"It is locked, Senor."
Pepito had dismounted at the gate of the Casa Alvarez on the hillside.
"Shout, Pepito," replied Jack from the saddle of his mule. "Perhaps the
old man will hear us from the house."
The gipsy put his hands to his mouth, and called shrilly. There was no
answer, no sound save the hum of bees and the song of birds.
"We must climb the wall, then," said Jack, springing to the ground.
"See, Senor, a face in the bush!" cried Pepito, pointing through the
iron railings into the garden.
Looking, Jack saw, framed in the foliage of a dense laurel, the face of
the old gardener.
"Adelante, hombre!" he said.
Instantly the face vanished. Jack called again; no voice answered, no
footstep was heard. The two riders tied their steeds to trees in the
plantation on the right, then scaled the wall and hastened towards the
house.
Nearly two months had elapsed since Jack's night adventure. He was
struck by the alteration in the place. It had looked untidy,
ill-cared-for, then; it was now a wilderness. Flowers and shrubs bloomed
in unchecked luxuriance; hollyhocks drooped their heavy heads, sprays of
woodbine twined in and out among the laurels, unpruned vines crept over
the weedy paths, the sweltering air was sickly with mingled perfumes.
The house stood white and brown in the glowing sunlight; lush creepers
almost hid the door; the dry wood-work was blistered, the lattices
falling away; all was decay, silence, and desolation.
It was high noon of a sultry summer day, yet Jack shivered. He rapped
at the door. There was no response save an echo. He walked round the
house; every window was shuttered, every door barred. He went on down
the garden at the back, following the directions given him by Juanita,
and Pepito crept along behind him, his big eyes wide with awe. A
vulture flew up in front, and clattered away on creaking wings. He
stepped from the path, and pushed his way through tangled shrubs and
matted undergrowth towards a broad chestnut in the angle of the wall.
Tendrils of convolvulus clung around his feet, the scent of thyme came
in gusts with the cloying odour of gardenias. Suddenly the rank
vegetation ceased, and before him, in a clear space, he saw the circular
covering of the old well.
Frame and winch had been removed. A broken moss-grown bucket lay hard
by; near it was a long bar of wood. Around the well was a broad patch of
soft black earth. As Jack approached to remove the wooden cover from the
well-mouth, Pepito touched him on the arm.
"Marks, Senor!" he said under his breath; "footsteps, and marks of a
mule's hoofs; fresh, Senor; made to-day."
Jack started. A green lizard, sunning itself at the edge of the well,
disappeared in a flash. He saw the hoof-marks in the soil; his heart
sank with a sudden misgiving. The well-cover seemed to have been
clumsily replaced.
"Help me lift it," said Jack.
They removed the heavy cover. The well opened black before them.
Pepito peered over the edge; he saw nothing; there was neither rope nor
ladder.
"How can we get down?" said Jack.
Looking around, he saw what appeared to be the end of a ladder
projecting from beneath a bush. He dragged it out; a snake dropped from
it and vanished in the grass; it was a ladder some sixteen feet long.
"It will not reach the bottom of the well," said Jack. His eye caught
the bar of wood.
"Bring me that, Pepito."
He laid it across the well-mouth; on its mossy side there was a dull
splash of red. The bar stretched across the opening. Lifting it again,
Jack gave it to Pepito, and, taking the ladder, lowered this into the
well till only the topmost rungs were above the brickwork.
"Put the wood through," he said.
Thus the ladder hung dangling on its support, fifteen feet into the
well. Pepito looked at his master enquiringly.
"Yes, you are to climb down. Stay!" he added, as the boy prepared to
step down on to the swinging ladder.
He took some papers from his pocket, twisted them into a loose mass, and
wound about them the end of a long vine tendril. Then he kindled them
from his tinder-box, and let the flaming mass down quickly into the
well. It burned until it was consumed.
"There is air enough. Go down, Pepito."
He steadied the ladder as the boy descended step by step. Jack counted
twelve rungs, then ordered the boy to stop.
"Do you see anything, Pepito?"
A few moments passed. The gipsy's eyes were adjusting themselves to the
gloom.
"A hole, Senor, a big hole in the wall."
"Can you get into it?"
"No, Senor, it is on the other side, too far away."
Bidding the boy ascend, Jack shifted the ladder across the bar. Pepito
went down again, and soon Jack heard his muffled voice exclaim that he
was in the hole.
"Do you find anything there? Search thoroughly."
A minute passed. Jack was crouched at the brink, holding the joists of
the ladder firmly with both hands.
"There is nothing, Senor; all emptiness."
"Come up again."
He stepped out on to the brickwork, and Jack rose to his feet.
"Dead! dead! dead!" said a quavering voice behind him.
He turned with a nervous start. While he had been engaged at the well,
a figure had been slowly approaching from a thicket of laurel,
furtively, with hesitation, stopping for a moment, then taking another
unsteady step and stopping again. Jack recognized the old gardener, but
how altered! His limbs shook as with a palsy; his lips mumbled without
sound; his eyes were wild.
"What is it, hombre?" said Jack quietly without moving.
The old man stood as if listening. Then, raising his shaking right
hand, the long fingers working convulsively, he murmured:
"I saw it! ... Dead!"
Then he smiled, a thin wan smile, and tottering forward pointed
waveringly to the well. Jack recoiled. The old man's smile was more
awful than a sob of agony.
"They came through the gate;" he pointed across the garden to the
farther wall. "There were two; I was hidden in the copse; I watched
them. I watched them. They brought a mule; it was a fine mule, with gay
trappings,--a fine mule..." The old man passed his hand across his
brow. "What was I saying? I have forgotten."
"They brought a mule," said Jack.
"Yes, they brought a mule. They led it across the garden, trampling
down the poor flowers--my flowers! I saw them! There were two. One
was in front--the cursed afrancesado; I knew him; yes, did I not serve
him at my master's table? the afrancesado! He was in front; behind him
a man, a long thin man, a one-eyed man, with the mule. They crushed the
flowers--my flowers ... what was I saying?"
"They came across the garden," said Jack.
