THE SERGENT'S LAST SALUTE
It was almost time for starting. The two sentries lay on their faces,
trussed and helpless, with gags in their mouths. El Sarria and Rollo had
dropped down upon them as if from the clouds a few minutes after the
officer had made his two-hourly visitation. The Sergeant was ready with
the horses in the hollow, keeping them quiet with cunning gipsy caresses
and making soft whistling _chalan_ noises in their ears.
So far all had gone well, and Rollo, standing with his knife in
suggestive proximity to the tied-up sentries, silently congratulated
himself. The dawn was doubtless coming up behind the hills to the east,
but the darkness was still absolute as ever about the camp, save indeed
for the lambent brilliancies of the stars.
They were now waiting only for the royal party, and the time seemed long
to impatient Rollo. Were all his plans, so carefully laid, to be made
naught because, forsooth, a queen in danger of her life must still keep
up the punctilios of a court and cherish the pettishnesses and caprices
of a spoilt child? Was his reputation to go down to posterity as that of
a man who, being trusted with the lives of a woman and a child, had
brought them straight to the shambles?
At last--there! They were coming. But why, for God's sake, could not
they make less noise?
With a motion of his hand which directed El Sarria to keep an eye upon
the gagged sentries, Rollo went forward to receive the Queen and conduct
her to her horse. Munoz, however, came out first, carrying in his arms
the little Princess, who, so soon as she heard Rollo's voice, whispered
her desire to be transferred to him. But Rollo had already offered the
Queen his arm, and whispering her to tread carefully, led the way to the
little hollow where Sergeant Cardono kept the three bridles in his hand,
cursing meanwhile the slow movements of crowned heads and ennobled
_estanco_-keepers in Romany of the deepest and blackest.
He had cause to curse another peculiarity of monarchs and spoilt
children before many minutes had gone by. Till now the success of the
plot had been complete. There remained indeed only to mount and ride. El
Sarria brought up the rear, assuring himself for the hundredth time that
his weapons were in good order and ready to his hand. No great general,
Ramon Garcia was a matchless legionary.
But the Queen-Regent would by no means submit to be assisted to her seat
(it was a man's saddle) by Rollo. She called to her husband in a voice
clearly audible all about.
"Fernando--my love! Come to me--I want you!"
As Rollo said afterwards--no queen born under the lilies of Bourbon ever
ran a nearer chance of having the rude hand of a commoner set over her
august mouth than did Maria Cristina of Naples on this occasion.
Nor was the appeal without effect.
Senor Munoz instantly put the little Princess down upon the ground and
hastened to his wife. What happened _after_ that is not very clear, even
when the subject has been repeatedly and exhaustively threshed out by
the persons most immediately concerned.
Perhaps the little Princess, deposited thus suddenly upon the ground,
caught instinctively at one of the long tails of the horses which (in
common with those of almost all Spanish horses) almost swept the ground.
Perhaps the animals themselves grew suddenly panic-stricken. At all
events one of the three lashed out suddenly. The Sergeant bent sideways
to snatch Isabel from among their hoofs. In so doing he dropped a rein,
and in another moment one of the steeds went clattering up the dry
_arroyo_, scattering the gravel every way with a wild flourishing of
heels, and making, as the Sergeant growled, "enough noise to arouse
twenty camps."
For a hundred heart-beats all the party held their breath. Then Rollo
whispered to Senor Munoz to mount and take the little Princess before
him.
"As for you, you must run for it, Ramon!" he said to El Sarria. "The fat
is in the fire now, and all we can do is to hold them back as long as we
can. Make straight for the gorge towards Vera. You know the way. May God
help you to reach it before they can turn our flank!"
Then it was that the Sergeant received a definite shock of surprise.
That queens would be foolish, arbitrary, even absolutely idiotic, was no
marvel to him. That they should choose their favourites from
_estanco_-keepers and guardsmen, and elevate them at a day's notice to
grandeeships, dukedoms of Spain, and privileges even higher, did not in
the least astonish him. But that the person so elevated should after
all, in his less corporeal attributes, prove to be a man, was a
first-rate surprise to Jose Maria.
Munoz was now to furnish the Sergeant with an absolutely new sensation.
"_Senor_," he said, quietly addressing El Sarria, "be good enough to
mount and conduct the Queen to a place of safety. I intend to remain
here with these gentlemen!"
Then he went up to Maria Cristina and spoke a few sentences to her in a
tone so low that only the last words were audible.
"If not, by the Immaculate Virgin, I swear that you shall never see my
face again!"
