LE PREMIER PAS
‘Be as one that knoweth and yet holdeth his tongue.’
THE little town of Algeciras lies, as many know, within sight of
Gibraltar, and separated from that stronghold by a broad bay. It is on
the mainland of Spain, and in direct communication by road with the great
port of Cadiz. Another road, little better than a bridle-path, runs
northward to Ximena and through the corkwood forests of that plain
towards the mountain ranges that rise between Ronda and the sea.
By this bridle-path, it is whispered, a vast smuggled commerce has ever
found passage to the mainland, and scarce a boatman or passenger lands at
Algeciras from Gibraltar but carries somewhere on his person as much
tobacco as he may hope to conceal with safety. Algeciras, with its fair
white houses, its prim church, and sleepy quay, where the blue waters lap
and sparkle in innocent sunlight, is, it is to be feared, a town of small
virtue and the habitation of scoundrels. For this is the stronghold of
those contrabandistas whom song and legend have praised as the boldest,
the merriest, and most romantic of law-breakers. Indeed, in this country
the man who can boast of a smuggling ancestry holds high his head and
looks down on honest folk.
The ‘Granville’ having dropped anchor to the north of the rough stone
pier, was soon disburdened of her passengers—the ladies going ashore with
undisguised delight, and leaving behind them many gracious messages of
thanks to the gentleman whose gallantry had resulted so disastrously; for
Conyngham was still in bed, though now nearly recovered. Truth to tell,
he did not hurry to make his appearance in the general cabin, and came on
deck a few hours after the departure of the ladies, whose gratitude he
desired to avoid.
Two days of the peerless sunshine of these southern waters completely
restored him to health, and he prepared to go ashore. It was afternoon
when his boat touched the beach, and the idlers, without whom no
Mediterranean seaboard is complete, having passed the heat of the day in
a philosophic apathy amounting in many cases to a siesta, now roused
themselves sufficiently to take a dignified and indifferent interest in
the new arrival. A number of boys, an old soldier, several artillerymen
from the pretty and absolutely useless fort, a priest and a female vendor
of oranges put themselves out so much as to congregate in a little knot
at the spot where Conyngham landed.
‘Body of Bacchus!’ said the priest, with a pinch of snuff poised before
his long nose, ‘an Englishman—see his gold watch chain.’
This remark called forth several monosyllabic sounds, and the onlookers
watched the safe discharge of Conyngham’s personal effects with a
characteristic placidity of demeanour which was at once tolerant and
gently surprised. That any one should have the energy to come ashore
when he was comfortable on board, or leave the shore when amply provided
there with sunshine, elbowroom, and other necessaries of life, presented
itself to them as a fact worthy of note but not of emulation. The
happiest man is he who has reduced the necessities of life to a minimum.
No one offered to assist Conyngham. In Spain the onlooker keeps his
hands in his pockets.
‘The English, see you, travel for pleasure,’ said the old soldier,
nodding his head in the direction of Gibraltar, pink and shimmering
across the bay.
The priest brushed some stray grains of snuff from the front of his faded
cassock—once black, but now of a greeny brown. He was a singularly tall
man, gaunt and grey, with deep lines drawn downwards from eye to chin.
His mouth was large and tender, with a humorous corner ever awaiting a
jest. His eyes were sombre and deeply shaded by grey brows, but one of
them had a twinkle lurking and waiting, as in the corner of his mouth.
‘Everyone stretches his legs according to the length of his coverlet,’ he
said, and, turning, he courteously raised his hat to Conyngham, who
passed at that moment on his way to the hotel. The little knot of
onlookers broke up, and the boys wandered towards the fort, before the
gate of which a game at bowls was in progress.
‘The Padre has a hungry look,’ reflected Conyngham. ‘Think I’ll invite
him to dinner.’
For Geoffrey Horner had succeeded in conveying more money to the man who
had taken his sins upon himself, and while Conyngham possessed money he
usually had the desire to spend it.
Conyngham went to the Fonda de la Marina, which stands to-day—a house of
small comfort and no great outward cleanliness; but, as in most Spanish
inns, the performance was better than the promise, and the bedroom
offered to the traveller was nothing worse than bare and ill furnished.
With what Spanish he at this time possessed the Englishman made known his
wants, and inquired of the means of prosecuting his journey to Ronda.
‘You know the Captain-General Vincente of Ronda?’ he asked.
‘But . . . yes—by reputation. Who does not in Andalusia?’ replied the
host, a stout man, who had once cooked for a military mess at Gibraltar,
and professed himself acquainted with the requirements of English
gentlemen.
‘I have a letter to General Vincente, and must go to Ronda as soon as
possible. These are stirring times in Spain.’
The man’s bland face suddenly assumed an air of cunning, and he glanced
over his shoulder to see that none overheard.
‘Your Excellency is right,’ he answered. ‘But for such as myself one
side is as good as another—is it not so? Carlist or Christino—the money
is the same.’
