The Firebrand

"I will cherish them as the most precious thing in the world. And now, I will go and show them to the Lady Superior."

"Not till you have taken in my Dolóres as you promised," came the voice of El Sarria, "or by Heaven I will burn your convent to the ground. She shall not be left here in the damp dews of the night."

"No, no," whispered Concha, "she shall be laid in the lodge of the portress, and La Giralda shall watch her till her own chamber is prepared, and I have eased the mind of the Lady Superior."

The great bars were drawn. The bolts gave back with many creakings, and through the black gap of the main gate they carried Dolóres into the warm flower-scented darkness of the portress's lodge.

She was laid on a bed, and the moment after Concha turned earnestly upon the four men.

"Now go," she said, "this instant! I also have risked more than you know. Go back!"

"Can I not stay with her to-night?" pleaded El Sarria, keeping the limp hand wet with chill perspiration close in his.

"Go – go, I say!" said Concha. "Go, or it may be too late. See yonder."

And on a hill away to the west a red light burned for a long moment and then vanished.

The three young men went out, but El Sarria lingered, kneeling by his wife's bedside. Rollo went back and touched him on the shoulder.

"You must come with us – for her sake!" he said. And he pointed with his finger. And obediently at his word the giant arose and went out. Rollo followed quickly, but as he went a little palm fell on his arm and a low voice whispered in his ear —

"You trust me, do you not?"

Rollo lifted Concha's hand from his sleeve and kissed it.

"With my life – and more!" he said.

"What more?" queried Concha.

"With my friends' lives!" he answered.

And as he went out with no other word Concha breathed a sigh very softly and turned towards Dolóres. She felt somehow as if the tables were being turned upon her.

Outside there was a kind of waiting hush in the air, an electric tension of expectation, or so at least it seemed to Rollo.

As they marched along the road towards the mill-house, they saw a ruddy glow towards the south.

"Something is on fire there!" said John Mortimer. "I mind when Graidly's mills were burnt in Bowton, we saw a glimmer in the sky just like yon! And we were at Chorley, mind you, miles and miles away!"

"They are more like camp-fires behind the hills," commented Etienne, from his larger experience. "I think we had better clear out of Sarria to-night."

"That," said Rollo, firmly, "is impossible so far as I am concerned. I must wait at the mill-house for the papers. But do you three go on, and I will rejoin you to-morrow."

"I will stay," said El Sarria, as soon as Rollo's words had been interpreted to him.

"And I," cried Etienne. "Shall it be said that a Saint Pierre ever forsook a friend?"

"And I," said John Mortimer, "to look after the onions!"

The mill-house was silent and dark as they had left it. They could hear the drip-drip of the water from the motionless wheel. An owl called at intervals down in the valley. Rollo, to whom La Giralda had given the key, stooped to fit it into the keyhole. The door was opened and the four stepped swiftly within. Then Rollo locked the door again inside.

They heard nothing through all the silent, empty house but the sound of their own breathing. Yet here, also, there was the same sense of strain lying vague and uneasy upon them.

"Let us go on and see that all is right," said Rollo, and led the way into the large room where they had found Luis Fernandez. He walked up to the window, a dim oblong of blackness, only less Egyptian than the chamber itself. He stooped to strike his flint and steel together into his tinder-box, and even as the small glittering point winked, Rollo felt his throat grasped back and front by different pairs of hands, while others clung to his knees and brought him to the ground.

"Treachery! Out with you, lads – into the open!" he cried to his companions, as well as he could for the throttling fingers.

But behind him there arose the sound of a mighty combat. Furniture was overset, or broke with a sharp crashing noise as it was trampled underfoot.

"Show a light, there," cried a quick voice, in a tone of command.

A lantern was brought from an inner room, and there, on the floor, in the grasp of their captors, were Ramon Garcia, still heaving with his mighty exertions, and Rollo the Scot, who lay very quiet so soon as he had assured himself that present resistance would do no good.

"Bring in the others," commanded the voice again, "and let us see what the dogs look like."

Mortimer and Etienne, having been captured in the hall, while trying to unlock the outer door, were roughly haled into the room. Rollo was permitted to rise, but the giant was kept on his back while they Fastened him up securely with ropes and halters.

Then Luis Fernandez came in, an evil smile on his dark handsome face, and behind him a little thick-set active man in some military dress of light material. The uniform was unfamiliar to Rollo, who, for a moment, was in doubt whether he was in the hands of the Cristinos or in those of the partisans of Don Carlos.

But a glance about the chamber eased his mind. The white boinas of the Basque provinces, mingled with the red of Navarra, told him that he had been captured by the Carlists.

"Well," said a little dark man with the curly hair, black and kinked like a negro's, "give an account of yourselves and of your proceedings in this village."

"We are soldiers in the service of His Excellency Don Carlos," said Rollo, fearlessly; "we are on our way to the camp of General Cabrera on a mission of importance."

Luis Fernandez looked across at his companion, who had seated himself carelessly in a large chair by the window.

"Did I not tell you he would say that?" he said. The other nodded. "On a mission to General Cabrera," repeated the chief of Rollo's captors; "well, then, doubtless you can prove your statement by papers and documents. Let me see your credentials."

"I must know, first, to whom I have the honour of speaking," said Rollo, firmly.

"You shall," said the man in the chair. "I am General Cabrera, in the service of His Absolute Majesty, Carlos, Fifth of Spain. I shall be glad to receive your credentials, sir."

Then it flashed upon Rollo that all his papers were in the hands of Concha Cabezos. He had given them to her that she might show them to the Lady Superior, and so insure a welcome for poor little Dolóres, whom they had left lying on the bed in the portress's lodge at the Convent of the Holy Innocents.

"I can indeed give you the message, and that instantly," said Rollo; "but I am unfortunately prevented from showing you my credentials till the morning. They are at present at the – in the hands of a friend – "

Here Rollo stammered and came to a full stop. Luis Fernandez laughed scornfully.

"Of course," he said: "what did I tell you, General? He has no credentials."

Cabrera struck his clenched fist on the table.

"Sir," he said, "you are a strange messenger. You pretend a mission to me, and when asked for your credentials you tell us that they are in the hands of a friend. Tell us your friend's name, and how you came to permit documents of value to me and to the cause for which you say that you are fighting, to fall into any hands but your own."

Rollo saw that to refer to the Convent of the Holy Innocents, or to mention Concha's name, would infallibly betray the hiding-place of Dolóres to her enemies, so he could only reiterate his former answer.

"I am unfortunately prevented by my honour from revealing the name of my friend, or why the documents were so entrusted. But if your excellency will only wait till the morning, I promise that you shall be abundantly satisfied."