"They came across the garden. They came here, here! where we are
standing. The man, the one-eyed man, fastened the mule to yonder tree;
then they stooped down and lifted the cover. It was heavy...I watched
them. They peered down into the well, into the deep well, but they could
see nothing. Then the tall man, the man with the one eye, went away;
the other, the afrancesado, the cursed afrancesado, waited, and while he
waited he cast pebbles into the well ... horrible! horrible!" He
covered his eyes with his hand, as if to shut out some dreadful thing.
"What was I saying?"
"The tall man came back," said Jack.
"The tall man came back; he brought a ladder; he fetched a beam, that
beam, and they let down the ladder into the well, the deep well ... I
watched them. 'Twelve steps,' said the afrancesado, the cursed
afrancesado, and the tall man, the man with the one eye, went down ...
Twelve steps! ... The other, the afrancesado, bent over; there was a
noise below; the afrancesado said 'Bien!'--I heard him. Then the man,
the long man, the man with the one eye, came up, slowly; there was a
box, a heavy box; the other took it, and the man, the one-eyed man, went
down, ... twelve steps ... He came up again; there was another box, a
small box. I knew it; it was the master's. Then he went down again,
... twelve steps, ... and the other, the afrancesado, the accursed
afrancesado, drew his knife, silently; it flashed in the sun; I watched
him..." The old man stared fixedly before him. "What was I saying?" he
whispered.
"He drew his knife," said Jack.
"He drew his knife," said the old man, still in a whisper. "The other,
the long man, the man with one eye, came slowly, slowly, up. He
stretched his left hand for the box, he raised the arm with the knife.
He was behind him. He leant forward; I saw him--him, and the long man,
the man with one eye--he drove it between his shoulders..."
The old man made as if to brush a cobweb from before his eyes.
"Horrible! horrible! ... down! down! down! ... What was I saying?"
*CHAPTER XXXV*
*Doom*
Outcast--Spectres--Conscience--Tracked--Vanity--Scylla--
Charybdis--Jose--Faithful unto Death
Within a few miles of Calatayud, a narrow path, little more than a
foot-track, leads down from the hills on to the highroad to Saragossa.
Just before joining the highway, the path winds between two low bluffs
that screen it from the sight of wayfarers below. Indeed, any muleteer
or arriero unacquainted with the country might almost pass unawares the
spot where road and hill-path meet, so completely is it hidden by the
ash-gray contours of the hills.
About the time when Jack dismounted at the gate of the Casa Alvarez, a
man was making his way downward along this narrow track, urging a
heavily-laden mule with low cries to hasten its flagging pace. He was a
young man, in the costume of a muleteer; his cheeks were pale and
sunken, his eyes unnaturally bright. Every now and again he would throw
an anxious backward glance over his shoulder, not consciously, as if he
feared pursuit, but as though in obedience to some impulse of which he
was hardly aware.
When he approached the point where the track joined the road he stepped
to the mule's head and brought the animal to a stand-still, looking from
left to right as if in doubt. After a moment's hesitation he tied the
mule to one of the rare saplings that grew at the side of the track, and
advanced warily towards the highway, pausing at short intervals, and
bending his head forward to listen. There was no sound save the silver
trill of a lark far above, and the soughing of a light breeze as it
lapped the edges of the hills. The man moved forward again, still more
cautiously; rounding a knoll, he came to the road, that stretched in
gentle undulations for several hundreds of yards in a straight line east
and west. No one was in sight. The man gave a sigh of relief, followed
by one of those quick uneasy backward glances that seemed to be habitual
with him. Rapidly scanning the road once more, he returned to the mule,
released the bridle from the tree, and slowly led the laden animal down
the path.
He was within a dozen paces of the dusty highway when he halted
suddenly, dragging heavily upon the reins. His dusky, olive-hued
features paled, the hand that grasped the bridle trembled nervously; his
whole attitude was one of dire apprehension. For a moment he stood
intently listening, his eyes fixed in a wide stare; then, wheeling the
mule sharply round and prodding the weary beast desperately with the
knife he drew from his belt, he raced back along the track. For a full
quarter of a mile he continued his upward course; then he stopped, and
again turned his head towards the road in the attitude of listening. At
first he could hear nothing but the throbbing of his heart and the quick
breathing of the mule by his side; but gradually the clatter of many
hoofs on the hard road became more and more audible through the clear
air, though the horsemen were hidden from view by the obstructing hills.
They arrived at what he judged to be the place he had just left. He
heard "Halt!" in a rough stentorian tone. The voice was Spanish, and
its effect on the anxious listening man was as that of a galvanic shock.
With a smothered cry he dashed forward, dragging the unwilling mule,
which he goaded with alternate stabs of the knife and whispered words
half of menace half of entreaty.
There was no halting now. For mile after mile they continued their
flight, until, when both mule and man were exhausted, they at length
stopped at the edge of a wild gorge high up in the mountains. There,
for the first time since he fled the voice, the man looked carefully
around. The place was evidently new to him. In his flight he had
diverged at the first opportunity from the track, along which he had
come, not then alone, earlier in the day. The new path was more
difficult than the old; it wound away from his obvious destination; it
led, indeed, almost due north into the heart of the mountain
country--the Sierra de Moncayo, the precipitous granite range where King
AEolus had his mythic throne. But the fugitive knew not, cared not,
whither he went, so long as it was away from the voice of his
countrymen. And he avoided, with the shrinking of dread, the track he
knew.
One thing was remarkable during his late impetuous flight. He seemed to
have forgotten his strange trick of glancing backward over his shoulder.
Many times he turned half round to see if he was followed, but
consciously, less abjectly, for all his panic fear.
When he had rested for a few minutes, he rose and carefully scanned the
surrounding country, debating with himself what course to follow. His
view was circumscribed by the irregular masses of bare rock and sparsely
wooded slopes that formed the horizon. But he appeared at last to have
made up his mind, for, pulling the mule slowly round on the narrow
track, he took a few steps as if to return in the direction from which
he had come. But his bearing was timid, uncertain, vacillating, and when
a mountain eagle swept from its eyry, and screamed just above his head,
he started as if struck, hauled his poor beast feverishly across the
track, and once more pressed in hot haste towards the north.