"Fernando! Fernando! Fernando! You are cruel!" was the answer uttered
through choking sobs.
But El Sarria was by this time in the saddle. The little Princess was
set in her place in front of him.
"Off with you!" whispered Rollo.
And in this manner the cavalcade began its momentous march.
The Sergeant stood gazing at Munoz, who rubbed the backs of his hands
alternately as if there had been a chill in the night air. Munoz on his
part turned to Rollo.
"Let me have the use of that gentleman's piece," he said; "I do not like
this silence. I think we shall have a hot time of it within the next
five minutes."
At that moment the escaped charger came cantering back, neighing and
alarming all the picketed horses for miles, which snorted back an
answer. Sentries meditating in quiet corners became upon a sudden
exceedingly awake. One of the two whom Rollo and El Sarria had left
triced up at the door of the royal prison at last got the extemporised
gag out of his mouth, and found his breath in a lusty shout of warning.
The ex-guardsman was right. Within less than five minutes the entire
camp was awake. The escape of the prisoners had been discovered. The
recovered sentry pointed out the direction of the _barranco_ as that in
which the fugitives had taken their departure.
Whereupon there ensued a hurried rush thither. Indeed, scarcely had the
dark forms of the two horses with their riders ceased to break the
skyline upon one verge of the ravine, before Cabrera's men were
clambering and shouting along the other. Luckily the precipice was sheer
immediately opposite, and the pursuers had to try a furlong or two
farther down, at a place where a landslide had enabled them on the
previous evening to lead their horses to and from the few stagnant pools
which now represented those full-fed torrents the spring rains send down
from the Sierra de Moncayo.
"Let them have it!" whispered Rollo, as the first straggling groups
stood up dark between them and the stars.
Accordingly, out of the darkness of the _barranco_, a volley flamed
irregularly enough, the rattle of musketry running down the whole front
of the line. Six pieces in all spoke out their message to Cabrera's men
to halt. For La Giralda, having taken possession of Concha's armament,
drew a bead upon her man with probably as much success as any of the
others. It was still too dark for accurate shooting, and the worst shot
was not much inferior to the best.
But these six bullets sent across the valley from unseen foes,
spattering the stones about their feet, checked that first fierce rush
of angry men. Some enemy was in force on their front--so much was
evident. It would be well to discover of what sort.
"We are holding them," said Rollo, triumphantly, "that is all we can
hope for. Pass down the word to fire only when they advance. Time is
what El Sarria and his party need. And so far as I can see, unless
Concha hurries, a dead Carlist or so more or less will not make much
difference to us!"
But Rollo soon found that the men who were opposed to him knew all there
was to know about _guerrilla_ warfare. They pushed forward steadily from
rock to rock, and as they came on in overwhelming numbers the dauntless
six were compelled to retire upwards till they gained the rugged brink
of the _barranco_, from which the uplands swell away in broad unclothed
downs in the direction of the gorge of Vera.
Here they took up their several posts in a position of great natural
strength, if only they had had a sufficiency of men to defend it.
Already the morning was growing manifestly lighter. The red peaks of
Moncayo above their heads began to emerge out of the grey uncoloured
night. They could see each other now, and Rollo looked down his line
with some pride.
There they were, each behind his shelter, loading and firing according
to his liking and the bowels that were in him. The Sergeant was sternly
winging each shot with intent to slay, Munoz firing as if he had been
practising at a target for sport and feeling bored for the want of a
cigarette, Etienne with swift and contagious gaiety of mood, while John
Mortimer did his work with a plain and businesslike devotion to the
matter in hand that argued well for his father's spinning mills at
Chorley if ever he should return thither--a chance which at present
seemed somewhat remote.
La Giralda, like the Sergeant, fired to kill her man, and as for Rollo
himself, he did not fire at all unless he could plant a bullet where it
would induce a Carlist to alter his mind about advancing further.
The end, however, was clearly only a matter of time. The light came
faster up out of the east. Rollo stood on his feet, and heedless of the
bullets that buzzed like bees about him looked eagerly towards the gorge
of Vera. He could see nothing of Ramon Garcia or of the Queen, and his
heart gave a bound of thankful joy.
But there were ups and downs on the rolling moorland country that
stretched away to the right. El Sarria and his companions might only be
temporarily hidden in the trough of one of these waves.
"We can hold on a while yet, lads!" he cried, and dropped down behind
his rock, shaking his rifle into its nook beside his ear to be ready for
the next spot of red or white crawling towards them through the dusty
_arroyo_.
