THE RED BOINAS OF NAVARRE
Concha and El Sarria sat down on an outcrop of red sandstone rock, and
gazed back at the prospect. There below them lay the camp and the house
in which was imprisoned the reigning branch of the royal family of
Spain. A couple of sentries paced to and fro in front. A picket had
established itself for the night in the back courtyard. Beyond that
again stood the tent in which the General was at present engaged in
drinking himself from his usual sullen ferocity into unconsciousness.
A little nearer, and not far from their own camp-fire, at which the
Sergeant was busily preparing the evening meal, sat Rollo, sunk in
misery, revolving a thousand plans and ready for any desperate venture
so soon as night should fall. Concha gave a quick little sigh whenever
her eye fell on him. Perhaps her conscience pricked her--perhaps not!
With the heart of such a woman doth neither stranger nor friend
intermeddle with any profit.
The sauntering Vitorian halted within speaking distance of the pair.
"A fine evening," he said affably. "Can you give me a light for my
cigarette?"
It was on the tip of El Sarria's tongue to inquire whether there were
not plenty of lights for his cigarette back at the camp-fires where he
had rolled it. But that most excellent habit, which Don Ramon had used
from boyhood, of never interfering in the business of another, kept him
silent.
"Why should I," he thought, "burn my fingers with stirring this young
foreigner's _olla_? Time was when I made a pretty mess enough of my
own!"
So without speech he blew the end off his _cigarillo_ and handed it
courteously to the Carlist soldier.
But Concha had no qualms about breaking the silence. The presence of a
duenna was nowise necessary to the opening of her lips, which last had
also sometimes been silenced without the intervention of a chaperon.
"A fine evening, indeed," she said, smiling down at the youth. "I
presume that you are a foot soldier from the musket you carry. It must
be a fine one from the care you take of it! But as for me, I like
cavaliers best."
"The piece is as veritable a cross-eyed old shrew as ever threw a bullet
ten yards wide of the mark," cried the Alavan, tossing his musket down
upon the short elastic covering of hill-plants on which he stood, and
taking his cigarette luxuriously from his lips. "Nor am I an
infantry-man, as you suppose. Doubtless the _Senorita_ did not observe
my spurs as I came. Of the best Potosi silver they are made. I am a
horseman of the Estella regiment. Our good Carlos the Fifth (whom God
bring to his own!) is not yet rich enough to provide us with much in the
way of a uniform, but a pair of spurs and a _boina_ are within reach of
every man's purse. Or if he has not the money to buy them, they are to
be had at the first tailor's we may chance to pass!"
"And very becoming they are!" said Concha, glancing wickedly at the
youth, who sat staring at her and letting his cigarette go out. "'Tis
small wonder you are a conquering corps! I have often heard tell of the
Red Boinas of Navarre!"
"I think I will betake me down to the camp--I smell supper!" broke in El
Sarria, curtly. He began to think that Mistress Concha had no further
use for him, and, being assured on this point, he set about finding
other business for himself. For, with all his simplicity, Ramon Garcia
was an exceedingly practical man.
"The air is sweet up here; I prefer it to supper," said Concha. "I will
follow you down in a moment. Perhaps this gentleman desires to keep you
company to the camp and canteen."
But it soon appeared that the Vitorian was also impressed by the
marvellous sweetness of the mountain air, and equally desirous of
observing the changeful lights and lengthening shadows which the sun of
evening cast, sapphire and indigo, Venetian red and violet-grey, among
the peaks of the Sierra de Moncayo. When two young people are thus
simultaneously stricken with an admiration for scenery, their
conversation is seldom worth repeating. But the Senorita Concha is so
unusual a young lady that in this case an exception must be made.
Awhile she gazed pensively up at the highest summits of the mountain,
now crimson against a saffron sky, for at eventide Spain flaunts her
national colours in the very heavens. Then she heaved a deep sigh.
"You are doubtless a fine horseman?" she cried, clasping her hands--"oh,
I adore all horses! I love to see a man ride as a man should!"
The young man coloured. This was, in truth, the most open joint in his
armour. Above all things he prided himself upon his horsemanship. Concha
had judged as much from his care of his spurs. And then to be mistaken
for an infantry tramper!
"Ah," he said, "if the _Senorita_ could only see my mare La Perla! I got
her three months ago from the stable of a black-blooded National whose
house we burnt near Zaragoza. She has carried me ever since without a
day's lameness. There is not the like of her in the regiment. Our mounts
are for the most part mere _garrons_ of Cataluna or Aragonese ponies
with legs like the pillars of a cellar, surmounted by barrels as round
as the wine-tuns themselves."
At this Concha looked still more pensive. Presently she heaved another
sigh and tapped her slender shoe with a chance spray of heath.
"Oh, I wish----" she began, and then stopped hastily as if ashamed.
"If it be anything that I can do for you," cried the young man,
enthusiastically, "you shall not have to wish it long!"