For some time he marched on rapidly. Then the fatigue of travelling
over the steep uneven track again made itself felt; his pace slackened;
he moved along behind the mule as if mechanically, while mechanically he
still urged it forward with his knife. For minutes at a stretch he
seemed as in a dream, immersed in dark thought. Again he glanced
fearfully backward, not as though seeking a visible object of menace,
not at the frowning hills, but with eyes that attempted to pierce the
infinite for a something beyond. At moments he started from his waking
nightmare to a full consciousness of his position among these bleak
inhospitable hills. The phantoms dogging his thoughts then vanished,
giving place to real cares--physical pain, a sense of desolation. At
such times he searched anxiously for a path to the west, whereby making
a circuit he might reach his goal, avoiding the highroad, where he had
so narrowly escaped the hands of his countrymen the guerrilleros. But
the track wound on, swerving sometimes to right or left, yet leading
remorselessly northward, no by-path branching towards Calatayud. He
dared not turn back. The danger of the road, had he known it, was past;
but the awful risk of capture made him sick with fear. He plodded on,
sunk more and more in dark imaginings, until at last, when the red sun
was sinking below the distant purple peaks on his left, the mule
suddenly stopped, and, breathing heavily, dropped upon its knees. The
poor brute was spent. The man awoke with a start from his reverie. He
was on the edge of a deep gully; giant rocks hemmed him in on either
side; the path--there was no path! For the first time he realized that
the granite hills held him in their grip.
He looked at the mule, that lay with lolling tongue and starting eyes.
The animal was famished. He had no food for it, none for himself; only
now was he conscious of his own gnawing hunger. He loosened the girths,
and, removing the heavy panniers from the mule's back, enabled it to
rise. There was nothing to tie it to. Sinking down on a flat rock, he
held the bridle and peered into the deepening gloom. He dared not move
forward; one careless step in this wild place might hurl them both into
an abyss. There he sat, and the darkness gathered, and the chill of
night wrapped him round.
What were his thoughts as he waited and endured? Who shall say? Human
justice may falter, may be long upon the road; Eternal Justice is
instant, relentless, inevitable. The sense of doom was upon this man,
as he held sombre vigil with the cold accusing stars.
It was an unkempt, haggard, agued figure that rose stiffly and dizzily
from his hard couch as soon as the pale dawn came creeping through the
narrow gully among the hills. He could just see the mule standing
motionless a few yards away. He shuddered as his eye fell upon the
brass-clamped coffers at its feet. Then he moved as if to pass away,
leaving behind him both mule and treasure, the visible links that bound
him to the past. But after a few staggering steps he hesitated, set his
teeth in desperate resolve, and returning, painfully lifted the boxes on
to the panniers, the mule standing with drooped ears, and shivering in
the raw air. In the half-light he led the famished beast away from the
ravine, searching the rocky ground narrowly for marks of its track.
Here and there appeared a stone covered with gray lichen; at these the
mule halted and licked a scanty, bitter meal. At one point a silver
rivulet poured from a fissure and fell clattering upon the rocks far
down the steep. There Miguel dropped to his knees and drank with the
animal, then went on again.
It was nearly two hours before he saw, on the far side of a deep ravine,
a foot-path winding about a wall of rock. Was it the path he had left?
He did not know. Only the guerrilleros he feared to meet could have
told him that but one other path led across these barren heights.
Leading the mule cautiously down one face of the ravine, he hauled it
with infinite difficulty up the other. The poor beast, faint with
hunger, had scarcely strength to crawl when at last it scrambled with
its burden on to the track. But for the constant goad it would have
fallen by the way. The path ran north and south; Miguel hesitated which
direction to take. Northward he would have to scale steeper heights,
but would increase his distance from the garden of his fear; southward,
he might reach Calatayud and safety with the French, but who knew what
danger might lie between? As the question beat this way and that in his
tortured brain, his eyes lit upon a long, thin, jagged rock in which, in
the gloom of the preceding evening, he had marked with a shudder a
grotesque resemblance to a human form he would have given worlds to
forget. Then he knew that he was upon the track from which he had
wandered; he would persevere in the attempt to find a cross-path to the
west. Surely there must be one that would lead, by however long a
circuit, to his goal?
He turned wearily towards the north and instinctively glanced back
across the hills, now variously tinted by the ascending sun. As he did
so his eyes dilated, and for some moments he stood as if rooted to the
ground. In the clear distance two figures mounted on mules were coming
towards him. Even while he looked he saw one, the smaller of the two,
pointing in his direction. The other drew rein for an instant, then both
urged their mules to a trot. A bend in the path hid them from view, and
Miguel leapt round, knowing that he was in very truth a hunted man. For
nearly a day he had been pursued by the phantom of his crime. He had
run from the shadow of a sound, fled from the perils his own imagination
had created. Terror of he knew not what had left him all unstrung. But
now that vengeance dogged him in real bodily form his mind braced itself
to meet it. Only for a moment did his heart quail with misgiving; he
reeled slightly, and clutched at the mule's bridle for support; then,
recovering himself instantly, he struck the jaded beast, and with a
fierce cry drove it before him up the path.
Suddenly the track bent eastward, it ceased to rise, he seemed to be on
the northern slope of the watershed up which he had toiled during the
previous day. He topped the crest. The path stretched downwards before
him; and, scattering the loose stones to right and left, Miguel raced on
with the mule until at a turn in the track a vast and brilliant panorama
opened before his yearning eyes. Below him, at the edge of the long
slope, stretched a rolling wooded country intersected by numerous
watercourses shining in the morning sun. Far away on the horizon a
silver streak wound and doubled on itself. It must be the river Ebro.
Could he but gain the rich champaign below, he hoped that, for a time at
least, he would be safe. In some copse or covert, vineyard or
olive-ground, even in the byways of some hamlet, he might find a
temporary refuge. But with the thought itself its utter hopelessness
was borne in upon him. His pursuers must be closing in fast, although
the windings of the track hid them from him when at intervals he turned
to see. Panting himself, he dragged his panting beast with reckless
haste, though in his inmost consciousness sure that the road was too
long, the time too short. One solitary hope remained to him. If he
left the mule with its retarding load, abandoned the prize for which he
had staked his all, he might perhaps even yet find some rocky defile,
some favouring grove, wherein to hide and baffle pursuit. But no, the
renunciation was too great for his blighted soul. For the treasure he
had schemed and sinned; he could not, dared not, let it go.
