ON THE TOLEDO ROAD
‘Une bonne intention est une échelle trop courte.’
CONYNGHAM made his way without difficulty or incident from Xeres to
Cordova, riding for the most part in front of the clumsy diligencia
wherein he had bestowed his luggage. The road was wearisome enough, and
the last stages, through the fertile plains bordering the Guadalquivir,
dusty and monotonous.
At Cordova the traveller found comfortable quarters in an old inn
overlooking the river. The ancient city was then, as it is now, a great
military centre, and the headquarters of the picturesque corps of
horse-tamers, the ‘Remonta,’ who are responsible for the mounting of the
cavalry and the artillery of Spain. Conyngham had, at the suggestion of
General Vincente, made such small changes in his costume as would serve
to allay curiosity and prevent that gossip of the stable and kitchen
which may follow a traveller to his hurt from one side of a continent to
the other.
‘Wherever you may go learn your way in and out of every town, and you
will thus store up knowledge most useful to a soldier,’ the General had
said in his easy way.
‘See you,’ Concepçion had observed, wagging his head over a cigarette;
‘to go about the world with the eyes open is to conquer the world.’
From his guide, moreover, whose methods were those that Nature teaches to
men who live their daily lives in her company, Conyngham learnt much of
that road craft which had raised Concepçion Vara to such a proud eminence
among the rascals of Andalusia. Cordova was a good object upon which to
practise, for Roman and Goth, Moor and Christian, have combined to make
its tortuous streets well-nigh incomprehensible to the traveller’s mind.
Here Conyngham wandered, or else he sat somnolently on a seat in the
Paseo del Gran Capitan in the shade of the orange trees, awaiting the
arrival of Concepçion Vara. He made a few acquaintances, as every
traveller who is not a bear must needs do in a country where politeness
and hospitality and a grave good fellowship are the natural habit of high
and low alike. A bullfighter or two, who beguiled the long winter
months, when the rings are closed, by a little innocent horse dealing,
joined him quietly in the streets and offered him a horse—as between
gentlemen of undoubted honour—at a price much below the current value.
Or it was perhaps a beggar who came to him on the old yellow marble seat
under the orange trees, and chatted affably about his business as being
bad in these times of war. Once, indeed, it was a white-haired
gentleman, who spoke in English, and asked some very natural questions as
to the affairs that brought an Englishman to the town of Cordova. This
sweet-spoken old man explained that strangers would do well to avoid all
questions of politics and religion, which he classed together in one
dangerous whole. Nevertheless, Conyngham thought that he perceived his
ancient friend the same evening hurrying up the steps of the Jesuit
College of La Campania.
Two days elapsed and Concepçion Vara made neither appearance nor sign.
On the second evening Conyngham decided to go on alone, prosecuting his
journey through the sparsely populated valley of the Alcadia to Ciudad
Real, Toledo, and Madrid.
‘You will ride,’ the innkeeper told him, ‘from the Guadalquivir to the
Guadiana, and if there is rain you may be a month upon the road.’
Conyngham set out in the early morning, and as he threw his leg across
the saddle the sun rose over the far misty hills of Ronda, and Concepçion
Vara awoke from his night’s rest under the wall of an olive terrace above
the Bobadilla road, to begin another day of patient waiting and watching
to get speech with the maid or the mistress; for he had already
inaugurated what he lightly called ‘an affair’ with Julia’s flighty
attendant. The sun rose also over the plains of Xeres, and lighted up
the picturesque form of Esteban Larralde, in the saddle this hour and
more, having learnt that Colonel Monreal’s death took place an hour
before Conyngham’s arrival in the town of Xeres de la Frontera. The
letter, therefore, had not been delivered to Colonel Monreal, and was
still in Conyngham’s possession.
Larralde bestrode a shocking steed, and had but an indifferent seat in
the saddle. Nevertheless, the dust rose beneath his horse’s feet, and
his spurs flashed in the sunlight as this man of many parts hurried on
towards Utrera and Cordova.
