The Firebrand

by S. R. Crockett

  CHAPTER XIX

  SIGNALS OF STORM

  A long strip of Moorish-looking wall and certain towers that glitteredwhite in the sun, advertised to Rollo that he approached the venta ofSarria. Without, that building might have passed for the palace of agrandee; within--but we know already what it was like within.

  Rollo was impatient to find his companions. He had just discovered thathe had most scurvily neglected them, and now he was all eagerness tomake amends. But the house-place of the Cafe de Madrid was tenanted onlyby the Valiant and a clean silently-moving maid, who solved the problemof perpetual motion by finding something to do simultaneously in thekitchen, out in the shady _patio_ among the copper water-vessels, and upin the sleeping chambers above.

  Rollo's questioning produced nothing but a sleepy grunt from Don GasparPerico.

  "Gone--no! They had better not," he muttered, "better not--withoutpaying their score--bread and ham and eggs, to say nothing of the noiseand disturbance they had occasioned. The tallest was a spitfire, adare-devil--ah, your excellency, I did not know----"

  Here Don Gaspar the Valiant, who had been muttering in his beard morethan half asleep, awoke suddenly to the fact that the dare-devilaforesaid stood before him, fingering his sword-hilt and twisting hismoustache.

  But he was a stout old soldier, this Gaspar Perico, and had a moustacheof his own which he could finger with anybody.

  "I crave your pardon, Senor," he said, rising and saluting, "I think Imust have been asleep. Until this moment I was not aware of yourhonourable presence."

  "My companions--where are they?" said Rollo, hastily. He had much on hismind, and wished to despatch business. Patience he had none. If a girlrefused him he sprang into the first ship and betook himself to otherskies and kinder maidens. If a battle went wrong, he would fight on tothe death, or at least till he was beaten into unconsciousness. But ofthe cautious generalship which draws off in safety and lives to fightanother day, Rollo had not a trace.

  "Your companions--nay, I know nothing of them," said the veteran: "trueit is he of the stoutness desired to buy my wine, and when I gave him asample, fine as iced Manzanilla, strong as the straw-wine of Jerez, hespat it forth upon the ground and vowed that as to price he preferredthe ordinary robbers of the highway!"

  Rollo laughed a little at this description of John Mortimer's method ofdoing business, but he was eager to find his comrades, so he hastilyexcused himself, apologised for his companion's rudeness, setting itdown to the Senor Mortimer's ignorance of the language, and turned to goout.

  But as he passed into the arcaded _patio_ of the inn, the silentmaid-servant passed him with a flash of white cotton gown. Her grassshoes made no noise on the pavement. As she passed, Rollo glanced ather quickly and carelessly, as it was his nature to look at every woman.She was beckoning to him to follow her. There could be no doubt of that.She turned abruptly through a low doorway upon the top of which Rollonearly knocked out his brains.

  The Scot followed down a flight of steps, beneath blossoming oleanderbushes, and found himself presently upon a narrow terrace-walk, dividedfrom a neighbouring garden by a lattice of green-painted wood.

  The silent maid-servant jerked her thumb a little contemptuously overher shoulder, elevated her chin, and turning on her heel disappearedagain into her own domains.

  Rollo stood a moment uncertain whether to advance or retreat. He was ina narrow path which skirted a garden in which fuchsias, geraniums, anddwarf palms grew abundantly. Roses also clambered among thelattice-work, peered through the chinks, and drooped invitingly over thetop.

  A little to the right the path bent somewhat, and round the corner Rollocould hear a hum of voices. It was in this direction also that thesilent handmaid of Gaspar Perico's kitchen had jerked her thumb.

  Rollo moved slowly along the path, and presently he came in sight of apretty damsel on the farther side of the trellis paling, deeply engagedin a most interesting conversation. So far as he could see she was talland dark, with the fully formed Spanish features, a little heavy perhapsto Rollo's taste, but charming now with the witchery of youth andconscious beauty.

  Her hand had been drawn through one of the diamond-shaped apertures ofthe green trellis-work, which proved how small a hand it was. And, sofar as the young Scot could judge from various contributory movements onthe lady's part, it was at that moment being passionately kissed by someperson unseen.

  The low voice he had heard also proceeded from this fervent lover, andthe whole performance made Rollo most unreasonably angry.

  "What fools!" he muttered, turning on his heel, adding as anafterthought, "and especially at this time of day."