‘But here in the South there are no Carlists.’
‘Who knows?’ said the innkeeper with outspread hands. ‘Anything that his
Excellency requires shall be forthcoming,’ he added grandiosely. ‘This
is the dining-room, and here at the side a little saloon where the ladies
sit. But at present we have only gentlemen in the hotel—it being the
winter time.’
‘Then you have other guests?’ inquired Conyngham.
‘But . . . yes—always. In Algeciras there are always travellers.
Noblemen—like his Excellency—for pleasure. Others—for commerce, the
Government—the politics.’
‘No flies enter a shut mouth, my friend,’ said a voice at the door, and
both turned to see standing in the doorway the priest who had witnessed
Conyngham’s arrival.
‘Pardon, señor,’ said the old man, coming forward with his shabby hat in
his hand. ‘Pardon my interruption. I came at an opportune moment, for I
heard the word politics.’
He turned and shook a lean finger at the innkeeper, who was backing
towards the door with many bows.
‘Ah, bad Miguel,’ he said, ‘will you make it impossible for gentlemen to
put up at your execrable inn? The man’s cooking is superior to his
discretion, señor. I, too, am a traveller, and for the moment a guest
here. I have the honour. My name is Concha—the Padre Concha—a priest,
as you see.’
Conyngham nodded, and laughed frankly.
‘Glad to meet you,’ he said. ‘I saw you as I came along. My name is
Conyngham, and I am an Englishman, as you hear. I know very little
Spanish.’
‘That will come—that will come,’ said the priest, moving towards the
window. ‘Perhaps too soon, if you are going to stay any length of time
in this country. Let me advise you—do not learn our language too
quickly.’
He shook his head and moved towards the open window.
‘See to your girths before you mount, eh? Here is the verandah, where it
is pleasant in the afternoon. Shall we be seated? That chair has but
three legs—allow me! this one is better.’
He spoke with the grave courtesy of his countrymen. For every Spaniard,
even the lowest muleteer, esteems himself a gentleman, and knows how to
act as such. The Padre Concha had a pleasant voice, and a habit of
gesticulating slowly with one large and not too clean hand, that
suggested the pulpit. He had led the way to a spacious verandah, where
there were small tables and chairs, and at the outer corners orange trees
in square green boxes.
‘We will have a bottle of wine—is it not so?—yes,’ he said, and gravely
clapped his hands together to summon the waiter—an Oriental custom still
in use in the Peninsula.
The wine was brought and duly uncorked, during which ceremony the priest
waited and watched with the preoccupied air of a host careful for the
entertainment of his guest. He tasted the wine critically.
‘It might be worse,’ he said. ‘I beg you to excuse it not being better.’
There was something simple in the old man’s manner that won Conyngham’s
regard.
‘The wine is excellent,’ he said. ‘It is my welcome to Spain.’
‘Ah! Then this is your first visit to this country,’ the priest said
indifferently, his eyes wandering to the open sea, where a few feluccas
lay becalmed.
‘Yes.’
Conyngham turned and looked towards the sea also. It was late in the
afternoon, and a certain drowsiness of the atmosphere made conversation,
even between comparative strangers, a slower, easier matter than with us
in the brisk North. After a moment the Englishman turned with, perhaps,
the intention of studying his companion’s face, only to find the deep
grey eyes fixed on his own.
‘Spain,’ said the Padre, ‘is a wonderful country, rich, beautiful, with a
climate like none in Europe; but God and the devil come to closer
quarters here than elsewhere. Still for a traveller, for pleasure, I
think this country is second to none.’
‘I am not exactly a traveller for pleasure, my father.’
‘Ah!’ and Concha drummed idly on the table with his fingers.
‘I left England in haste,’ added Conyngham lightly.
‘Ah!’
‘And it will be inexpedient for me to return for some months to come. I
thought of taking service in the army, and have a letter to General
Vincente, who lives at Ronda, as I understand, sixty miles from here
across the mountains.’
‘Yes,’ said the priest thoughtfully, ‘Ronda is sixty miles from
here—across the mountains.’
He was watching a boat which approached the shore from the direction of
Gibraltar. The wind having dropped, the boatmen had lowered the sail and
were now rowing, giving voice to a song which floated across the smooth
sea sleepily. It was an ordinary Algeciras wherry built to carry a
little cargo, and perhaps a dozen passengers, a fishing boat that smelt
strongly of tobacco. The shore was soon reached, and the passengers,
numbering half a dozen, stepped over the gunwale on to a small landing
stage. One of them was better dressed than his companions, a smart man
with a bright flower in the buttonhole of his jacket, carrying the
flowing cloak brightly lined with coloured velvet without which no
Spaniard goes abroad at sunset. He looked towards the hotel, and was
evidently speaking of it with a boatman whose attitude was full of
promise and assurance.
The priest rose and emptied his glass.
