The Firebrand

"It is a pity with women," he said philosophically, "but sometimes, I know, it is the only way."

"The severity I speak of," continued Rollo, not regarding his words, "will mostly fall to the lot of the Señor Muñoz. But we may chance to work on the lady's feelings through him."

The Sergeant gave Rollo a quick glance, in which was discernible a certain alertness of joy. The Sergeant also did not love his grandeeship, the Duke of Rianzares.

So these two went abreast up the great staircase, and found the Princess Isabel already playing joyously with Etienne, John Mortimer joining clumsily in as best he could. Concha had vanished, and La Giralda was nowhere to be seen.

"The rogue is in no haste to visit her mother after her night adventure!" said the Sergeant in a low tone, as Rollo and he stood watching the scene from the doorway.

"Nor I," admitted Rollo with a smile, "yet see the lady we must!"

"And shall!" said the Sergeant.

Yet in spite of the unpleasant interview which lay before him, Rollo could not help smiling at the game that was going forward in the upper hall.

"Sur le pont d' Avignon,
Tout le monde y passe,"

chanted Etienne.

"Tout le monde y passe!" chorused the little Princess, holding out her hands.

John Mortimer made a confused noise in his throat and presently was compelled to join the circle and dance slowly round, his countenance meantime suggestive of the mental reserve that such undignified proceedings could only be excused as being remotely connected with the safe shipment of a hundred hogsheads of Priorato.

"The children walk like this,
And the ladies walk like that —"

There was no help for it. Etienne and the Princess first mimicked the careless trip of the children, and then, with chin in the air and lift of imaginary furbelow, the haughty tread of the good dames of Avignon as they took their way homeward over that ancient bridge.

But suddenly arrested with both hands in the air and his mouth open, John Mortimer looked on in confusion and a kind of mental stupor. He was glad that no one of his nation was present to see him making a fool of himself. The next moment Isabel had seized his hand, and he found himself again whirling lumpishly round to the ancient refrain: —

"Sur le pont d' Avignon,
Tout le monde y passe!"

The little Queen's merry laugh rang out at his awkwardness, and then seeing Rollo she ran impetuously to him.

"Come you and play," she cried, "the red foreigner plays like a wooden puppet. And where is that darling little page-boy from Aranjuez?"

"That I cannot tell," quoth Rollo, smiling, "but here comes his sister!"

A moment after Concha entered the room talking confidentially to La Giralda. She was now dressed in her own girlish costume of belted blouse, black basquiña pleated small after the Andalucian manner, and the quaint and pretty rebozo thrown coquettishly back from the finest and most bewitching hair in Spain.

The little Isabel went up to Concha, took her by the hand, perused her from head to foot, and then remarked with deep feeling —

"You are very well, Señorita, but – I liked your brother better!"

CHAPTER XL

ALL DANDIES ARE NOT COWARDS

It was not, however, so simple a matter as Rollo supposed to obtain an audience with the Queen-Regent of Spain. Her daughter, willing, but by no means eager to see her mother, had at last been taken up to her room by one of the serving-men, whose faithfulness during the night had been so greatly stimulated by La Giralda's declared intention of shooting either of them who should fail from his post for an instant.

To the same gold-laced functionary, upon his return, Rollo made his request.

"Tell her Majesty that those gentlemen who last night defended the palace, wish to be admitted into her presence in order that they may represent to her the danger of remaining longer in a house exposed alike to the attacks of bloodthirsty villains and to the ravages of the plague."

"Her Majesty, being otherwise engaged, is not at present able to receive the gentlemen," was the civil but unsatisfactory answer brought back.

Rollo stood a moment fuming, biting his thumb-nail as he had a fashion of doing when thinking deeply. Then he asked a sudden question —

"Where is El Sarria?"

"Without on the terrace – doing a little sentry duty on his own account," said the Sergeant. "I told him that the gipsies, being walkers in darkness, had gone off for at least twelve hours, and that there was no use in any further vigilance till nightfall, should it be our ill-fortune to spend another night in this place. But" (here the Sergeant shrugged his shoulders very slightly, as only an Andalucian or a Frenchman can), "well – our excellent Don Ramon is the best and bravest of men. But it is a pity that he has not room here for more than one idea at a time!"

And Sergeant Cardono tapped his brow with his forefinger.

"I do not know," said Rollo, smiling, "if the one idea is a good one, it may carry a man far! But that matters nothing now. Let these two friends of mine, Don Juan and M. de Saint Pierre, take his place on the terrace. We have a difficult part to play upstairs, and we want only men of your nation or mine – men neither easily excited nor yet too over-scrupulous!"