  He was walking off in high dudgeon, prepared to give the silent maid apiece of his mind--indeed, a sample most unpleasing, when something inthe tone of the lover's voice attracted him.

  "Fairest Maria, never have I loved before," the voice was saying. "Ihave wandered the world heretofore, careless and heart-free, that Imight have the more to offer to you, the pearl of girls, the allincomparable Maria of Sarria!"

  The fair hand thrust through the lattices was violently agitated at thispoint. Its owner had caught sight of Rollo standing on the pathway, butthe lover's grasp was too firm. As Rollo looked a head was thrustforward and downwards--as it were into the picture. And there, kneelingon the path, was Monsieur Etienne, lately Brother Hilario of Montblanch,fervidly kissing the hand of reluctant beauty.

  As Rollo, unwilling to intrude, but secretly resolving to give MasterLovelace no peace for some time, was turning away, a sharp exclamationfrom the girl caused the kneeling lover to look up. She snatched herhand through the interstices of the palisades on the instant, fledupward through the rose and fuchsia bushes with a swift rustle ofskirts, and disappeared into a neighbouring house.

  Etienne de Saint Pierre rose in a leisurely manner, dusted the knees ofhis riding-breeches, twirled his moustache, and looked at Rollo, whostood on the path regarding him.

  "Well, what in the devil's name brings you here?" he demanded.

  The mirthful mood in which he had watched his comrade kneel was alreadypast with Rollo.

  "Come outside, and I will tell you," he said, and without making anyfurther explanation or asking for any from Etienne, he strode backthrough the courtyard of the venta and out into the sunlit road.

  A muleteer was passing, sitting sideways on his beast's back as on aneasy-chair, and as he went by he offered the two young men to drink outof a leathern goatskin of wine with a courteous wave of the hand. Rollodeclined equally courteously.

  Then turning to his friend, who still continued to scowl, he saidabruptly, "Where is Mortimer?"

  "Nay, that I know not--looking for another meal, I suppose," answeredthe little Frenchman, shrugging his shoulders, one higher than theother.

  Rollo glanced at him from under his gloomy brows.

  "Nay," he said, "this is serious. I need your help. Do not fail meto-night, and help me to find Mortimer. I had not the smallest intentionof intruding upon you. Indeed, but for that maid at the inn, I shouldnever have found you."

  "Ah," commented Etienne, half to himself, "so I owe it to that minx, doI? Yes, it is a mistake--so close as that. But no matter; what can I dofor you?"

  "It is not for myself," Rollo answered, and forthwith in a low voicetold his tale, the Frenchman assenting with a nod of the head as eachpoint was made clear to him.

  Unconsciously they had strolled out of the village in the direction ofthe Convent of the Holy Innocents, and they were almost under its wallswhen the little Frenchman, looking up suddenly, recognised with a startwhither he was being led.

  "Let us turn back," he said hastily; "I have forgotten an engagement!"

  "What, another?" cried Rollo. "If we stay here three days you will havethe whole village on your hands, and at least half a dozen knives inyour back. But if you are afraid of the Senorita Concha, I think I canpromise you that she is not breaking her heart on your account!"

  In spite of this assuranc
e, however, Etienne was not easy in his mindtill they had turned about and were returning towards the village. Butthey had not left the white walls of the Convent behind, before theywere hailed in English by a stentorian voice.

  "Here, you fellows," it said, "here's a whole storehouse of onions asbig as a factory--strings and strings of 'em. I wanted to go inside tomake an offer for the lot, and the old witch at the gate slammed it inmy face."

  Looking round, they saw John Mortimer standing on one leg to eke out hisstature, and squinting through a hole in the whitewashed wall. One handwas beckoning them frantically forward, while with the other he wastrying to render his position on a sun-dried brick less precarious.

  "I suppose we must go back," said Etienne, with a sigh; "imaginestanding on a brick and getting so hot and excited--in the blazing sun,too--all for a few strings of onions. I declare I would not do it forthe prettiest girl in Spain!"

  But there could be no doubt whatever that the Englishman was in earnest.Indeed, he did not move from his position till they were close upon him,and then only because the much-enduring brick resolved itself into itscomponent sand and sun-dried clay.

  "Just look there!" he cried eagerly; "did you ever see the like ofthat--a hundred double strings hung from the ceiling to the floor rightacross! And the factory nearly a hundred and fifty yards long. There's aship-load of onions there, a solid cargo, I tell you, and I want totrade. I believe I could make my thousand pounds quicker that way, andonions are as good as wine any day! Look in, look in!"

