The Firebrand
Page 27
CHAPTER XXVII
THE SERGEANT AND LA GIRALDA
The dust-heat of the desolate plains of Old Castile was red on thehorizon when the Sergeant and his companion started together on theirstrange and perilous mission. Would they ever return, and when? Whatmight they not find? A Court deserted and forlorn, courtiers fleeing, oreager to flee if only they knew whither, from the dread and terribleplague? A Queen and a princess without guards, a palace open to theplunder of any chance band of robbers? For something like this the impof the deserted village had prepared them.
At all events, the Sergeant and La Giralda went off calmly enough in thedirection of the town of San Ildefonso, driving their donkey beforethem. For a minute, as they gained the crest, their figures stood outblack and clear against the coppery sunrise. The next they haddisappeared down the slope, the flapping peak of Cardono's Montera capbeing the last thing to be lost sight of.
The long, dragging, idle day was before the party in the dry ravine.
Etienne went to his saddle-bags, and drawing his breviary from theleathern flap, began to peruse the lessons for the day with an attentivepiety which was not lessened by the fact that he had forgotten most ofthe Latin he had learned at school. John Mortimer, on the other hand,took out his pocket-book, and was soon absorbed by calculations in whichwine and onions shared the page with schemes for importing into SpainManchester goods woven and dyed to suit the taste of the countryhousewives.
El Sarria sat down with a long sigh to his never-failing resort ofcleaning and ordering his rifle and pistols. He had a phial of oil, afeather, and a fine linen rag which he carried about with him for thepurpose. Afterwards he undertook the same office for the weapons ofRollo. Those of the other members of the expedition might take care ofthemselves. Ramon Garcia had small belief in their ability to make muchuse of them, at any rate--the sergeant being alone excepted.
These three being accounted for, there remained only Rollo and Concha.Now there was a double shelf a little way from the horses, from whichthe chief of the expedition could keep an eye on the whole encampment.The pair slowly and, as it were, unconsciously gravitated thither, andin a moment Rollo found himself telling "the story of his life" to asympathetic listener, whose bright eyes stimulated all his capacities asnarrator, and whose bright smile welcomed every hairbreadth escape witha joy which Rollo could not but feel must somehow be heartfelt andpersonal. Besides, adventures sound so well when told in Spanish and toa Spanish girl.
Yet, strange as it may seem, the young man missed several opportunitiesof arousing the compassion of his companion.
He said not a word about Peggy Ramsay, nor did he mention the brokenheart which he had come so far afield to cure. And as for Concha,nothing could have been more nunlike and conventual than the expressionwith which she listened. It was as if one of the Lady Superior's"Holiest Innocents" had flown over the nunnery wall and settled down tolisten to Rollo's tale in that wild gorge among the mountains ofGuadarrama.
* * * * *
Meantime the Sergeant and his gipsy companion pursued their way withlittle regard to the occupations or sentiments of those they had leftbehind them. Cardono's keen black eyes, twinkling hither and thither, amyriad crows' feet reticulating out from their corners like spiders'webs, took in the landscape, and every object in it.
The morning was well advanced when, right across their path, awell-to-do farmhouse lay before them, white on the hillside, its wallslong-drawn like fortifications, and the small slit-like windowscounterfeiting loopholes for musketry. But instead of the hum of workand friendly gossip, the crying of ox-drivers yoking their teams, oradjusting the long blue wool over the patient eyes of their beasts,there reigned about the place, both dwelling and office-houses, acomplete and solemn silence. Only in front of the door severalshe-goats, with bunching, over-full udders, waited to be milked withplaintive whimperings and tokens of unrest.
La Giralda looked at her companion. The Sergeant looked at La Giralda.The same thought was in the heart of each.
La Giralda went up quickly to the door, and knocked loudly. Atfarmhouses in Old Castile it is necessary to knock loudly, for thefamily lives on the second floor, while the first is given up to bundlesof fuel, trusses of hay, household provender of the more indestructiblesort, and one large dog which invariably answers the door first andexpresses in an unmistakable manner his intention of making hisbreakfast off the stranger's calves.
But not even the dog responded to the clang of La Giralda's oaken cudgelon the stout door panels. Accordingly she stepped within, and withoutceremony ascended the stairs. In the house-place, extended on a bed, laya woman of her own age, dead, her face wearing an expression of theutmost agony.
In a low trundle-bed by the side of the other was a little girl of four.Her hands clasped a doll of wood tightly to her bosom. But her eyes,though open, were sightless. She also was dead.
La Giralda turned and came down the stairs, shaking her head mournfully.
"These at least are ours," she said, when she came out into the hotsummer air, pointing to the little flock of goats. "There is none tohinder us."
"Have the owners fled?" asked the Sergeant, quickly.
"There are some of them upstairs now," she replied, "but, alas, none whowill ever reclaim them from us! The excuse is the best that can bedevised to introduce us into San Ildefonso, and, perhaps, if we haveluck, inside the palisades of La Granja also."
So without further parley the Sergeant proceeded, in the mostmatter-of-fact way possible, to load the ass with huge fagots ofkindling wood till the animal showed only four feet paddling along underits burden, and a pair of patient orbs, black and beady like those ofthe Sergeant himself, peering out of a hay-coloured matting of hair.
This done, the Sergeant turned his sharp eyes every way about the dimsmoky horizon. He could note, as easily as on a map, the precise notchin the many purple-tinted gorges where they had left their party. It wasexactly like all the others which slit and dimple the slopes of theGuadarrama, but in this matter it was as impossible for the Sergeant tomake a mistake as for a town-dweller to err as to the street in which hehas lived for years.
But no one was watching them. No clump of juniper held a spy, and theSergeant was at liberty to develop his plans. He turned quickly upon theold gipsy woman.
"La Giralda," he said, "there is small use in discovering thedisposition of the courtiers in San Ildefonso--ay, or even the defencesof the palace, if we know nothing of the Romany who are to marchto-night upon the place."
La Giralda, who had been drawing a little milk from the udders of eachshe-goat, to ease them for their travel, suddenly sprang erect.
"I do not interfere in the councils of the Gitano," she cried; "I amold, but not old enough to desire death!"
But more grim and lack-lustre than ever, the face of Sergeant Cardonowas turned upon her, and more starrily twinkled the sloe-like eyes(diamonds set in Cordovan leather) as he replied:--"The councils of theRom are as an open book to me. If they are life, they are life because Iwill it; if death, then I will the death!"
The old gipsy stared incredulously.
"Long have I lived," she said, staring hard at the sergeant, "much haveI seen, both of gipsy and Gorgio; but never have I seen or heard of theman who could both make that boast, and make it good!"
She appeared to consider a moment.
"Save one," she added, "and he is dead!"
"How did he die?" said the Sergeant, his tanned visage like a mask, butnever removing his eyes from her face.
"By the _garrote_" she answered, in a hushed whisper. "I saw him die."
"Where?"
"In the great _plaza_ of Salamanca," she said, her eyes fixed in a stareof regretful remembrance. "It was filled from side to side, and thebalconies were peopled as for a bull-fight. Ah, he was a man!"
"His name?"
"Jose Maria, the Gitano, the prince of brigands!" murmured La Giralda.
"Ah," said the Sergeant, coo
lly, "I have heard of him."