As he spoke he forsook the stone on which he had been sitting for
another nearer to the pretty cross-tied shoes of Andalucian pattern that
showed beneath the skirts of Concha's _basquina_.
"Ah, how I love horses!" murmured Concha; "doubtless, too, yours is of
my country--of the beautiful sunny Andalucia which I may never see
again!"
"The mare is indeed believed by all who have knowledge to have
Andalucian blood in her veins," answered the Alavan.
Concha rose to her feet impulsively.
"Then," she said, "I must see her. Also I am devoured with eagerness to
see you ride."
She permitted her eyes to take in the trim figure of the Vitorian, who
had also risen to his feet.
"Do go and bring her," she murmured; "I will take care of your musket.
You need not be a moment, and--I will wait for you!"
A little spark kindles a great fire in a Spanish heart, and the young
man, counting the cost, rapidly decided that the risk was worth running.
The horses of the Estella regiment were picketed in a little hollow a
few hundred yards behind the main camp. It was his duty to watch these
two strangers, of whom one had already gone back to the camp, while as
to the other--well, Adrian Zumaya of the province of Alava felt at that
moment that he could cheerfully devote the rest of his life to watching
that other.
In a moment more he had laid down his musket at Concha's feet, and set
off as fast as he could in the direction of the horses, keeping well out
of sight in the trough of a long roller of foot-hill until he was close
to the cavalry lines, and could smell the honest stable-smell which in
the open air mingled curiously with those of aromatic thyme and resinous
juniper.
In five minutes he was back, riding his best and sitting like a Centaur.
Concha's eyes glistened with pleasure, and she ran impulsively forward
to pat the cream-coloured mare, a clean-built, well-gathered,
workmanlike steed.
Now the young man was very proud of the interest this pretty Andalucian
girl was showing in his equipment and belongings to the exclusion of
those of his comrades. Perhaps he might have been less pleased had he
known that the young lady's interest extended even to the gun he had
left behind him, the charge of which she had already managed to extract
with deft and competent fingers.
"La Perla she is called," he cried with enthusiasm, "and sure none other
ever better deserved the name! I wish we of the camp possessed a
side-saddle that the _Senorita_ might try her paces. She has the easiest
motion in the world. It is like riding in a great lady's coach with
springs or being carried in a Sedan-chair. But she is of a delicate
mouth. Ah, yes--if the _Senorita_ mounted, it would be necessary to
remember that she must not bear hard upon the reins. Then would La Perla
of a certainty take the bit between her teeth and run like the devil
when Father Mateo is after him with a holy water syringe!"
Concha smiled as the young fellow dismounted, flinging himself off with
the lithe grace of youth and constant practice.
"You forget," she said, "I also am of the Province of Flowers. Do not be
afraid. La Perla and I will not fall out. A side-saddle--any saddle!
What needs Concha Cabezos with side-saddle when she hath ridden unbroken
Andalucian jennets wild over the meadows of Mairena, with no better
bridle than their manes of silk and no other saddle than their glossy
hides, brown as toasted bread!"
As she made this boast Concha patted La Perla's pretty head, who,
recognising a lover of her kind, muzzled an affectionate nose under the
girl's arm.
"Oh, how I wish I could try you," she cried, "were it but for a
moment--darling among steeds, Pearl of Andalucia!"
"La Perla is very gentle," suggested the young cavalier of Alava, as he
thought most subtly. "With me at the mare's head the _Senorita_ might
safely enough ride. But for fear of interruption let us first proceed a
little way out of sight of the camp."
They descended behind the long ridge till the camp was entirely hidden,
and as they did so the heart of the young Vitorian beat fast. They think
plentifully well of themselves, these young men of Alava and Navarre.
And this one felt that he would not disgrace the name of his parent
city.
"Only for a moment, _Senorita_, permit me--there! The _Senorita_ goes up
like a bird! Now wait till I take her head, and beware of jerking the
rein hastily on account of the delicacy of the little lady's mouth. So,
La Perla,--gently and daintily! Consider, jewel of mares, what a
precious burden is now on thy back!"
"A moment, only a moment!" cried Concha, her hands apparently busy about
her hair, "this rebozo is no headgear to ride in. What shall I do? A
handkerchief is not large enough. Ah, _Cavallero_, add to your kindness
by lending me your _boina_! I thank you a thousand times! There! Is that
so greatly amiss?"
And she set the red _boina_ daintily upon her hair, pulling the brim
sideways to shade her eyes from the level evening sun, and smiled down
at the young man who stood at her side.
"Perfect! Beautiful!" cried the young Vitorian, clasping his hands. "The
sight would set on fire the heart of Don Carlos himself. Ah, take care!
Bear easily on that rein. Stop, La Perla! Stop! I beseech you!"