‘I must ask you to excuse me. Vespers wait for no man, and I hear the
bell,’ he said with a grave bow, and went indoors.
Left to himself, Conyngham lapsed into the easy reflections of a man
whose habit it is to live for the present, leaving the future and the
past to take care of themselves. Perhaps he thought, as some do, that
the past dies—which is a mistake. The past only sleeps, and we carry it
with us through life, slumbering. Those are wise who bear it gently so
that it may never be aroused.
The sun had set, and Gibraltar, a huge couchant lion across the bay, was
fading into the twilight of the East when a footstep in the dining-room
made Conyngham turn his head, half expecting the return of Father Concha.
But in the doorway, and with the evident intention of coming towards
himself, Conyngham perceived a handsome dark-faced man of medium height,
with a smart moustache brushed upward, clever eyes, and the carriage of a
soldier. This stranger unfolded his cloak, for in Spain it is considered
ill-mannered to address a stranger and remain cloaked.
‘Señor,’ he said, with a gesture of the hat, courteous and yet manly
enough to savour more of the camp than the court, ‘señor, I understand
you are journeying to Ronda.’
‘Yes.’
‘I, too, intended to go across the mountains, and hoped to arrive here in
time to accompany friends who I learn have already started on their
journey. But I have received letters which necessitate my return to
Malaga. You have already divined that I come to ask a favour.’
He brought forward a chair and sat down, drawing from his pocket a silver
cigarette case, which he offered to the Englishman. There was a certain
picturesqueness in the man’s attitude and manner. His face and movements
possessed a suggestion of energy which seemed out of place here in the
sleepy South, and stamped him as a native not of dreamy Andalusia, but of
La Mancha perhaps, where the wit of Spain is concentrated, or of fiery
Catalonia, where discontent and unrest are in the very atmosphere of the
brown hills. This was a Spanish gentleman in the best sense of the word,
as scrupulous in personal cleanliness as any Englishman, polished,
accomplished, bright and fascinating, and yet carrying with him a subtle
air of melancholy and romance which lingers still among the men and women
of aristocratic Spain.
‘’Tis but to carry a letter,’ he explained, ‘and to deliver it into the
hand of the person to whom it is addressed. Ah, I would give five years
of life to touch that hand with my lips.’
He sighed, gave a little laugh which was full of meaning, and yet quite
free from self-consciousness, and lighted a fresh cigarette. Then, after
a little pause, he produced the letter from an inner pocket and laid it
on the table in front of Conyngham. It was addressed, ‘To the Señorita
J. B.,’ and had a subtle scent of mignonette. The envelope was of a
delicate pink.
‘A love letter,’ said Conyngham bluntly.
The Spaniard looked at him and shrugged his shoulders.
‘Ah! you do not understand,’ he said, ‘in that cold country of the North.
If you stay in Spain, perhaps some dark-eyed one will teach you. But,’
and his manner changed with theatrical rapidity, as he laid his slim hand
on the letter, ‘if, when you see her you love her, I will kill you.’
Conyngham laughed and held out his hand for the letter.
‘It is insufficiently addressed,’ he said practically. ‘How shall I find
the lady?’
‘Her name is Barenna, the Señorita Barenna; that is sufficient in Ronda.’
Conyngham took up the letter and examined it. ‘It is of importance?’ he
said.
‘Of the utmost.’
‘And of value?’
‘Of the greatest value in the world to me.’
The Spaniard rose and took up his cloak, which he had thrown over the
back of the nearest chair, not forgetting to display a picturesque corner
of its bright lining.
‘You swear you will deliver it, only with your own hand, only to the hand
of the Señorita Barenna? And—you will observe the strictest secrecy?’
‘Oh, yes,’ answered Conyngham carelessly, ‘if you like.’
The Spaniard turned, and, leaning one hand on the table, looked almost
fiercely into his companion’s face. ‘You are an Englishman,’ he said,
‘and an Englishman’s word—is it not known all the world over? In the
North, in my country, where Wellington fought, the peasants still say
“word of an Englishman” instead of an oath.’
He threw his cloak over his shoulder, and stood looking down at his
companion with a little smile as if he were proud of him.
‘There!’ he said. ‘Adios. My name is Larralde, but that is of no
consequence. Adios!’
With a courteous bow he took his leave, and Conyngham presently saw him
walking down to the landing stage. It seemed that this strange visitor
was about to depart as abruptly as he had come. Conyngham rose and
walked to the edge of the verandah, where he stood watching the departure
of the boat in which his new friend had taken passage.
While he was standing there, the old priest came quietly out of the open
window of the dining room. He saw the letter lying on the table where
Conyngham had left it. He approached, his shabby old shoes making no
sound on the wooden flooring, and read the address written on the pink
and scented envelope. When the Englishman at length turned, he was alone
on the verandah, with the wine bottle, the empty glasses, and the letter.