Scrambling on down the mountain track, he spied at length, some hundreds
of feet below him, a narrow hillroad to which his headlong course must
lead him by and by. Its farther side bordered a ravine. The road
seemed near at hand, but as he continued his flight he found that the
downward track zigzagged on the face of the slope, so that sometimes two
or three of its coils lay immediately beneath him. There was no shorter
way. Approaching the end of the last of these windings, he was warned
by the clatter of dislodged stones that his pursuers were now hard upon
his heels. He threw a quick glance upward; there, two hundred feet
above him, the riders crossed his sight, following at headlong speed the
first winding of the track. Without pause he raced staggeringly along.
All unknowing, he had himself been watched for some time from below. At
the edge of the hill-road, hidden from him by a jutting mass of rock, a
man was resting, seated on a boulder, eating a frugal meal from a wallet
hung at his neck. He was a gaunt, hollow-eyed man, with wasted cheeks;
thin, unkempt locks straggled from beneath his cap; his long tangled
beard was snowy white. His attitude was of one in pain. At first he
watched the impetuous muleteer dully, without attention; then he
started, paused in lifting a piece of bread, and stared long with
quickening breath. As the mule turned the last of the zigzags a sunbeam
flashed on the brass of one of the boxes. The seated man rose; his
eyes, opened to their fullest width, now fixed themselves with a glare
of the intensest hatred upon the fugitive approaching, until once more
he was hidden from sight.
Then with the stealthy movement of a cat the worn, panting wayfarer
glided from the brink of the ravine to the opposite side of the road,
and crouched down under cover of the rocks that had hidden him from the
man above. Almost ceasing to breathe, he drew his knife, and waited. His
movements suggested that he expected the muleteer to emerge into the
road between himself and the animal. But not thus was the event ordered.
Rounding the last turn of the path, Miguel, to avoid a projecting rock,
had changed sides; thus when, after a few seconds, he reached the
junction of path and road, the mule was between him and the man who lay
there waiting, ready to strike. The anticipated moment was come. But
Miguel was snatched from human vengeance; for him was reserved another
fate. With an inarticulate cry of baffled rage the ambuscader sprang
forward as if to overtake the mule, but, under the impetus gained during
the last few yards of the hill-path, the beast was still moving quickly
in an oblique direction across the road. Miguel at one and the same
moment heard the cry and saw the flash of the knife. Till then he was
unaware of his enemy's presence, so absorbed was his attention with the
path ahead and the progress of the pursuers behind. At the cry he gave
a startled side-long glance at the wild menacing features glaring at him
across the mule's neck. In that dark look he read his doom.
It fell more quickly than any of the four persons--the actors
themselves, the spectators above--could have thought possible. The two
riders on the steep hill-path had now come within full sight of the
scene passing on the road. As they gazed, holding their breath, they
saw the mule between the two men staggering across the road. Startled by
the sudden flash of the uplifted blade, the poor beast swerved towards
the ravine, driving Miguel, all unconscious, on to the brink. He had
already slipped towards the almost perpendicular descent before he
realized his peril; then he clutched wildly at the slackened bridle,
dragging the mule after him. It stumbled at the edge; burdened with its
treasure-laden panniers it could not recover its footing, and in a
moment man and beast, with one mingled scream of terror, disappeared
into the yawning gulf.
The spectators above had halted, transfixed by the appalling tragedy.
Then they hastened downward impetuously. The older man had fallen
forward on the very edge of the ravine. Jack feared that he would
follow Miguel Priego to destruction. But when, reaching the road, he
threw himself from his mule and stooped to the prone figure, he found
that the man had fainted, overcome by his fierce passion and the
agitation of the last tense moments. Then for the first time Jack was
aware of the thunderous roar of a torrent, and looking into the ravine
he saw a white flood swirling over the rocks hundreds of feet below.
"Pepito," he said in a strained voice, "clamber down carefully. See
what has become of Don Miguel--if anything can be done for him."
While the boy was gone on his perilous errand Jack loosened the clothing
of the prostrate man, fetched water from a mountain-rill, and bathed his
head. He opened his eyes, but there was no speculation in them. They
wandered vacantly and closed again. Jack looked at him pityingly, and,
as he looked, felt vaguely that the worn features were familiar to him.
They reminded him of someone he had known as a child in Barcelona, a man
who had mended his toys for him, and carried him on his back when tired;
who had petted him and scolded him by turns, and whom he had alternately
plagued and domineered over. Was it Jose Pinzon? Jack could scarcely
believe it. The Jose he had known was a man touching his prime, strong,
stalwart, bright-eyed, raven-haired; the man lying before him was bent
and aged, wasted, hoary, decrepit. Yet the likeness to the old Jose was
remarkable. Was it possible that the faithful servant had not been
killed in Galindo's sortie, as Juanita had believed?
It was three-quarters of an hour before Pepito returned from his descent
of the precipice. Nothing living could have survived so terrible a
fall; Miguel must instantaneously have gone to his account. Fragments
of the boxes, but for which the mule might have regained its footing,
lay scattered on the rocks, and out of the ruin Pepito had recovered but
one relic--one gold pendant,--which he handed to his master; all else
had been swept away by the torrent. Then he helped him lift the poor
wayfarer to the back of his mule, and together they bore him to a
muleteer's cabin in the hills.
For three days the man lingered there, unconscious for the most part,
and in intervals of consciousness talking at random of people and things
that were quite strange to his hearers. Jack nursed him with every
care; but it was evident from the first that his days were numbered. On
the third evening, when the sun was near setting and the cicalas had
commenced their chant, the man opened his eyes wide and looked amazedly
about him. He made an effort to rise, but fell back upon the rough
blanket that formed his bed. He seemed to be listening. Jack, watching
him, saw for the first time a glimmer of intelligence in his eyes.
Through the open door came the sound of hoofs rapidly approaching.
