The Firebrand

"Ah, poor innocent young man," he thought, "doubtless he believes that the heart of this girl is all his own. But all men are fools – a butterfly is always a butterfly and an Andaluse an Andaluse to the day of her death!"

Then turning his thoughts backward, he remembered the many who had taken their turn with mandolin and guitar at the rejas of Concha's window when he and Dolóres lived outside the village of Sarria; and he (ah, thrice fool!) had taken it into his thick head to be jealous.

Well, after all this was none of his business, he thanked the saints. He was not responsible for the vagaries of pretty young women. He wondered vaguely whether he ought to tell Rollo. But after turning the matter this way and that, he decided against it, remembering the dire consequences of jealousy in his own case, and concluding with the sage reflection that there were plenty of mosquitoes in the world already without beating the bushes for more.

But with the corner of an eye more accustomed to the sun glinting on rifle barrels than to the flashing eyes of beauty, El Sarria could make out that the Vitorian in the red boina was following them, his gun over his shoulder, trying, not with conspicuous success to assume the sauntering air of a man who, having nothing better to do, goes for a stroll in the summer evening.

"'Tis the first time that ever I saw a soldier off duty take his musket for a walk!" growled El Sarria, "and why on the Sierra de Moncayo does the fellow stop to trick himself out as for a festa?"

Concha looked over her shoulder, presumably at El Sarria, though why the maiden's glances were so sprightly and her lips so provokingly pouted is a question hard enough to be propounded for the doctorial thesis at Salamanca. For Ramon Garcia was stolid as an ox of his native Aragon, and arch glances and pretty gestures were as much wasted on him as if he chewed the cud. Still he was not even in these matters so dull and unobservant as he looked, that is, when he had any reason for observing.

"Here comes that young ass of Alava," he murmured. "Well, he is at least getting his money's worth. By the saints favourable to my native parish, the holy Narcissus and Justus, but the burro is tightening his girths!"

And El Sarria laughed out suddenly and sardonically. For he could see the lad pulling his leathern belt a few holes tighter, in order that he might present his most symmetrical figure to the eyes of this dazzling Andalucian witch who had dropped so suddenly into the Carlist camp from the place whence all witches come.

CHAPTER XLIII

THE RED BOINAS OF NAVARRE

Concha and El Sarria sat down on an outcrop of red sandstone rock, and gazed back at the prospect. There below them lay the camp and the house in which was imprisoned the reigning branch of the royal family of Spain. A couple of sentries paced to and fro in front. A picket had established itself for the night in the back courtyard. Beyond that again stood the tent in which the General was at present engaged in drinking himself from his usual sullen ferocity into unconsciousness.

A little nearer, and not far from their own camp-fire, at which the Sergeant was busily preparing the evening meal, sat Rollo, sunk in misery, revolving a thousand plans and ready for any desperate venture so soon as night should fall. Concha gave a quick little sigh whenever her eye fell on him. Perhaps her conscience pricked her – perhaps not! With the heart of such a woman doth neither stranger nor friend intermeddle with any profit.

The sauntering Vitorian halted within speaking distance of the pair.

"A fine evening," he said affably. "Can you give me a light for my cigarette?"

It was on the tip of El Sarria's tongue to inquire whether there were not plenty of lights for his cigarette back at the camp-fires where he had rolled it. But that most excellent habit, which Don Ramon had used from boyhood, of never interfering in the business of another, kept him silent.

"Why should I," he thought, "burn my fingers with stirring this young foreigner's olla? Time was when I made a pretty mess enough of my own!"

So without speech he blew the end off his cigarillo and handed it courteously to the Carlist soldier.

But Concha had no qualms about breaking the silence. The presence of a duenna was nowise necessary to the opening of her lips, which last had also sometimes been silenced without the intervention of a chaperon.

"A fine evening, indeed," she said, smiling down at the youth. "I presume that you are a foot soldier from the musket you carry. It must be a fine one from the care you take of it! But as for me, I like cavaliers best."

"The piece is as veritable a cross-eyed old shrew as ever threw a bullet ten yards wide of the mark," cried the Alavan, tossing his musket down upon the short elastic covering of hill-plants on which he stood, and taking his cigarette luxuriously from his lips. "Nor am I an infantry-man, as you suppose. Doubtless the Señorita did not observe my spurs as I came. Of the best Potosi silver they are made. I am a horseman of the Estella regiment. Our good Carlos the Fifth (whom God bring to his own!) is not yet rich enough to provide us with much in the way of a uniform, but a pair of spurs and a boina are within reach of every man's purse. Or if he has not the money to buy them, they are to be had at the first tailor's we may chance to pass!"

"And very becoming they are!" said Concha, glancing wickedly at the youth, who sat staring at her and letting his cigarette go out. "'Tis small wonder you are a conquering corps! I have often heard tell of the Red Boinas of Navarre!"

"I think I will betake me down to the camp – I smell supper!" broke in El Sarria, curtly. He began to think that Mistress Concha had no further use for him, and, being assured on this point, he set about finding other business for himself. For, with all his simplicity, Ramon Garcia was an exceedingly practical man.

"The air is sweet up here; I prefer it to supper," said Concha. "I will follow you down in a moment. Perhaps this gentleman desires to keep you company to the camp and canteen."

