The Firebrand

"They are telling each other to spread out on the wings and encircle the house on the north," whispered Rollo in a low voice to the Basque friar by his side.

The monk laughed a low chuckling laugh.

"They will find the holy Hermitage equally well guarded on that side!" he said. And as they stood silent the rose of dawn began slowly to unfold itself over the tree-tops with that awful windless stillness which characterises the day-breaks of the south. The glades of the wood were filled with a glimmering filmy light, in which it was easy to imagine the spirits of the dead hovering over their earthly tenements.

The gipsies came on as usual, freely and easily, land pirates on their own ground, none able to make them afraid. They had been checked, it is true, at the palace. The royal guard (so they imagined) seemed to have returned unexpectedly thither, contrary to their information, but on the other hand they had successfully plundered all the storehouses, cellars, and despachos of the great square.

Some of them still carried botas of wine (the true "leather bottel") in their hands or swung across their shoulders, and ever and anon took a swig to keep their courage up as they came near. Some sang and shouted, for were they not going to rout the lazy monks, always rich in money and plate, out of their lurking places? Was it not they who had first tried to make Christians of the Romany, and by so doing had shown the government how to entrap them into their armies, subjecting the free blood of Egypt to their cursed drafts and conscriptions?

"To the knives' point with them, then!" they shouted. "They who prate so much of paradise, let them go thither, and that with speed!" This would be a rare jest to tell for forty years by many a swinging kettle, and while footing it in company over many a lonely and dispeopled heath.

Thus with laughter and shouting they came on, and to Rollo, peering eagerly over the battlements, the white-wrapped corpses along the walls seemed to turn slowly blood-red before his eyes – the flaunting crimson of the sky above contrasting with the green of the woods, and tinging even the white shrouds with its ominous hue. But still the gipsies came on.

First of all strode the man who had called himself the Executioner of Salamanca, Ezquerra, he who had saved the life of José Maria upon the scaffold. He came forward boldly enough, intending to thunder with his knife-handle upon the great door. But at the foot of the steps he stopped.

Looking to either hand, he saw, almost erect within their niches, a strange pair of figures, apparently wrapped in bloody raiment from head to foot. He staggered back nerveless and shaken.

"What are these faceless things?" he cried; "surely the evil spirits are here!" And in deadly fear he put his hand before his eyes lest his vision should be blasted by a portent.

And from the other side of the Hermitage came an answering cry of fear.

"Be brave, Ezquerra!" called out one behind him; "'tis nothing – only some monk's trick!"

Ezquerra over his shoulder cast a fierce glance at the speaker.

"Brother," he cried, "you who are so full of courage that you can supply others, go up these steps and find out the trick for yourself!"

Nevertheless through very pride of place as their temporary leader, Ezquerra set his feet once more to the steps and mounted. The shrouded figures grew less red as he approached.

"After all it is some trick!" he shouted angrily. "We will make the fools pay for this! Did they think to practise the black art upon those whose fathers have used all magic, black and white, for ten thousand years?"

So saying he set his hand to the face-cloth of the nearest figure and plucked it away. Then was revealed to his affrighted and revolted gaze the features swollen and bloated of one who had died of the Black Plague.

At the same moment, and before his followers could set their hands to their mouths or retreat a step, round both corners of the building there came a double swarm of gipsies, running at random through the tangle of the wood and streaming frantically along the paths.

The Executioner of Salamanca also turned and ran down the steps.

"Touch the thing who will!" he cried; "I have done with it!"

And the entire attacking party with their knives and sledge-hammers would in like manner have fled, but for a strange and unlooked-for event which happened at that moment.

As Rollo peered over the low parapet, he saw a slight form rush suddenly across the front of the fleeing gipsies, shouting at and striking the fugitives. And even at that distance he was sure that it must be the daughter of Muñoz, whom he had left captive in La Granja. She had been safely enough locked in the castle – how then had she escaped? He remembered the Sergeant's last threat that he would have some conversation with Señor Muñoz. He wondered if the girl's escape had anything to do with that. That it was not impossible to escape from the palace, the presence of Concha Cabezos upstairs informed him.

But all theorising of this kind was stopped at sight of the vehement anger of the girl, and of the evident power she had over these wild and savage men. She did not even hesitate to strike a fugitive with her clenched fist if he attempted to evade her. Nay, in her fury she drew a knife from Ezquerra's belt and struck at the throat of the Executioner of Salamanca.

So vehement was her anger and so potent her influence, that the girl actually succeeded in arresting more than half the fleeing gipsies. Some, however, evaded her, and she would stay her headlong course a moment to send a fierce curse after them.