There was a strange eagerness in the man's upward gaze. The sound
ceased; Pepito came into the hut, followed by a young lady and a priest
fetched in hot haste from Carinena. The former bent over the bed and
looked hard at the pallid face; the latter fell on his knees and began
to recite the prayers for the dying.
"Jose! Jose!" whispered Juanita; "you know me, my dear friend?"
"My mistress!" he murmured faintly.
She clasped his hand; a look of glad content shone for a brief moment in
the sick man's eyes. There was a silence; then, as the light faded,
came the solemn voice of Padre Consolacion:
"Domine, in manus tuas animam suam commendamus!"
*CHAPTER XXXVI*
*Sergeant Wilkes wants to know*
Mr. Lumsden and Me--Me and Mr. Lumsden--A Lady in the Case--The Pleasure
of your Company--O'Hare and the Ladies--The Grampus takes Cover--The Eve
of Parting--The Age Limit--Poor Mr. Dugdale!--The Question
"Want to know about the fight at Corunna, do you? Hanged if you ain't
always wanting to know something. Well, attention! dress by the right!
and stand easy while I endeavour to reconstruct the situation."
The scene was the quay at Lisbon; the speaker was Sergeant Wilkes; the
audience was a knot of green-coated recruits who, to judge by their
docility, regarded the sergeant with admiration and awe. Since he had
won the three stripes Wilkes had lost nothing of his loquacity, and had,
indeed, cultivated a vocabulary of words long enough to match his new
importance.
"Here you are, then; that there stands for the formidable French battery
at the summit of the eminence"--he placed a jack-knife on the wall
before him,--"this here stands for General Disney's brigade"--he put a
plug of black tobacco at a distance from the knife,--"this here stands
for the Reserve of that exemplary and notorious general Ted Paget"--he
ranged two pebbles to the right of the tobacco,--"and this here," taking
up one of the pebbles, "is Captain O'Hare's company. Look at him well,
'cos 'twas Captain O'Hare's company, and me in it, that won the battle
on that most fatal and obstrepolous day. We was a-going up the hill
towards that there battery, when blowed if we didn't get variegated with
a lot of French dragoons in among the farmyards. Then up comes Mr.
Lumsden, and says to me, 'Corp'ril Wilkes,' he says--I was only a
corp'ril then, you understand--'Corp'ril Wilkes,' he says, 'we've got to
shove down that there wall and drive the mounseers out. You an' me can
do it if we puts our backs into it,' says he. 'Right you are, sir,' says
I, 'we'll fustigate the mounseers and extipulate them to the last
individual.' Them were the words I used. Well--"
"I say, sargint," said Corporal Bates, strolling across the road,
"that's a smart little craft a-spanking up the river there. Looks like
a despatch-boat, eh?"
"Don't interjeculate," said Wilkes irritably. "You always must put your
spoke in. I was just telling the young 'uns how Mr. Lumsden and me won
the fight at Corunna; who cares for a despatch-boat?--which it ain't,
but only a common sloop."
"Go on, sargint, if you please," said one of the men.
"Well, as I was saying, Mr. Lumsden and me was just a-going to shove
down the wall what was intermediate between us and the mounseers when--"
"Hold hard a bit, sargint," put in Bates; "ain't that there little chap
on the boat there rather like the gipsy brat what Mr. Lumsden took up
with?"
"Corp'ril Bates, if you keep on interrupting your superior orficer I
shall rejuce you. Gipsy brats is neither here nor there; what the young
'uns want to know is how me and Mr. Lumsden licked the French at
Corunna."
"That's him; that's Pepito!" cried Bates, heedless of Wilkes' increasing
irritation. "P'r'aps he'll be able to tell us what's become of his
master."
Bates sheered off, and Wilkes resumed his much-interrupted narrative.
He was in the middle of a very vivid description of how Mr. Lumsden and
himself fought eight Frenchmen at the wall, when he became aware of a
commotion at some distance along the quay. Chagrined to find the
attention of his audience wandering, he stood up, exclaiming:
"What are the rampaging Vamooses at now?--hang them!"
But he saw, not Portuguese, but a number of men in the well-known green
of the 95th Rifles, marching up the street, cheering vigorously. Among
them, in the middle of the causeway, strode two young Spaniards, the one
slim and lissom, the other broad and bulky. Both walked buoyantly, and
seemed in high good-humour. Behind them, over their heads, could be seen
the antic figure of Pepito, perched on Bates's shoulders, and looking as
proud as a peacock. Wilkes stared at the procession as it approached,
wondering to see two Spaniards with the unprecedented escort of British
Riflemen. All at once he drew himself up, struck his feet together,
and, just as the head of the procession reached him, brought his hand to
his eyebrow in the stiff military salute. His face was a study in its
successive expressions of perplexity, vexation, and pleasure.
The recruits were taken too much aback to be able to make their salute
before the procession had passed.
"Who's that ragged Don you're saluting, sargint?" asked one of them.
"Who's that, you dough-faced clod-hopping chaw-bacon, you!" cried
Wilkes, seizing the opportunity of venting his feelings. "Why, that's
Lieutenant Jack Lumsden, him what helped me to lick the mounseers at
Corunna. And I'll make it warm for Charley Bates," he muttered,
"stealing a march on me like that. Why didn't I perpetrate the
disguise? That's what I want to know."
Meanwhile Jack and the Grampus had continued their progress until they
arrived at the head-quarters of the 95th. There, two or three
subalterns were seated at an open window, to catch a breath of air from
the sea, grateful on that hot June day.
"Hullo!" said Pomeroy, catching sight of the procession, "what are the
rascals up to now?"
"Some mischief, you may be sure," said Smith, looking over his shoulder.
"I shall be glad when we get marching orders to join Sir Arthur. The
men will get horribly loose if we're here long."
"By George!" said Pomeroy, "they appear to have got two Spaniards among
them. Why--what--look here, Shirley, isn't that Lumsden's boy Pepito
grinning like a monkey on Bates's shoulder?"
"Eh! What? Where?" said Smith, pushing his head out. "Jehoshaphat!