In the old Moorish palace in Ronda, General Vincente, summoned to a great
council of war at Madrid, was making curt military preparations for his
journey and the conveyance of his household to the capital. Señora
Barenna was for the moment forgetful of her nerves in the excitement of
despatching servants in advance to Toledo, where she owned a summer
residence. Julia was nervously anxious to be on the road again, and
showed by every word and action that restlessness of spirit which is the
inheritance of hungry hearts. Estella, quiet and self-contained,
attended to the details of moving a vast and formal household with a
certain eagerness which in no way resembled Julia’s feverish haste.
Estella seemed to be one of those happy people who know what they want.
Thus Frederick Conyngham, riding northward alone, seemed to be a pilot to
all these persons into whose lives he had suddenly stepped as from a side
issue, for they were one and all making ready to follow him to the colder
plains of Castile, where existence was full of strife and ambition, of
war and those inner wheels that ever jar and grind where politicians
contend together for the mastery of a moment.
As he rode on, Conyngham left a message from time to time for his
self-appointed servant. At the offices of the diligencias in various
towns on the great road from Cordova to Madrid he left word for
Concepçion Vara to follow, should the spirit of travel be still upon him,
knowing that at these places where travellers were ever passing, the
tittle-tattle of the road was on the tongue of every ostler and stable
help. And truly enough there followed one who made careful inquiries as
to the movements of the Englishman, and heard his messages with a grim
smile. But this was not Concepçion Vara.
It was late one evening when Conyngham, who had quitted Toledo in the
morning, began to hunger for the sight of the towers and steeples of
Madrid. He had ridden all day through the bare country of Cervantes,
where to this day Spain rears her wittiest men and plainest women. The
sun had just set behind the distant hills of Old Castile, and from the
east, over Aranjuez, where the great river cuts Spain in two parts from
its centre to the sea, a grey cloud—a very shade of night—was slowly
rising. The aspect of the brown plains was dismal enough, and on the
horizon the rolling unbroken land seemed to melt away into eternity and
infinite space.
Conyngham reined in and looked around him. So far as eye could reach, no
house arose to testify to the presence of man. No labourer toiled home
to his lonely hut. For, in this country of many wars and interminable
strife, it has, since the days of Nebuchadnezzar, been the custom of the
people to congregate in villages and small townships, where a common
danger secured some protection against a lawless foe. The road rose and
fell in a straight line across the table-land without tree or hedge, and
Madrid seemed to belong to another world, for the horizon, which was
distant enough, bore no sign of cathedral spire or castle height.
Conyngham turned in his saddle to look back, and there, not a mile away,
the form of a hurrying horseman broke the bare line of the dusty road.
There was something weird and disturbing in this figure, a suggestion of
pursuit in every line. For this was not Concepçion Vara. Conyngham
would have known him at once. This was one wearing a better coat; indeed
Concepçion preferred to face life and the chances of the world in shirt
sleeves.
Conyngham sat in his saddle awaiting the new-comer. To meet on such a
road in Spain without pausing to exchange a salutation would be a
gratuitous insult, to ride in solitude within hail of another traveller
were to excite or betray the deepest distrust. It was characteristic of
Conyngham that he already waved his hand in salutation, and was prepared
to hail the new-comer as the jolliest companion in the world.
Esteban Larralde, seeing the salutation, gave a short laugh, and jerked
the reins of his tired horse. He himself wore a weary look, as if the
fight he had in hand were an uphill one. He had long recognised
Conyngham; indeed the chase had been one of little excitement, but rather
an exercise of patience and dogged perseverance. He raised his hat to
indicate that the Englishman’s gay salutations were perceived, and pulled
the wide brim well forward again.
‘He will change his attitude when it becomes apparent who I am,’ he
muttered.
But Conyngham’s first word would appear to suggest that Esteban Larralde
was a much less impressive person than he considered himself.
