It was a strangely assorted trio. Over the lip of the great rock on the
brink of the village of Minas de la Sierra extended the athletic
shoulders and sharp ashy face of Jacques Ferou, lying flat on his
stomach. Below in the gorge at the foot of the corkscrew goat path,
straining their necks backward and looking up, were the two Guardias
Civiles, Pascual Montara and Sergeant Esteban Alvarado. All three were
deeply absorbed in a distance-spanning conversation.
"That Americain lied!" the Frenchman was shouting down with heated
earnestness. "Jacinto Quesada is himself in this village. He has been
sick with the great illness and with a mad fever, too; but this morning
his head is once more his own, and he is repairing rapidly in strength.
He is here, I tell you!"
"Muy bueno!" shouted back the old sergeant with glad resolution. "We
will come up for him immediately!"
"Non, non, mi sargento! There is the pestilence to fear, and there is
also my revolver which barks no, no!"
"What would you, then?" asked sullenly that apelike one, Montara.
Now, so thoroughly were the trio engrossed in the matter of words, that
their minds were completely monopolized and all other perceptions were
excluded from their senses. They did not hear the clatter of a horse's
hoofs approaching up the gorge. When that clatter abruptly ceased, their
unheeding ears received no sensation of change or difference.
They did not know that, five yards behind the policeman, concealed from
above by the leafy branches of pines and alders and from the guardsmen
ahead by a thick underwood of tall buckthorn and entangled genista, a
horseman had halted and now, leaning his two hands upon the pommel of
the saddle, was observing them attentively.
He was quite a rememberable-looking man. His hair was white; his skin
from exposure to wind and weather was a deep swarth; and his eyes were
gray. Not many Spaniards have gray eyes. The eyes of Don Jaime de
Torreblanca y Moncada were a clear, cold, agate-gray. All in all, there
was about his appearance, especially the long aquiline nose, the stony
eyes and pointed white beard, something which seemed to hearken back to
the days of ruffs and ready swords--the days of the terrible Spanish
infantry, the Armada, the Bigotes, the "Bearded Men," the
Conquistadores.
He strained his eyes through the greeny plait above him. Suddenly, as he
glimpsed the man sprawled on the great rock, his narrow face blanched as
if gutted of blood; a look of savage ferocity leaped into his eyes; and
his hand strayed back to the heavy horse pistol slung from the saddle.
But abruptly his reaching hand stopped. A few random words of the trio's
conversation had impinged upon his ears and aroused his curiosity.
"There is something foul going forward here!" he breathed vehemently. "I
shall listen. Of what use to snap off the snake's head, now and
impetuously? Let him bare his fangs. With cold patience, even as the
Christ waits for his Judgment Day, I will wait for my moment of
vengeance on this creature!"
Don Jaime was a grandee of Spain, one entitled to wear his hat in the
presence of his monarch. Well now, as he applied his ear to the
conversation, his stony eyes filled with a profundity of contempt that
none but a grandee could plumb. Carajo! this was no ordinary
conversation he was overhearing. It was the bartering for money of the
living body of a man!
Shouted down Ferou, repeating the last question of Montara:
"What would I, what would I have you do? Oh, a very little, monsenores
policemen--I would merely have you attend to the simple matter of my
reward. I will do all the rest. For the reward, I will deliver Quesada
up to you--I will deliver him walking upon his own two legs, so you will
not have to touch his infectious clothes. It is good, what? And you will
give me the reward of ten thousand pesetas, eh?"
"When you have done all that you say you will do," returned the old
sergeant, sternly noncommittal, "then, and not before, shall you have
earned the ten thousand pesetas. But you need have no fears for the
money! When I shoot down this sacrilegious swollen toad of a Quesada, I
shall make my report to headquarters at Getafe. Your name--"
"It is Jacques Ferou."
"I will remember, Senor Don Jacques Ferou. You shall be given all due
credit. In two weeks' time from the day you deliver Jacinto Quesada to
us, you can collect the reward by presenting yourself at Getafe. Most
certainly, Spain shall consider herself the best off in the bargain!"