  To satisfy his friend, Rollo applied his eye to the aperture, and sawthat one of the Convent buildings was indeed filled with onions, as JohnMortimer had said. It was a kind of cloister open at one side, and withrows of pillars. The wind rustling through the pendant strings filledthe place with a pleasant noise, distinctly audible even outside thewall.

  "A thousand pounds, Rollo," moaned John Mortimer, "and that old wretchat the wicket only laughed at me, and snapped the catch in my face. Theydon't understand business here. I wish I had them apprenticed to myfather at Chorley for six months, only for six months. They'd know thedifference!"

  Rollo took his friend's arm and drew him away.

  "This is not the time for it," he said soothingly, "wait. We are goingto the Convent to-night. The Mother Superior has permitted the lady onwhose account we are here to be removed there after dark, and we wantyour help."

  "Can I speak to the old woman about the onions then?"

  "Certainly, if there is an opportunity," said Rollo, smiling.

  "Which I take leave to doubt," thought Etienne to himself, as hemeditated on his own troubles in the matter of little Concha and themaiden of the green lattice.

  "Very well, then," said Mortimer, "I'm your man; I don't mind doing alittle cloak-and-dagger considered as trimmings--but business isbusiness."

  The three friends proceeded venta-wards, and just as they passed the_octroi_ gate the same muleteer who had passed them outward bound, wentin before them with the same leathern bottle in his hand. And as heentered he tossed his hand casually towards Gaspar Perico, who sat inthe receipt of custom calmly reading an old newspaper.

  "Now that's curious," said John Mortimer, "that fellow had a red andwhite cloth in his hand. And all the time when I was skirmishing aboutafter those onions in the nuns' warehouse, they were waving red andwhite flags up on the hills over there--_wig wag_ like that!"

  And with his hand he illustrated the irregular and arbitrary behaviourof the flags upon the hills which overlooked the village of Sarria tothe south.

  And at the sound of his words Rollo started, and his countenancechanged. It was then no mere delusion of the eye and brain that he hadseen when he entered the precincts of the mill-house of Sarria, as LaGiralda would fain have persuaded him. The thought started a doubt inhis mind.

  Who after all was that old woman? And what cause had El Sarria fortrusting her? None at all, so far as Rollo knew, save that she hated theTia Elvira. Then that flicker of red and white on the hillside to thesouth among the scattered boulders and juniper bushes, and the favour ofthe same colour in the muleteer's hand as he went through the gate!

  Verily Rollo had some matter for reflection, as, with his comrades, oneon either hand of him, he strolled slowly back to the venta.

  "I wonder," said John Mortimer, as if to himself, "if that young womanwho walks like a pussycat will have luncheon ready for us. I told her toroast the legs of the lamb I bought at the market this morning, and makean _olla_ of the rest. But I don't believe she understands her ownlanguage--a very ignorant young woman indeed."

  "I, on the other hand, think she knows too much," murmured Etienne tohimself.

  But Rollo, the red and white flutter of the mysterious signal flagsbefore his eyes, seen between him and the white-hot sky of day, onlysighed, and wished that the night would anticipate itself by a fewhours.

  And so, dinner being over, and even John Mortimer satisfied, the drowsyafternoon of Sarria wore on, the clack of the mill-wheel down at themill, and the clink of the anvil where Jaime Casanovas, the smith, wasshoeing a horse, being the only sounds without; while in the ventaitself the whisk of the skirts of the silent handmaid, who with aperfectly grave face went about her work, alone broke the silence. ButMonsieur Etienne's ears tingled red, for he was conscious that as oftenas she passed behind his chair, she smiled a subtle smile.

  He thought on the green lattices and the path so near and so cool. Butwith all his courage he could not go out under the observant eyes ofRollo and with that abandoned Abigail smiling her ironic smile. So,perforce, he had to sit uneasily with his elbows on the table and watchthe dreary game of dominoes which his companions were playing with thechipped and greasy cubes belonging to the venta of Gaspar and EstebanPerico.

  And outside, though they knew it not, the red and white pennon was stillflying from the roof of the mill-house of Sarria, and on the hills tothe south, through the white sun-glare, flickered at intervals ananswering signal.

  Meanwhile in a hushed chamber the outlaw sat with his wife's hand inhis, and thought on nothing, save that for him the new day had come.