‘Why, it’s the devout lover!’ he cried. ‘Señor Larralde, you remember
me, Algeciras, and your pink love letter—deuced fishy love letter, that;
nearly got me into a devil of a row, I can tell you. How are you, eh?’
And the Englishman rode forward with a jolly laugh and his hand held out.
Larralde took it without enthusiasm. It was rather difficult to pick a
picturesque quarrel with such a person as this. Moreover, the true
conspirator never believes in another man’s honesty.
‘Who would have expected to meet you here?’ went on Conyngham jovially.
‘It is not so surprising as you think.’
‘Oh!’
There was no mistaking Larralde’s manner, and the Englishman’s gay blue
eyes hardened suddenly and rather surprisingly.
‘No, I have followed you. I want that letter.’
‘Well, as it happens, Señor Larralde, I have not got your letter, and if
I had I am not quite sure that I would give it to you. Your conduct in
the matter has not been over-nice, and, to tell you the truth, I don’t
think much of a man who gets strangers and women to do his dirty work for
him.’
Larralde stroked his moustache with a half-furtive air of contempt.
‘I should have given the confounded letter to the Alcalde of Ronda if it
had not been that a lady would have suffered for it, and let you take
your chance, Señor Larralde.’
Larralde shrugged his shoulders.
‘You would not have given it to the Alcalde of Ronda,’ he said in a
sneering voice, ‘because you want it yourself. You require it in order
to make your peace with Estella Vincente.’
‘We are not going to talk of Señorita Vincente,’ said Conyngham quietly.
‘You say you followed me because you wanted that letter. It is not in my
possession. I left it in the house of Colonel Monreal at Xeres. If you
are going on to Madrid, I think I will sit down here and have a
cigarette. If, on the other hand, you propose resting here, I shall
proceed, as it is getting late.’
Conyngham looked at his companion with a nod and a smile which was not in
the least friendly and at the same time quite cheerful. He seemed to
recognise the necessity of quarrelling, but proposed to do so as
light-heartedly as possible. They were both on horseback in the middle
of the road, Larralde a few paces in the direction of Madrid.
Conyngham indicated the road with an inviting wave of the hand.
‘Will you go on?’ he asked.
Larralde sat looking at him with glittering eyes, and said nothing.
‘Then I will continue my journey,’ said the Englishman, touching his
horse lightly with the spur. The horse moved on and passed within a yard
of the other. At this moment Larralde rose in his stirrups and flung
himself on one side.
Conyngham gave a sharp cry of pain and threw back his head. Larralde had
stabbed him in the back. The Englishman swayed in the saddle as if
trying to balance himself, his legs bent back from the knee in the
sharpness of a biting pain. The heavy stirrups swung free. Then,
slowly, Conyngham toppled forward and rolled out of the saddle, falling
to the road with a thud.
Larralde watched him with a white face and staring eyes. Then he looked
quickly round over the darkening landscape. There was no one in sight.
This was one of the waste places of the world. Larralde seemed to
remember the Eye that seeth even there, and crossed himself as he slipped
from the saddle to the ground. He was shaking all over. His face was
ashen, for it is a terrible thing to kill a man and be left alone with
him.
Conyngham’s eyes were closed. There was blood on his lips. With hands
that shook like leaves Esteban Larralde searched the Englishman, found
nothing, and cursed his ill fortune. Then he stood upright, and in the
dim light his face shone as if he had dipped it in water. He crept into
the saddle and rode on towards Madrid.
It was quite dark when Conyngham recovered consciousness. In turning him
over to search his pockets Larralde had perhaps, unwittingly, saved his
life by placing him in a position that checked the internal hæmorrhage.
What served to bring back the Englishman’s wandering senses was the
rumbling of heavy wheels and the crack of a great whip as a cart laden
with hay and drawn by six mules approached him from the direction of
Toledo.
The driver of the team was an old soldier, as indeed were most of the
Castilians at this time, and knew how to handle wounded men. With great
care and a multitude of oaths he lifted Conyngham on to his cart and
proceeded with him to Madrid.