That fat Spaniard--ha! ha!--don't you see, you fellows?--ha! ha!--he's
the Grampus, bigger than ever. Gad! I shall die of this! The Grampus
in Spanish toggery!"
"And the other fellow's Jack himself!" shouted Pomeroy excitedly.
"Hurray! hurray!"
"'Sound the trumpets, beat the drums!'" quoted Shirley. "Hurray! Three
cheers for Lumsden! But what am I to do with my epitaph?"
"What's all this pandemonium about?" cried a loud voice from the door of
the room. "I wish you gentlemen would behave less like a pack of
schoolb--"
"Lumsden's back, sir," said Smith. "The men are escorting him up the
street."
"Good gad!" ejaculated Colonel Beckwith. Then, without more ado, he
caught up Smith's cap from the table, stuck it on his head, and ran
downstairs buttoning up his jacket on the way. He reached the door just
in time to meet Jack before he entered.
"'Pon my honour--how d'e do?--glad to see you, hang it! You're not
dead, then, after all?"
"Not a bit, sir," said Jack, heartily returning his handgrip. "Come to
report myself, sir."
"Good gad! What a--what a villainous brigand you look! But we'll soon
put that right. 'Pon my honour, I am deuced glad to see you."
The colonel shook hands again, and for some minutes Jack's arm was going
up and down like a pump handle as he returned the greetings of his old
friends, who meanwhile volleyed questions at him with clamorous
excitement.
"Uncommonly kind of you fellows," he panted, "but if you'll excuse me--"
"Not a bit of it," cried Smith. "Excuse you, indeed!"
"No, begad," said the colonel. "You'll come in and let us drink your
health--three times three. Come along."
"Most happy, sir, if you'll just allow me five or six minutes. The fact
is, there's a lady on board, and--"
"Good gad! A lady!"
"And I came to get a coach to fetch her."
"Of course. A lady! My barouche is at your service. Here, Ogbourne,
bring the barouche round in two minutes, for Mr. Lumsden.--Used to be
your man, I think; a useful fellow.--Hang me! I must go and find
Captain O'Hare."
Not many minutes later the subalterns at the window were as much
surprised as interested to see the colonel's heavy rumbling chariot draw
up at a house almost exactly opposite.
"I say, you fellows," cried Smith, "get out of sight. We don't want the
lady to think we're a lot of peeping Toms."
"She's probably as old as your grandmother," said Pomeroy, "and long
past blushing. Still--"
Consequently, when Juanita and her old duenna stepped out of the coach
and entered the opposite house, there were no spectators of the scene.
But when Jack returned to head-quarters he was instantly the mark of a
running fire of questions. His fellow-officers, from the colonel
downwards, were consumed with curiosity to know whether she was young or
old, tall or short, dark or fair; where he had found her; what was her
name. Shirley eagerly asked whether she was the famous Maid of
Saragossa; Pomeroy was boiling with impatience because the Grampus had
absolutely refused to give any information.
"Gentlemen, gentlemen," cried Jack, "I can't attend to you all at once.
The lady is the Senorita Juanita Alvarez, daughter of my father's old
partner, on her way to England, and the friend with whom she is staying
has invited the officers of my company to dinner to-morrow, so that if
you care to go I'll introduce you en bloc."
"Bedad now," said Captain O'Hare, "that's mighty perlite. I must
practise my best bow, and get my hair cut. 'Tis a powerful pity
pigtails are just gone out of fashion, for sure I always looked killing
in a pigtail. Ah well!"
"Come, Mr. Lumsden," said the colonel, "the Senorita has driven you out
of our heads. What have you been doing with yourself? We learnt when
Mr. Frere came home that you had gone to Saragossa, and not a man of us
expected to see you again. Ogbourne, get some tumblers, and we'll do
the honours."
It was late before the meeting broke up, and then not one of the company
was satisfied. Jack had given them, indeed, a full and interesting
account of the siege of Saragossa in general, but he appeared to be
woefully lacking in detailed information about his own part in it. He
was not so affectedly modest as to conceal the facts that Palafox had
entrusted him with the defence of a certain district, and that the
district was still in Spanish hands when the siege ended; but of the
weeks of ceaseless work, unresting vigilance and anxious thought which
had purchased his success he said never a word. Colonel Beckwith
watched him closely as he told his story, and at its conclusion made a
brief comment which gave him a thrill of pleasure.
"Gentlemen," he said, rising, "I speak for you all when I say that we're
glad to have Lumsden back at the mess. There are big gaps in his story
which somebody has to fill; but we don't want 'em filled to know that
he's been an honour to the British army, and a credit to the Rifles. I
give you Mr. Lumsden!"
When the cheers that followed the toast had died away, Jack on his side
was eager to learn what had brought his old friends back to the
Peninsula. Hearing that a new campaign was opening under Sir Arthur
Wellesley, his face clouded for a moment.
"Sure an' ye've done enough for glory," said Captain O'Hare, noticing
the expression, "and there's never a doubt the colonel will let ye go
home to your sorrowing mother,--not to speak of escorting the colleen."
Jack blushed.
"Thank 'ee!" he said, "but I'm not going to run away from the regiment.
Have you got a uniform to spare?"
"What, aren't ye in love then? Sure an' when I was your age I was
desp'rately in love with half a dozen at once--the milkmaid, and the
doctor's daughter, and the girl in the haberdasher's in Sackville
Street, and a lot more."
"'I could not love thee, dear, so much,
Loved I not honour more,'"
quoted Shirley lugubriously.
"Honour, bedad! That's what I said to Patsy O'Dowd when she taxed me
with making eyes at Honour O'Grady, and she boxed my ears,--and Patsy
had a powerful heavy hand, begore. And if ye're not afraid of someone
cutting you out--Mr. Dugdale, for instance ... By the way, is he going
home too?"
"Not a doubt of that, sir," said the Grampus himself. "Amateuring isn't
such fun as you'd think; why, I had to peel the onions till the
Frenchman came! I'm sick of it; and I'm going home to practise
doctoring on a new plan."
"What's that about onions?" called Colonel Beckwith from the head of the
table.
