The Firebrand
Page 34
CHAPTER XXXIV
OUR ROLLO TO THE RESCUE
And this was the manner of his going. He sought the Sergeant upon hisbalcony, outside which climbed and writhed a great old vine-stem asthick as a man's leg. He was for taking Killiecrankie by his side,against the Sergeant's advice.
"Killiecrankie and I," he urged, with the buckle in his hand, "have beenin many frays together, and I have never known him fail me yet."
"A sword like a weaver's beam is monstrously unhandy dangling betweenthe legs!" replied the Sergeant, "and that you will find before you areat the foot of yonder vine-stock. Take a pair of pistols and a goodAlbacete leech. That is my advice. I think I heard El Sarria say thatyou had some skill of knife-play in the Andalusian manner."
"So, so," returned Rollo, modestly. "I should not like to face you--yourleft hand to my right. But with most other men I might make bold to holdmy own."
"Good!" said the Sergeant; "now listen. Let yourself down, hand-grip byhand-grip, clipping the vine-stem as best you may with your knees tomake the less noise. You will be wholly hidden by the outer leaves. Moveslowly, and remember I am here to keep watch and ward. Then stand awhile in the shadow to recover your breath, and when you hear mewhistle thrice like a swallow's twitter underneath the eaves, duck downas low as you can and make straight for the thickest of the underbrushover there. I have watched it for an hour and have seen nothing move.Yet that signifies less than nothing. There may be a score, aye, or ahundred gipsies underneath the branches, and the frogs croakingundisturbed upon the twigs above all the while. Yet it is your onlychance. If you find anything there in shape of man, strike and cryaloud, both with all your might, and in a moment I will be with you,even as I was before."
Rollo grasped the Sergeant's hand and thanked him silently as brave menthank one another at such times.
"Nay," said the Sergeant, "let us wait till we return for that. It istouch and go at the best. But I will stay here till you are safely amongthe bushes. And then--I shall have some certain words to speak to SenorDon Fernando Munoz, Duke of Rianzares and grandee of Spain, Consort inordinary to her Majesty the Queen-Regent!"
Even as he spoke, Rollo, whose ears were acute, turned quickly anddashed into the ante-chamber. He thought he had heard a footstep behindthem as they talked. And at the name of Munoz a suspicion crossed himthat some further treachery was meditated. But the little upper hall wasvague and empty, the scanty furniture scarce sufficient to stumbleagainst. If any one had been there, he had melted like a ghost, forneither Rollo's swift decision nor the Sergeant's omniscient cunningcould discover any trace of an intruder.
Rollo attempted no disguise upon his adventure. He wore the sametravel-stained suit, made to fit his slender figure by one of the mosthonest tailors in Madrid, in which he first appeared in this history. Sowith no more extent of preparation for his adventure than settling hissombrero a little more firmly upon his head and hitching his waist-belta hole or two tighter, Rollo slipped over the edge of the iron balconyand began to descend by the great twisted vine-stem.
He did not find the task a difficult one. For he was light and agile,firmed by continuous exercise, and an adept at the climbing art. As hehad been, indeed, ever since, on the east-windy braes of Fife, whereswarming rookeries crown the great hog-back ridges, he had risenpainfully through the clamour of anxious parents to possess himself of ahatful of speckled bluish-green eggs for the collection wherewith he wasto win the tricksome and skittish heart of Mistress Peggy Ramsay, who(tell it not in the ducal house which her charms now adorn!) was herselfno inexpert tree-climber in the days when Rollo Blair temporarily brokehis boyish heart for her sake.
So in brief (and without a thought of Peggy) Rollo found himself uponthe ground, his dress a little disordered and his hands somewhatscratched, but safe behind his screen of leaves. Remembering the adviceof the Sergeant, Rollo waited for the appointed signal to fall upon hisear from above. He could see nothing indeed across the lawn but thebranches of the pine trees waving low, and beneath them feathery syringabushes, upland fern, and evergreens with leathery leaves.
What might be hidden there? In another moment he might rush upon thepoints of a hundred knives. Another minute, and, like the good MessireFrancois, cure of Meudon, it might be his to set forth in quest of theGreat Perhaps.
At the thought he shrugged his shoulders and repeated to himself thoseother last words of the same learned doctor of Montpellier, "Ring downthe curtain--the farce is over!"