And he started running with all his might. Alas, in vain! For the wicked
Concha, the moment that he had stepped back to take in the effect of the
red _boina_, dropped a heel (into which she had privately inserted half
an inch of pin, taken from her own headgear), upon the flank of La
Perla. The mare sprang forward, with nostrils distended and a fierce
jerk of the head. Concha pulled hard as if in terror, and presently was
flying over the plain towards the cleft on the shoulder of Moncayo
beyond which lay the camp of General Elio.
The young Carlist stood a moment aghast. Then slowly he realised the
situation. Whereupon, crying aloud the national oath, he ground his heel
into the grass, snatched at his gun, kneeled upon one knee, took careful
aim, and clicked down the trigger. No report followed, however, and a
slight inspection satisfied him that he had been tricked, duped, made a
fool of by a slip of a girl, a girl with eyes--yes, and eye-lashes. He
leaped in the air and shouted aloud great words in Basque which have no
direct equivalents in any polite European language, but which were well
enough understood in the stone age.
However, he wasted no time foolishly. Well he knew that for such
mistakes there was in Cabrera's code neither forgiveness nor, indeed,
any penalty save one. Adrian Zumaya of the province of Alava was young.
He desired much to live, if only that he might meet that girl again at
whose retreating figure he had a moment before pointed an empty gun
barrel. Ah, he would be even with her yet! So, wasting no time on
leave-taking, he bent low behind the ridge, and keeping well in the
shelter of boulder and underbrush, made a bee-line for the cliffs of
Moncayo, where presently, in one of the caves of which El Sarria had
spoken, he counted his cartridges and reloaded his rifle, with little
regret, except when he wished that the incident had happened after,
instead of before supper.
However, he had in reserve a hand's-breadth of sausage in his pocket,
together with a fragment of most ancient and rock-like cheese. These,
since no better might be, he made the best of, and as the sun sank and
the camp below him grew but a blur in the gloom, he washed them down
with the water which percolated through the roof of the cave and fell in
great drops, as regularly as a pendulum swings, upon the floor below.
These he caught in his palms and drank with much satisfaction. And in
the intervals he execrated the Senorita Concha Cabezos, late of
Andalucia, with polysyllabic vehemence.
But ere he curled himself up to sleep in the dryest corner of the cave,
he burst into a laugh.
"In truth," he said, "she deserves La Perla. For a cleverer wench or a
prettier saw I never one!"
The young man's last act before he laid himself down in his new quarters
had been to take from his coat the circular disc with the letters "C.
V.," the badge of the only Catholic, absolute, and legitimate king.
Then, approaching the precipice as nearly as in the uncertain light he
dared, he cast it from him in the direction of the Carlist lines.
"Shoot whom you will at sunrise, queen or camp-wench, king or knave," he
muttered, "you shall not have Adrian Zumaya of Vitoria to put a bullet
through!"
So easily was allegiance laid down or taken up in these civil wars of
Spain. And that night it was noised abroad through all the camp that
young Zumaya of the Estella regiment of cavalry had taken his horse and
gone off with the pretty _Senorita_ whom he had been set to watch.
Upon which half his comrades envied him, and the other half hoped he
would be captured, saying, "It will be bad for Adrian Zumaya of the
Estella regiment if he comes again within the clutches of our excellent
Don Ramon Cabrera."
And this was a fact of which the aforesaid Adrian himself was
exceedingly well aware. But the most curious point about the whole
matter is that when he awoke late next morning he found the sun shining
brilliantly into the mouth of the cave. The camp had vanished. There was
a haze of sulphur in the air which bit his nostrils, and lo! beneath
him, on a little plot of coarse green grass and hill-plants, a
cream-coloured horse was quietly feeding.
"It is my own Perla!" he cried, as, careless of danger, he hastened
down. There was a red object attached to the mare's bridle. He went
round and detached a red _boina_, to which was pinned a scrap of paper.
Upon it was written these words:
"_I hope you have not missed either of the objects herewith
returned. They served me nobly. I send my best thanks for the
loan.--C. C._"
"That is very well," said the young man, smiling as he mounted his
horse, "but all the same, had my heels not served me better than my
head, your best thanks, pretty mistress, had come too late. They would
not have kept me from biting the dust at sunrise with half a dozen
bullets in my gizzard, instead of waking here comfortably on an empty
stomach. Well, I suppose I must don the cap of liberty now and be a
_chapelgorri_. It is a pity. 'Tis not one half so becoming as the
_boina_ to one of my complexion."
Then Adrian Zumaya, late of the Estella regiment of Carlist horse,
meditated a little longer upon the mutability of all earthly affairs.
"Yet perhaps that is just as well!" he added. "It is ever my hard fate
to lose my head where a woman is concerned."
For he thought how the last admirer of his red _boina_ had served him.
So with a little sigh of regret he tossed it into the first juniper
bush, and tying a kerchief about his head in the manner of the
Cristinos, rode forth light-heartedly to seek his fate, like a true
soldier of _fortune_.