The Grampus proceeded to relate his capture by the guerrilleros, and to
expatiate on various little grievances incident to his state of bondage,
which the company appeared to find vastly entertaining. This want of
sympathy with his misadventures nettled even the good-natured Grampus,
who became more and more red and indignant, until at length he burst
out:
"Well, at any rate I did some good, and that was no laughing matter. If
it hadn't been for me they'd have tortured some scores of poor devils of
Frenchmen that Lumsden bagged--so there!"
"Story! story!" was shouted round the table.
"You must get Lumsden to tell you that. He caught 'em; but 'twas a
speech I made saved 'em from being fried or boiled or something."
"Now, Lumsden, fill up that gap," said the colonel.
Seeing that there was no help for it, Jack gave a brief account of his
adventure with the commissary's party at Morata, awarding a due meed of
praise to Antonio the guerrilla captain.
"He was a good sort," he added, "quite mild-mannered for a Spaniard.
None of them knew a word of English, and he complained that his men had
been roused to fury against the prisoners by the violent harangue of the
English senior. He could hardly hold them."
"Oh, come now!" expostulated Dugdale. "I didn't know Spanish, but I
made myself clear enough."
"Exactly," said Jack; "when you pointed to your throat and then to the
fire, the poor simple guerrilleros were only in doubt as to whether you
meant roasting or garrotting."
A roar of laughter completed the Grampus's discomfiture.
"Bet you--" he began in desperation; but finding himself unable to state
a wager that would meet the case, he buried his face in a tankard, from
which it took a considerable time to emerge.
Next day it was a quiet and subdued group that crossed to the house
opposite. Captain O'Hare was unmistakeably nervous, Pomeroy
self-consciously gorgeous, and Shirley pale with sitting up late the
previous night over a Spanish grammar, conjugating the verb Amor in all
its moods and tenses. The Grampus took his revenge in chaffing them,
and they all grunted approval when Captain O'Hare exclaimed:
"Bedad, if 'twas on Shannon's shore 'tis meself that would be at home,
but 'tis a mighty different thing meeting a Spanish lady on the banks of
the Taygus without a word of the lingo to turn a compliment."
But they were agreeably surprised when, after being welcomed in broken
English by their portly and amiable Portuguese hostess, they were
greeted in the same tongue, spoken with the prettiest accent imaginable,
by a charming young senorita. Her beauty made an instant and visible
impression on Captain O'Hare's susceptible soul.
The dinner was long remembered and talked of by the officers of O'Hare's
company. There was a numerous party, Spanish, Portuguese, and English.
Jack was unwillingly the hero of the evening, and the flattering
attentions paid him would have been still more embarrassing had he not
been so preoccupied in watching Juanita, who appeared to him in a quite
unaccustomed light. He had admired her courage during the dark days of
the siege; he had got an inkling even then of the essential brightness
of her temperament; but he was hardly prepared for her perfect ease and
self-possession, the vivacity of her conversation, and her social tact.
He felt an inexplicable sinking at the heart; Juanita seemed to be
farther away from him than at any time since he had first met her in
Saragossa. They had been frank comrades during the hazardous journey
across country to the coast, and the delightful voyage that had just
closed their adventures, and under stress of circumstances Jack had for
so long taken the lead that it was a sort of awakening to find that she
was now independent of his counsel and protection. Moreover, she was
going to England. He had intended to go with her, but the return of his
regiment had altered all that. Till this moment he had not realized
what a separation might really mean. He felt that they were at the
parting of the ways.
It was from Juanita's lips that his brother officers heard the full
story of his work in Saragossa, and after. Simply, without
exaggeration, yet glowingly, she described how, with unfailing resource,
he had met and frustrated all the attacks of the French on his little
garrison and kept the flag flying to the last. Captain O'Hare followed
her story with unwavering interest. He was not the man to praise
lightly. Indeed, it was not the custom in that age of hard fighters to
scatter vain compliments; his subalterns were therefore the more deeply
impressed when, in a pause, he turned to Juanita and said in a tone
vibrant with earnestness:
"By my faith, Senorita, yours is a story of which every soldier, British
or Spanish, may be proud. I honour your countrymen and countrywomen for
their glorious defence of Saragossa--there is nothing finer that I know
in all history. And we British officers are proud to think that one of
ours, one of the 95th, is among the heroes of the siege. We all try to
do our duty; few of us get the chance, like my friend Lumsden, of doing
so much more than our mere duty; and by my soul, if we do get the
chance, I only hope we'll make as good a use of it."
Jack, who had spent a most uncomfortable half-hour, was greatly relieved
when the ladies withdrew. But his troubles were not over, for Captain
O'Hare, resuming the brogue which had disappeared during his late
outburst, said with a chuckle:
"By Vanus and all the Graces, 'tis a lucky thing for you, you young
scamp, that Peter O'Hare is not fifteen years younger. 'Tis meself
would have tried a fall wid ye--ay, and come in at a canter. Indeed an'
I'm not sure 'tis too late even now. She was mighty civil to me at
dinner, indeed she was."
The worthy captain laughed heartily, and turned to make himself
agreeable, in halting French, to a colonel of Portuguese artillery.
"Hang it, Lumsden," said Pomeroy, "I call it a crying shame, that merely
because a man happens to patter a little Spanish he should not only be
shoved over the heads of better men than himself, but cut out more
presentable ones with the jolliest girl I've seen this end of the Bay."
Jack smiled and held his peace.
"I say, you fellows," said Shirley, "give me a rhyme for Saragossa,
someone. I've just knocked off a little gem of a thing--'Lines to
J----a A----z', but hang me if I can tag the last of 'em."
"A good job too!" said Smith. "The whole company seems to be
moonstruck. 'Pon my word, I believe I'm the only one of you that can
keep his head."
"Ah," said the Grampus with a capacious sigh, "'tisn't the head, it's
the heart!" There was a general laugh at his lugubrious accent;
whereupon, with a sudden return to everyday life, he cried: "And I'll
bet you, Harry George Wakelyn Smith, you're one of the first to find it
out."
Smith snorted scornfully. He little imagined that long before the war
was over he would himself meet the lovely Spanish damsel in distress who
was to become Lady Smith of Aliwal and give her name to a certain little
town, the Saragossa of South Africa.