But at that same moment he thought of little Concha up aloft and thebitterness died out of his heart as quickly as it had come.
No, the play was not yet played out, and it had been no farce. There wasyet other work for him--perhaps another life better than thiscut-and-thrust existence, ever at the mercy of bullet and sword's point.He stood up straight and listened, hearing for the first five minutesnothing but the soft wind of the night among the leaves, and from thetown the barking of the errant and homeless curs which, in the streetsand gutters, yelped, scrambled, and tore at each other for scraps ofoffal and thrice-gnawed bone.
From above came the contented twitter of a swallow nestling under theleaves, yet with a curious carrying quality in it too, at once low andfar-reaching. It was the Sergeant's signal for his attempt.
Rollo set his teeth hard, thought of Concha, bent his head low, and,like a swift-drifting shadow, sped silently across the smooth uplandturf. The thick leaves of the laurel parted before him, the sword-flowerof Spain pricked him with its pointed leaves, and then closed like aspiked barrier behind him. A blackbird fled noisily to quieter haunts.The frogs ceased their croaking. Panting, Rollo lay still under thebranches, crushing out the perfume of the scrubby, scented geranium,which in the watered wildernesses of La Granja takes root everywhere.
But among the leaves nothing moved hand or foot against him. Nor gipsynor mountaineer stirred in the thicket. So that when Rollo, afterresting a little, explored quietly and patiently the little plantation,going upon all fours, not a twig of pine crackling under his palms, nohostile knife sheathed itself between his ribs.
For, as was now clear, the gipsies had not concealed themselves amongthe bushes. They had all night before them in which to carry out theirprojects. Doubtless (thought the young man) they had gone to possessthemselves of the town. After that the palace would lie at their mercy,a nut to be cracked at their will.
From the first Rollo was resolved to find the little pavilion of whichLa Giralda had spoken. It was in his mind that the girl might, if freeand unharmed, as he hoped, make her way thither. He had indeed only themost vague and general idea of its locality. The old gipsy had told himthat it was near to the northern margin of the gardens, and that byfollowing the mountain stream which supplied the great waterfall hecould not fail to come upon it.
But ere he had ventured forth from his hiding-place, he heard again theswallow's twitter, louder than before, and evidently meant for his ear.Could it be a natural echo or his own disordered fancy which caused awhistle exactly similar to reach him from the exact locality he meant tosearch?
Rollo moved to that extremity of the thicket from whence the moreregular gardens were visible. He concealed himself behind a pomegranatetree, and, while he stood and listened, mellow and clear the call cameagain from the vicinity of the waterfall.
But Rollo was not of those who turn back. Good-byes are difficult thingsto say twice within the same half-hour. No, he had burnt his boats andwould rather go forward into the camp of a thousand gipsies than climbup the vine-stem and face the Sergeant and Concha with his task undone.Shame of this kind has often more to do with acts of desperate couragethan certain other qualities more besung by poets.
It was obvious, therefore, that the gipsies were still within theenclosure of the palace, so Rollo gave up the idea of keeping straightup the little artificial rivulet, whose falls gleamed wanly before him,each square and symmetrical as a flag hung out of the window on a stillday.
To the left, however, there were thic
kets of red geranium, the Prince'sFlower of Old Castilian lore, five or six feet high. Among these Rollolost himself, passing through them like a shadow, his head drooped alittle, and his knife ready to his hand.
When he was halfway along the edge of the royal demesne he saw acrossthe open glade a strange sight, yet one not unwelcome to him.
The palace storehouses had been broken into. Lights moved to and frofrom door to door, and above from window to window. A train of mules anddonkeys stood waiting to be loaded. Thieves' mules they were, without asingle bell or bit jingling anywhere about their accoutrements.
Then Rollo understood in a moment why no further attack had been madeupon the palace. To the ordinary gipsy of the roads and hills--halfsmuggler, half brigand, the stores of Estramenian hams, the granariesfull of fine wheat of the Castiles, of maize and rice ready to be loadedupon their beasts, were more than all possible revenges upon queens andgrandees of Spain.