"She is crazed!" thought Rollo; "her wrongs have driven her mad!"

But the sight of that glimmering array of plague-stricken sentinels waiting for them still and silent in the red dawn, was more than the fortitude of the rallied forces could stand. Upon approaching the Hermitage the gipsies again showed symptoms of renewed flight.

Whereupon the girl, shrilly screaming the vilest names at them and in especial designating Ezquerra as the craven-hearted spawn of an obscene canine ancestry, mounted the steps herself with the utmost boldness and confidence.

"I will teach you," she screamed; "I, a girl and alone, will show you what sacks of straw ye are frighted of. Do ye not know that the great prize is here, within this very house, behind these defenceless windows and cardboard doors? The Queen of Spain, whose ransom is worth twice ten thousand duros, even if your coward hearts dared not shed her black Bourbon blood. Behold!"

It was only by craning far out over the parapet (so far indeed that he might easily have been discovered from below had there been any to look) that Rollo was able to see what followed. But every eye was fixed on the girl. No one among all that company had even a glance to waste upon the skyline of the Ermita de San Ildefonso.

This was the thing Rollo saw as he looked.

The girl spurned the fallen face-cloth with her bare foot, and catching the body of the dead man in her arms, she dragged it out of its niche and cast it down the steps upon which it lay all abroad, half revealed and hideous in the morning light. This done, rushing back as swiftly and with the same volcanic energy to the occupant of the other niche, she hurled him by main force after his companion. Then, panting and wan, with her single tattered garment half rent from her flat ill-nourished body, she lifted one arm aloft in triumph and cried, "There, you dogs, that is what you were afraid of!"

But even as she stood thus revealed in the morning light, a low murmur of terror and astonishment ran round all who saw her. For in the struggle the girl had uncovered her shoulder and breast, and there, upon her young and girlish skin, appeared the dread irregular blotches which betrayed the worst and most deadly form of the disease.

"The Black Plague! The Black Plague!" shrieked the throng of besiegers, surging this way and that like a flock of sheep which strange dogs drive, as with wild and shrill cries they turned and fled headlong towards the mountains.

The girl, speechless with wrath, and perhaps also with the death-sickness far advanced within her, took a step forward as if to follow them. But forgetful of where she stood, she missed her footing, fell headlong, and lay across the dead sentinel whom she had first dragged from his post.

The Basque priest looked over Rollo's shoulder and pointed downwards with a certain dread solemnity.

"What did I tell you?" he said. "The finger of God! The finger of God hath touched her! Let us go down. The sun will be above the horizon in twenty minutes."

"Had we not better wait?" urged Rollo. "They may return. Think of our responsibility, of our feeble defences, of – "

"Of Concha," he was about to say, but checked himself, and added quietly, "of the little Queen!"

The monk crossed himself with infinite calm.

"They will not return," he said; "it is our duty to lay these in the quiet earth ere the sun rises. There is no infection to be feared till an hour after sunrise."

"But the girl, the daughter of Muñoz?" said Rollo, "did not she take the disease from the dead?"

"Nay," said the Basque. "I have often beheld the smitten of the plague like that. It works so upon very many. For a time they are as it were possessed with seven devils, and the strength of man is vain against them. They snap strong cords even as Samson did the Philistine withes. Then – puff! Comes a breath of morning air chill from the Sierra, and they are gone. They were – and they are not. The finger of God hath touched them. So it was with this girl."

"I will follow you!" said Rollo, awe-stricken in spite of himself. "Tell me what I am to do!"

The monk pressed his hand again to his brow a little wearily. "I fear," he said, "that it will fall to you to perform the greater part of the work. For Brother Domingo, our good almoner, he of the merry countenance, died of his fatigues early this morning, and the other two, my brethren, are once more in the town bringing God to the dying!"

Instinctively Rollo removed his hat from his head.

"But," added the monk, "they dug the graves in holy ground before they went!"

In silence Rollo permitted himself to be covered with an armour of freshly tarred cloth, which was considered in Spain at that time to be a complete protection against plague infection. The monk Teodoro was proceeding to array himself in like manner, when Concha appeared beside them and held out her hands for the gauntlets.

"The little Princess is asleep," she said eagerly; "I am strong. I have as good a right to serve God as either of you – and as great is my need!"

The Basque gazed at her curiously. Her hair was still wholly covered by the sailor's red cap. To the eye she appeared a mere boy in her page's dress, but there was at all times something irresistibly attractive about Concha's face. Now her lips quivered sensitively, but her eyes were steady. She continued to hold out her hands.

"I demand that you permit me to serve God!" she cried to Brother Teodoro.