Jack, who had taken his comrades' good-humoured banter with unfailing
cheerfulness, now slipped away to join the ladies in the sala. When he
entered the room, he noticed at once a deeper flush than usual on
Juanita's cheeks, and felt that something was amiss. It was some little
time before he could escape the renewed attentions of the circle. Then,
seating himself beside Juanita, he said anxiously:
"Is anything wrong, Juanita?"
"Wrong! No, of course not. Why should anything be wrong?"
She turned her head away, and tapped her hand impatiently with her fan.
Jack, noting the flush on her cheek, felt uneasily that her manner
belied her words.
"I don't know," he said. "I was afraid there was something. I wanted
to tell you, Juanita, that--that--well, things have changed, you know.
There is to be another campaign; I shall have to march with the
regiment. There's no help for it. I can't go back to England--not yet."
"I knew; I was told it--by somebody else."
There was that in her tone which made Jack wish that he had told her
earlier of what his unexpected meeting with his old comrades must
inevitably involve. He had shrunk from the explanation--he did not
quite know why.
After a moment's silence she added slowly: "I am sorry for Mr. Dugdale;
he will have a lonely journey, I fear, and he's so very fond of
company."
"Lonely! But you get on very well together."
"Oh yes! I like Mr. Dugdale very much, but you see--I shall not be
there. I have made up my mind, quite decided, not to go after all.
England is a cold, foggy, horrid country, and I'm sure I shouldn't like
the English. I ought never to have come so far." She rose from her
seat. "I will go back to the dear Sisters at Carinena."
As she moved towards the balcony at the far end of the room, Jack caught
the sparkle of tears in her eyes. He felt that he must be in fault; how
or why he could not tell, and he was too much perturbed at Juanita's
distress to think the matter out. He merely followed her. When they
reached the balcony they stood for a few moments silent in the twilight,
looking with unseeing eyes at the dim plaza below. There was a murmur
of voices from the dusk, at first vague and indistinct, the words
gradually stealing upon their consciousness with clearer and clearer
meaning.
"There he was, poor little beggar, crying his eyes out. 'Ogbourne,' says
I, 'what's amiss with Pepito?' 'Oh!' says he, 'crying for the moon. He
wants to go with the Spanish senorita and stay with Mr. Lumsden at the
same time; which ain't possible.' 'Well,' says I, 'I ain't so sure o'
that. They do say he rescued her from old Boney himself and from a
rascally Don too--yes, and they say she's main fond of him, which is
only natural--considering.'"
Even in the dusk Jack, stealing a look at Juanita, saw that she had
flushed hotly. As she half-turned to re-enter the room, he imprisoned
the little hand that lay on the balustrade. She did not draw it away.
"But," continued the insistent voice, "what I want to know is, when's it
to be?--that's what I want to know."
*Glossary of Spanish Words*
_adelante_, forward! come in!
_adios_, adieu.
_afrancesado_, a Spaniard who had accepted the French domination.
_agua_, water.
_alcalde_, mayor, chief magistrate.
_alguazil_, constable, guard.
_amigo_, friend.
_arriero_, muleteer, carrier.
_ay de mi_, alas! woe is me!
_azucarillo_, a confection of paste, sugar, and rose-water.
_bergantin_, brig.
_bien_, well.
_bueno_, good: _buenos dias_, good-morning; _buenas noches_,
good-night; _buenas tardes_, good-afternoon.
_caballero_, rider, gentleman, cavalier.
_calle_, street.
_caramba_, an exclamation.
_casa_, house.
_cebolla_, onion.
_cerro_, hill.
_choriso_, spiced sausage.
_cigarillo_, a small cigar, whiff.
_con_, with.
_contessa_, countess.
_contrabandista_, smuggler.
_copa_, cup, goblet.
_coso_, wide thoroughfare.
_cuchillo_, knife.
_cura_, parish priest, parson.
_dia_, day: _buenos dias_, good-morning.
_Dios_, God: _Vaya usted con Dios_ (lit. go with God), good-bye.
_don_, a title, equivalent to esquire.
_dona_, a title, equivalent to madam.
_el_, la*, the.
_Espana_, Spain.
_fonda_, inn.
_garbanzo_, a species of bean.
_gaspacho_, a compound of vegetables and condiments.
_gitano_, gipsy.
_gracias_, thanks.
_guerrillero_, an irregular warrior, member of a guerrilla band.
_hidalgo_, nobleman.
_hombre_, man, a common mode of address to inferiors.
_javaneja_, an old-fashioned dance.
_junta_, council.
_manana_, to-morrow.
_Maragato, one of a race of mingled Gothic and Moorish
blood, inhabiting a district in N. W. Spain.
*maravedi_, the smallest Spanish coin.
_marchesa_, marchioness.
_mareamiento_, sea-sickness.
_mi_, _mio_, _mia_, my.
_muchas_, many.
_noche_, night: _buenas noches_, good-night.
_nuestra_, our.
_padre_, father.
_pan_, bread.
_patio_, courtyard, characteristic of the better Spanish houses.
_patron_, landlord.
_peseta_, silver coin worth about tenpence.
_plaza_, square, open space: _Plaza Mayor_, great square.
_par_, by.
_porta_, gate.
_posada_, tavern, inn.
_puchero_, a sort of hot-pot.
_que hay de nuevo?_ what news?
_querida_, darling.
_quien_, who: _quien vive?_ who goes there?
_regidor_, alderman.
_sala_, hall, drawing-room.
_san_, _santo_, _santa_, saint.
_senor_, sir, a title used in addressing equals or superiors.
_senora_, madam, lady.
_senorita_, miss, young lady.
_si_, yes.
_silencio_, hush! silence!
_tarde_, afternoon.
_tia_, aunt.
_tio_, uncle.
_tirador_, sharpshooter.
_usted_, you.
_valiente_, brave, valiant.
_vamos_, come along!
_vaya_, go: _vaya usted con Dios_ (lit. go with God), good-bye.
_venta_, small wayside inn.
_verdaderamente_, verily, indeed.
_viva_, hurrah! long live!
_vive_: _quien vive?_ who goes there?