In losing the daughter of Munoz they had lost both inspiration andcohesion, and now the natural man craved only booty, and that asplentifully and as safely as possible. So there in the night torcheswere lighted, and barn and byre, storehouse and cellar were ransackedfor those things which are most precious to men gaunt and lantern-jawedwith the hunger of a plague-stricken land.
After this discovery the young Scot moved much more freely andfearlessly. For it explained what had been puzzling him, how it cameabout that so far no sustained or concerted attack had been made uponthe palace.
And this same careless confidence of his, for a reason which willpresently appear, had well-nigh wrecked his plans. All suddenly Rollocame upon the open door of a little low building, erected somethingafter the model of a Greek temple. It was undoubtedly the pavilion whichhad been mentioned by La Giralda as the place where the goats had beenmilked.
Of this Rollo was further assured by the collection of shining silverutensils which were piled for removal before the door. A light burneddimly within. It was a dark lantern set on a shelf, among brokenplatters and useless crockery. The door was open and its light fell onhalf a dozen dusky figures gathered in a knot about some central objectwhich the young man was not able to see.
Rollo recoiled into the reeds as if a serpent had bitten him. Thenparting the tall tasselled canes carefully, he gazed out upon thecurious scene. A window stood open in the rear of the building, and thedraught blew the flame of the open lantern about, threatening everymoment to extinguish it.
One of the gipsies, observing this, moved to the bracket-shelf to closethe glass bull's-eye of the lantern.
A couple of others looked after him to see what he was about, andthrough the gap thus made Rollo saw, with only a shawl thrown over herwhite night-gear, the little Queen herself, held fast in a gipsy's bareand swarthy arms.
"I have told you before," he heard her say in her clear childish treble,"I know nothing--I will tell nothing. I have nothing to give you, and ifI had a whole world I would not give a _maravedi's_ worth to you. Youare bad men, and I hate you!"
Rollo could not hear what the men said in reply, but presently as onedusky ruffian bent over the girl, a thin cord in his hand, high andbitter rose a child's cry of pain.
It went straight to Rollo's heart. He had heard nothing like it sincePeggy Ramsay got a thorn in her foot the day he had wickedly persuadedher to strip and run barefoot over the meadows of Castle Blair. Hecompressed his lips, and moved his knife to see that the haft camerightly to his hand. Then as calmly as if practising at a mark heexamined his pistols and with the utmost deliberation drew a bead uponthe burly ruffian with the cord. The first pistol cracked, and the mandropped silently. Instantly there ensued a great commotion within. Themost part of the gipsies rushed to the door, standing for a momentclear against the lighted interior.
Rollo, all on fire with the idea that the villains had been torturing achild, fired his second pistol into the thick of them, upon which arosea sudden sharp shriek and a furious rushing this way and that. The lampwas blown out or knocked over in the darkness, and Rollo, hesitating nota moment, snapped back the great Albacetan blade into its catch andrushed like a charging tiger at the door. Twice on his way was he runagainst and almost overturned by fugitives from the pavilion. On eachoccasion his opponents' fear of the mysterious fusillade, aided by asharp application of the point of the _Albacete_, cleared Rollo's front.He stumbled over a body prone on the ground, caught his hand on the coldstone lintel, and in a moment was within.
He said aloud, "Princess Isabel, I am your friend! Trust me! I have cometo deliver you from these wicked people!"
But there was no answer, nor did he discover the little Queen'shiding-place till an uncontrollable sobbing guided him to the spot.
The child was crouching underneath the polished stove with which inhappier days she had so often played. Rollo took the little maid in hisarms.
"Do not be afraid," he whispered, "I, Rollo Blair, am your friend; Iwill either take you to your friends or lay down my life for you. Trustme!--Do what I tell you and all will be well!"
"Your voice sounds kind, though I cannot see your face," she whispered;"yes, I will go with you!"
He lifted her up on his left arm, while in his right hand he held theknife ready to be plunged to the hilt into any breast that withstoodhim.
One swift rush and they were without among the reeds.
"I will take you to your mother--I promise it," he said, "but first youmust come through the town with me to the Hermitage of the good friars.The palace is surrounded with wicked men to-night. We cannot go backthere, but to-morrow I will surely take you to your mother!"
"I do not want to go to my mother," whispered the little Queen, "onlytake me to my dear, _dearest_ Dona Susana!"
And then it was that Rollo first realised that he had undertakensomething beyond his power.