He added the last words under his breath.

And so, on pretext that it was time El Sarria should be relieved, a few minutes thereafter John Mortimer and Etienne found themselves pleasantly situated on the broad terrace looking out on the dry fountains and the glittering waterfalls of La Granja, while El Sarria solemnly mounted the stairs to hold audience with his young leader.

No great talker was El Sarria at any time, and now he had nothing to say till Rollo informed him why he wanted his help. Then he was ready to do everything but talk – go to the world's end, fight to the death, give up all except Dolóres (and risk even her!) that he might do the will of his chief. El Sarria was not good at fine ethical distinctions, but he understood obedience prompt and unquestioning, through and through and up and down.

Rollo did not directly reveal his intentions to his followers, nor did he take Concha into his confidence. He had not even spoken another word to her, but a glance had passed between them, and Concha was satisfied. It had told her much – that he loved her, that his heart held her to be the best-beloved thing the sun shone on – that there were dangers and difficulties before them, but that whatever happened neither would look back nor take their hands from the plough. Yes, oh too wise sceptic, it was indeed a comprehensive glance, yet it passed as swiftly as when in a placid lake a swallow dips his wing in full flight and is off again with the drops pearling from his feathers.

"I wish you to follow me, gentlemen," he said slowly. "Bring your arms. If her Majesty the Queen-Regent of Spain will not see us, perhaps we may fare better with the Queen's Consort! I for one intend that we shall!"

Without offering any further explanation, Rollo turned and marched steadily but not hastily to the chamber door of Señor Muñoz, Duke of Rianzares. The liveried servant who was approaching with a jug of hot water (the younger of La Giralda's charges on the previous night), called out to them that they could not at that moment see his Excellency. He was, it appeared, in the act of dressing. With the coming of the morning light these two gentlemen of the bed-chamber had resumed the entire etiquette of the Spanish court, or at least such modified forms of it as, a little disarranged by altitude and the portent of an informal and (as yet) unauthorised Prince Consort, prevailed at La Granja.

But Rollo would have nothing of all this. Enough time had been wasted. He merely moved his head a hair's-breadth to the side, and the young man in gold lace, a most deserving valet-de-chambre, found himself looking down at the curved edge of El Sarria's sword-bayonet, whose point touched his Adam's apple in a suggestive manner. He promptly dropped the silver pipkin, whereupon the shaving-water of the Duke slowly decanted itself over the parqueterie floor. A portion scalded the valet's finely shaped leg, yet he dared not complain, being in mortal fear of the sword-bayonet. But in spite of the danger, his mind ran on the question whether the skin would accompany the hose when he had an opportunity to remove the latter in order to examine his injuries.

Rollo knocked on the Duke's door with loud confident knuckles, not at all as the gentleman with the shaving-water would have performed that feat.

Whereupon, inclining his ear, he heard hasty footsteps crossing the floor, and, suspecting that if he stood on any sort of ceremony he might find the door bolted and barred in his face, Rollo turned the handle and quietly intruded a good half of a bountifully designed military riding-boot within the apartment of the Duke.

So correctly had he judged the occupant's intentions that an iron bolt was actually pushed before Don Fernando discovered that his door would not close, owing to an unwonted obstruction.

"Your Excellency," cried Rollo, in a stern voice, "we desire to speak with you on a question which concerns the lives of all within this castle. Being unable to obtain an interview with her Majesty the Queen-Regent, we make bold to request you to convey our wishes and – our intentions to her!"

"I am dressing – I cannot see you, not at present!" cried a voice from within.

"But, Señor, see you we must and shall," said Rollo, firmly; "in half a minute we shall enter your apartment, so that you have due notice of our intention."

For this Rollo of ours had an etiquette of his own applicable even to circumstances so unique as obtained at the Castle of La Granja – which, had the occurrences we describe not been the severest history, might justly have been called the chiefest of all "Chateaux en Espagne."

Watch in hand Rollo stood, absorbed in the passage of the thirty seconds of which he had given notice, and had not the Sergeant suddenly dashed the chamber door open, the young Scot's foot would certainly have been crushed to a jelly. For by this act the excellent Duke of Rianzares was disclosed in the very act of dropping a ponderous marble bust of his wife's grandfather upon the young man's toes.

After that, of course, there was no more ceremony with Señor Muñoz. He was immediately relieved of his weapons, ordered to the farther side of the room away from all possible avenues of escape, and further guarded by the Sergeant, who bent upon him a stern and threatening brow.