent was mounted on a white mule, which had been brought in from
the hill pastures above El Mar. Behind came Piebald Pedro's donkey, with
a basket-chair strapped upon its back for the little Princess, who was
in high glee, holding Concha's hand and singing for gladness to be done
with La Granja. The Sergeant and El Sarria walked one on either side of
Senor Munoz, who, by suggestion of Rollo, had assumed a coat less
decorative than that in which he had proposed to make his exit from
life.
In addition to the Queen's mule and the donkey, the Sergeant led a horse
which was presently to be mounted by Munoz, so soon, that is, as the
rest of the party should regain the steeds they had left behind at the
deserted farmhouse on the hill. But till that time it was judged most
safe that the Queen's consort should walk between Ramon Garcia and the
Sergeant. Rollo, with a wandering eye towards Concha and the Queen,
walked and talked with Etienne and John Mortimer, whom of late the joint
compulsions of love and war had compelled him somewhat to neglect.
But these good fellows bore no malice, though certainly Etienne grew a
little red when Rollo, with the frankness that distinguished his every
word and action, launched into enthusiastic praise of the nobility,
courage, fidelity, and every other virtue characteristic of La Senorita
Concha.
"In addition to which she is very pretty!" added Etienne, significantly.
Rollo stopped with the semi-indignant air of a horse pulled up short in
full career. But in a moment he had recovered himself.
"Yes," he said doggedly, "she _is_ very pretty!"
"Not that you are a man to care for beauty. You never were!" persisted
Etienne, with a side look at Mortimer. "You have always said so
yourself, you know!"
"No! I never did care!" Rollo agreed a little hastily. "But yonder is
the farmhouse. I wonder if we shall find our horses as we left them."
Here Etienne laughed sardonically for no reason at all.
"I am in hopes that they will be fed and refreshed," continued Rollo,
imperturbably; "we must let them have a feed of corn, too, before they
start."
La Giralda, who had been leading the Queen's white mule, at that moment
gave up her post to Concha, and fell back in order to whisper something
to the Sergeant.
"Ah," said he aloud, as soon as he had listened to her, "that is well
thought on. La Giralda and I have a little business of our own to attend
to which may occupy us a few minutes. With your leave, Colonel, we will
go on ahead and arrange matters for the Queen's reception. From what La
Giralda tells me, it may be as well to avoid entering the house."
So when the Queen-Regent, with Concha in attendance and the little
Isabel riding demurely alongside on her diminutive donkey, delighting in
the unexpected excursion, arrived at the farm, they found that a large
barn and granary, cool, airy, and with a roof of stone arched like the
vaults of a fortress, had been prepared for them. The horses of the
party had been fed and watered. Cloaks had been unstrapped and laid on
piles of straw for the ladies to rest upon--that is, for her Majesty the
Queen Maria Cristina--Concha being one of the comity, and little Isabel
dancing everywhere after her as her inseparable tyrant and slave. For
with the easy and fortunate memory of childhood, Isabel had ceased even
to mention the nurse who had been with her ever since her birth, or at
most remembered her only when she happened to be tired or hurt or
sleepy. Indeed, she learned in a wondrously short space to run to Concha
with all her troubles. So constant was the companionship of these two
that it was with the utmost difficulty, and after several failures, that
Rollo managed to exchange even a word with his sweetheart.
"You have been very brave," he whispered. "I should have failed but for
you!"
Concha blushed hot with swift pleasure, but on this occasion her usual
readiness of speech seemed to have deserted her, and she stood silent
like a tongue-tied maid, greedy for the first time in her life of her
own praise.
Before either could speak again, the Sergeant was back to report that La
Giralda and he had dinner ready for the party.
"You must not expect much," he said; "there is little available for the
pot which may with safety be cooked."
But indeed in such weather there was need for nothing better than the
_arroz con pollo_--the chicken with rice, together with the abundant
_gazpacho_, for the first of which he had found the materials in the
store-chamber and barn-yard of the deserted farmhouse.
"Also there is an abundance of vegetables in the garden--when you get
them separated from the weeds, that is," he explained; "the clear air of
these heights has enabled them to keep their flavour to perfection."
He did not add that he had also seen in that same garden a mound of
newly-dug earth, under which lay, beside her little daughter, a mother
as loving and more faithful than that Queen-Mother for whose sake they
were risking their lives.
The Sergeant's hurriedly prepared lunch was a prodigious success.
The great folk partook as heartily as any, and (perhaps owing to their
extreme youth) the _pollos_ tasted much more tender than could have been
expected, considering the fact that the Sergeant had found them
industriously pecking and scratching in the dust of the farmyard upon
his arrival, and that, while he dug the grave, he had sent La Giralda to
drive them into a wood-shed, where presently they were captured _en
masse_.
Rollo ate but little, for he was intensely excited. He had succeeded
beyond expectation so far, and now he was beginning to see his way past
all entanglements to the successful accomplishment of his mission. His
plan was to proceed by unfrequented paths, such as were, however,
perfectly familiar to his adjutant Sergeant Cardono, along the northern
slopes of the Guadarrama till he should be able to look out across the
fertile plain of the Duero towards the mural front of the Sierra de
Moncayo.
Thence by forced marches across the valley, undertaken at night, he
might hope in two stages at most to put his charges under the care of
General Elio, the immediate representative of Don Carlos, who had
established his headquarters there. Small wonder that Rollo grew
excited. The worst seemed over--the myriad adventures, the perilous
passes, the thousand enemies. Now the plains lay before him, and--Concha
loved him.
If only this weight of responsibility were once off his mind--ah, then!
Poor Rollo! And indeed poor humankind in general! How often the wind
falls to a breeze, heat-tempering, grateful, which comes in fits and
starts, not severe enough to chill, yet long enough to cool the body
weary of the summer heats, with a sense of grateful relief.
And it is precisely in the teeth of such a gentle-breathing,
cheek-fanning earth-wind that the thunderstorm comes riding up overhead,
its flanks black and ragged with rain and fierce spurts of hail, and in
the midst of all the white desolating lightnings zigzagging to the
ground.