But it soon appeared that the Vitorian was also impressed by the marvellous sweetness of the mountain air, and equally desirous of observing the changeful lights and lengthening shadows which the sun of evening cast, sapphire and indigo, Venetian red and violet-grey, among the peaks of the Sierra de Moncayo. When two young people are thus simultaneously stricken with an admiration for scenery, their conversation is seldom worth repeating. But the Señorita Concha is so unusual a young lady that in this case an exception must be made.

Awhile she gazed pensively up at the highest summits of the mountain, now crimson against a saffron sky, for at eventide Spain flaunts her national colours in the very heavens. Then she heaved a deep sigh.

"You are doubtless a fine horseman?" she cried, clasping her hands – "oh, I adore all horses! I love to see a man ride as a man should!"

The young man coloured. This was, in truth, the most open joint in his armour. Above all things he prided himself upon his horsemanship. Concha had judged as much from his care of his spurs. And then to be mistaken for an infantry tramper!

"Ah," he said, "if the Señorita could only see my mare La Perla! I got her three months ago from the stable of a black-blooded National whose house we burnt near Zaragoza. She has carried me ever since without a day's lameness. There is not the like of her in the regiment. Our mounts are for the most part mere garrons of Cataluña or Aragonese ponies with legs like the pillars of a cellar, surmounted by barrels as round as the wine-tuns themselves."

At this Concha looked still more pensive. Presently she heaved another sigh and tapped her slender shoe with a chance spray of heath.

"Oh, I wish – " she began, and then stopped hastily as if ashamed.

"If it be anything that I can do for you," cried the young man, enthusiastically, "you shall not have to wish it long!"

As he spoke he forsook the stone on which he had been sitting for another nearer to the pretty cross-tied shoes of Andalucian pattern that showed beneath the skirts of Concha's basquiña.

"Ah, how I love horses!" murmured Concha; "doubtless, too, yours is of my country – of the beautiful sunny Andalucia which I may never see again!"

"The mare is indeed believed by all who have knowledge to have Andalucian blood in her veins," answered the Alavan.

Concha rose to her feet impulsively.

"Then," she said, "I must see her. Also I am devoured with eagerness to see you ride."

She permitted her eyes to take in the trim figure of the Vitorian, who had also risen to his feet.

"Do go and bring her," she murmured; "I will take care of your musket. You need not be a moment, and – I will wait for you!"

A little spark kindles a great fire in a Spanish heart, and the young man, counting the cost, rapidly decided that the risk was worth running. The horses of the Estella regiment were picketed in a little hollow a few hundred yards behind the main camp. It was his duty to watch these two strangers, of whom one had already gone back to the camp, while as to the other – well, Adrian Zumaya of the province of Alava felt at that moment that he could cheerfully devote the rest of his life to watching that other.

In a moment more he had laid down his musket at Concha's feet, and set off as fast as he could in the direction of the horses, keeping well out of sight in the trough of a long roller of foot-hill until he was close to the cavalry lines, and could smell the honest stable-smell which in the open air mingled curiously with those of aromatic thyme and resinous juniper.

In five minutes he was back, riding his best and sitting like a Centaur.

Concha's eyes glistened with pleasure, and she ran impulsively forward to pat the cream-coloured mare, a clean-built, well-gathered, workmanlike steed.

Now the young man was very proud of the interest this pretty Andalucian girl was showing in his equipment and belongings to the exclusion of those of his comrades. Perhaps he might have been less pleased had he known that the young lady's interest extended even to the gun he had left behind him, the charge of which she had already managed to extract with deft and competent fingers.

"La Perla she is called," he cried with enthusiasm, "and sure none other ever better deserved the name! I wish we of the camp possessed a side-saddle that the Señorita might try her paces. She has the easiest motion in the world. It is like riding in a great lady's coach with springs or being carried in a Sedan-chair. But she is of a delicate mouth. Ah, yes – if the Señorita mounted, it would be necessary to remember that she must not bear hard upon the reins. Then would La Perla of a certainty take the bit between her teeth and run like the devil when Father Mateo is after him with a holy water syringe!"

Concha smiled as the young fellow dismounted, flinging himself off with the lithe grace of youth and constant practice.

"You forget," she said, "I also am of the Province of Flowers. Do not be afraid. La Perla and I will not fall out. A side-saddle – any saddle! What needs Concha Cabezos with side-saddle when she hath ridden unbroken Andalucian jennets wild over the meadows of Mairena, with no better bridle than their manes of silk and no other saddle than their glossy hides, brown as toasted bread!"

As she made this boast Concha patted La Perla's pretty head, who, recognising a lover of her kind, muzzled an affectionate nose under the girl's arm.

"Oh, how I wish I could try you," she cried, "were it but for a moment – darling among steeds, Pearl of Andalucia!"

"La Perla is very gentle," suggested the young cavalier of Alava, as he thought most subtly. "With me at the mare's head the Señorita might safely enough ride. But for fear of interruption let us first proceed a little way out of sight of the camp."

They descended behind the long ridge till the camp was entirely hidden, and as they did so the heart of the young Vitorian beat fast. They think plentifully well of themselves, these young men of Alava and Navarre. And this one felt that he would not disgrace the name of his parent city.