"Tres bien!" exclaimed the Frenchman, lapsing with emotion into his
native tongue; then recovering: "It is good. I agree."
"When may we expect you with the heretical dog?" asked Montara.
"To-morrow at noon. When this great rock is hot with midday glare, I
will force him out here, my gun nuzzling his back. You policemen can
shoot him from below."
Vigorously the old sergeant nodded his polished tricorn hat.
"Muy bueno!" he approved heartily. Then in adieu: "Go thou thy way with
God!"
"Always at the feet of the Guardia Civil who keep the peace of Spain,"
ended the man on the rock, after the fashion of Spanish courtesy. He
withdrew from view, thereupon, much as a turtle's head withdraws from
view between its carapax and plastron shells.
Don Jaime crashed his rawboned old horse through the tall buckthorn and
entangled genista.
"Alto a la Guardia Civil!" thundered Montara, springing back and jerking
his carbine to his shoulder.
"Down, you apelike one!" commanded the aged sergeant. "Can't you see? It
is the hidalgo doctor, Don Jaime de Torreblanca y Moncada!" And he swept
his tricorn hat off his close-clipped white head.
Don Jaime reined in his horse to a quick stop. He disdained altogether
the mortified Montara. He looked down at the bared white head, the
knife-sharp white beard, and the lean and haughty face of the aged
sergeant.
It was, then, as if he looked down upon a singular edition of himself.
Don Jaime was a grandee by birth and breeding, and these things amount
in Spain; but the old sergeant was no less grand with adamantine
adhesion to principle, with eagle-sternness and eagle-haughtiness. They
eyed each other with mutual recognition and respect. They were both of
the same old Spanish imperial school, unforgiving of injury, inexorable
to avenge.
Said the doctor, "Peace be to you, mi sargento."
"And to you peace, Don Jaime of my soul."
"But what is this scheme I hear you hatching?"
"It is a way we have of keeping the peace of Spain."
"Cannot you drag down the Wolf-Cub without the aid of this blood-hound,
Ferou?"
"We of the Guardia Civil are not podencos that can drag down the Wolf in
the open. Senor Don Dios! we have tried and each time failed!"
"But the man Ferou is a human leech! Oh, I overheard your secret talk. I
tell you, the Frenchman sucks life-blood for money!"
"It is thief catch thief, Don Jaime. The Wolf-Cub, Quesada, is a cancer
in the side of Spain. And Spain must be healed. We will loose the leech
to suck this evil cancer from the side of Spain!"
"You are hatching a snake's egg, mi gran caballero. The fruit of it
shall stink in the nostrils of all brave Moors! You may take your oath
on that, Don Esteban! I for one will be no party to it!"
"No lo quiera Dios! God forbid, proud Torreblanca y Moncada, that we of
the police should expect your aid! You have a higher call. Up in Minas
de la Sierra, there is wailing and much sickness--ah, so many men have
slapped under and died, and so many more suffer in earthly purgatory!"
"Sea como Dios quiera!" muttered Don Jaime. "God's will be done!"
The sergeant looked up at him, old eyes alive with strange fervor.
"They say of you, Don Jaime--si, and of me, too!--that we have granite
boulders for hearts. But I know. Arrogante Torreblanca y Moncada is very
tender with the sick. He has hands of gold for calling one back to life
and for closing softly the lids of the dying. Vaya, mi gran hidalgo
doctor! Go thou in the companionship of the sublime Christ and Mary, the
All Compassionate!"
He stepped to one side. Don Jaime bade him a courteous adieu. Then, with
all the hauteur of one riding an Arabian barb, sitting rigid in the
saddle, the senor doctor loped his rawboned old nag up the winding goat
path toward the barrio.
The policeman looked after him. Pascual Montara chewed fiercely the
ends of his black mustache. He muttered:
"To-morrow at noon. When that great rock is hot with midday glare, this
hombre Jacques Ferou will force the Sacrilegious One out upon the
brink."
"Carajo, yes!" grimly agreed the old sergeant. "And we of the Guardia
Civil will shoot him from below!"