But at that moment there came from far away the sound of cheering. A
mounted man dashed at full gallop up to the edge of the ravine opposite
to them.
"Do not fire," said the Sergeant; "that is Cabrera--he is a brave man!"
But John Mortimer, not caring or not understanding the language, fired
promptly, and his rifle bullet threw up a cloud of dust between the
horse's feet. The animal reared and almost threw his rider. But in a
moment he was erect as ever in the saddle, and Rollo could see him
shouting furious commands to his men--apparently ordering them to bear
round to the left so as to take the defending party on their least
protected side.
For the next few minutes, as Munoz had foretold, it was hot work enough,
and Rollo had no time to look behind him, or he might have seen a sight
that would have astonished him--a single horsewoman, riding swiftly
towards the _barranco_, followed at the distance of half a mile by a
cloud of mounted men.
Suddenly the General on the opposite bank, who all the while had been
darting about hither and thither like a gad-fly, held up his arm, and
with astonishing pride of horsemanship (and faith in the soundness of
his girths) rode his charger straight down the shelving sides of the
ravine, the slaty fragments crumbling and slipping under the iron-shod
hoofs.
With a cheer the red _boinas_ of the Estella regiment followed, and then
straight up the opposite slopes of shale they dashed towards Rollo and
his poor defences.
"Hold your fire!" he cried, first in English, and then in Spanish. "Wait
till you are sure of them. We are only half a dozen, and we must wing a
man apiece!"
It chanced, however, just as the horseman (who, as the Sergeant had
supposed, was Cabrera himself, almost out of his mind with disappointed
fury) surmounted the ridge a little to the right of Rollo's position,
but close to where the Sergeant lay behind his rock, that Concha threw
herself off her charger (or rather one of General Espartero's), and with
a joyous shout informed them that the Queen was safe and that twelve
hundred Cristino regulars were following close behind her!
Thus these two, the disappointed murderer and the triumphant deliverer,
met almost face to face. Cabrera heard Concha's glad proclamation. He
saw the plumes of Espartero's troopers already topping the rise, strong
well-knit men of the best farming stock in Old Castile mounted on
Gallegan horses.
Quite breathless with her headlong course, Concha stood panting, her
hand pressed on her breast. Her eyes were wandering every way in search
of Rollo, and in her haste and happiness she had left her weapons behind
in the camp of Espartero.
"At any rate I will make sure of you!" cried the Butcher of Tortosa,
bitterly, and drawing a pistol he covered Concha at point-blank
distance. But from behind his rock (as it were out of the ground) arose
the tall gaunt form and leathern visage of Sergeant Cardono.
With a sweep of the arm he set Concha behind him, and as the General's
pistol went off he received the shot in his own bosom.
The next moment the Castilian horsemen crashed full on the front of
Cabrera's advance and hurled it down the side of the ravine, the General
himself being borne away in the thickest of the surge.
Meantime another part of Espartero's command had bent round to the east
and was by this time taking the Carlists on the flank. In thirty seconds
the ridge of the _barranco_, which the six had defended so well, was
deserted; even slow-going John Mortimer had been swept into the tide of
pursuit.
But the Sergeant lay still, with the breast of his jacket opened, and
his head on Concha's shoulder. She dropped warm tears over his face.
Rollo, too, was there, and held the dying man's hand. He beckoned La
Giralda to him and whispered a word in Romany. She nodded, and presently
returned with the same great bulk of a man, brown as a Moor of Barbary,
whom Rollo had encountered on the night of the plunder of San Ildefonso.
"Ezquerra," the Sergeant whispered, "I am spent. There is a spike in the
neck-band this time. All that is honestly come by, I want you to give to
this young lady. You will find it by itself under the hearthstone in my
house at Ronda. The rest you will take no objections to, I know, on the
ground of morals. Keep it for yourself!"
Concha glanced once up at Rollo and then, receiving his nod of approval,
bent down and kissed the Sergeant.
The Andalucian looked up with that wondrous flavour of gay humour which
distinguishes those born in the joyous province. His saturnine visage
brightened into the sweetest smile. Very feebly he raised his hand to
his brow in a last salute in acknowledgment of Concha's favour. His head
fell back on her breast.
"A thousand grateful thanks, _Senorita_!" he said. And then noting the
executioner he added, "Ah, Ezquerra, this is better than dying on the
Plaza Mayor of Salamanca with the iron collar about one's neck!"
They were his last words. And so passed Jose Maria of Ronda, whom to
this day every Spanish peasant holds to have been the greatest man Spain
has seen since the dead Cid rode forth on Babieca for the last time to
outface the Moors.