Conyngham made no answer.

'It was also a stupid error, if I may say so, to make your way back to Durham by Ravensworth, where you were seen and recognised. You see I have a good case against you, Mr. Conyngham.'

'Yes, I admit you have a good case against me, but you have not caught me yet.'

Sir John Pleydell looked at him coldly.

'You do not even take the trouble to deny the facts I have named.'

'Why should I, when they are true?' asked Conyngham carelessly.

Sir John Pleydell leant back in his chair.

'I have classified you,' he said with a queer laugh.

'Ah!' answered Conyngham, suddenly uneasy.

'Yes—as a fool.'

He leant forward with a deprecating gesture of his thin white hand.

'Do not be offended,' he said, 'and do not reproach yourself for having given your case away. You never had a case, Mr. Conyngham. Chartists are not made of your material at all. As soon as you gave me your card in Madrid, I had a slight suspicion. I thought you were travelling under a false name. It was plain to the merest onlooker that you were not the man I sought. You are too easy- going, too much of a gentleman to be a Chartist. You are screening somebody else. You have played the part well, and with an admirable courage and fidelity. I wish my boy Alfred had had a few such friends as you. But you are a fool, Mr. Conyngham. No man on earth is worth the sacrifice that you have made.'

Conyngham slowly stirred his coffee. He was meditating.

'You have pieced together a very pretty tale,' he said at length. 'Some new scheme to get me within the reach of the English law, no doubt.'

'It is a pretty tale—too pretty for practical life. And if you want proofs I will mention the fact that the Chartist meeting was at Chester-le-Street, not Durham; that my house stands in a hollow and not on a hill; that you could not possibly go to Durham via Ravensworth, for they lie in opposite directions. No, Mr. Conyngham, you are not the man I seek. And, strange to say, I took a liking to you when I first saw you. I am no believer in instinct, or mutual sympathy, or any such sentimental nonsense. I do not believe in much, Mr. Conyngham, and not in human nature at all. I know too much about it for that. But there must have been something in that liking for you at first sight. I wish you no harm, Mr. Conyngham. I am like Balaam—I came to curse, and now stay to bless. Or, perhaps, I am more like Balaam's companion and adviser— I bray too much.'

He sat back again with a queer smile.

'You may go home to England to-morrow if you care to,' he added, after a pause, 'and if that affair is ever raked up against you I will be your counsel, if you will have me.'

'Thank you.'

'You do not want to go home to England?' suggested Sir John, whose ear was as quick as his eye.

'No, I have affairs in Spain.'

'Or—perhaps a castle here. Beware of such—I once had one.'

And the cold grey face softened for an instant. It seemed at times as if there were after all a man behind that marble casing.

'A man who can secure such a friendship as yours has proved itself to be,' said Sir John after a short silence, 'can scarcely be wholly bad. He may, as you say, have made a mistake. I promise nothing; but perhaps I will make no further attempts to find him.'

Conyngham was silent. To speak would have been to admit.

'So far as I am concerned,' said Sir John, rising, 'you are safe in this or any country. But I warn you—you have a dangerous enemy in Spain.'

'I know,' answered Conyngham, with a laugh, 'Mr. Esteban Larralde. I once undertook to deliver a letter for him. It was not what he represented it to be, and after I had delivered it he began to suspect me of having read it. He is kind enough to consider me of some importance in the politics of this country owing to the information I am supposed to possess. I know nothing of the contents of the letter, but I want to regain it—if only for a few moments. That is the whole story, and that is how matters stand between Larralde and myself.'



CHAPTER XXII. REPARATION.



'Il s'en faut bien que l'innocence trouve autant de protection que le crime.'

For those minded to leave Spain at this time, there was but one route, namely, the south, for the northern exits were closed by the Carlists, still in power there, though thinning fast. Indeed, Don Carlos was now illustrating the fact, which any may learn by the study of the world's history, that it is not the great causes, but the great men, who have made and destroyed nations. Nearly half of Spain was for Don Carlos. The Church sided with him, and the best soldiers were those who, unpaid, unfed, and half clad, fought on the southern slopes of the Pyrenees for a man who dared not lead them.

Sir John Pleydell had intended crossing the frontier into Portugal, following the carriage conveying his prisoner to the seaport of Lisbon, where he anticipated no difficulty in finding a ship captain who would be willing to carry Conyngham to England. All this, however, had been frustrated by so unimportant a person as Concepcion Vara, and the carriage ordered for nine o'clock to proceed to Talavera now stood in the courtyard of the hotel, while the Baronet in his lonely apartment sat and wondered what he should do next. He had dealt with justice all his life, and had ensued it not from love, but as a matter of convenience and a means of livelihood. From the mere habit, he now desired to do justice to Conyngham.

'See if you can find out for me the whereabouts of General Vincente at the moment, and let the carriage wait,' he said to his servant, a valet-courier of taciturn habit.

The man was absent about half an hour, and returned with a face that promised little.

'There is a man in the hotel, sir,' he said, 'the servant of Mr. Conyngham, who knows, but will not tell me. I am told, however, that a lady living in Toledo, a Contessa Barenna, will undoubtedly have the information. General Vincente was lately in Madrid, but his movements are so rapid and uncertain, that he has become a by- word in Spain.'

'So I understand. I will call on this Contessa this afternoon, unless you can get the information elsewhere during the morning. I shall not want the carriage.'

Sir John walked slowly to the window, deep in thought. He was interested in Conyngham, despite himself. It is possible that he had not hitherto met a man capable of so far forgetting his own interests as to undertake a foolish and dangerous escapade without anything in the nature of gain or advantage to recommend it. The windows of the hotel of the Comercio in Toledo look out upon the market-place, and Sir John, who was an indoor man, and mentally active enough to be intensely bored at times, frequently used this opportunity of studying Spanish life.

He was looking idly through the vile panes, when an old priest passed by, and glanced up beneath shaggy brows.

'Seen that man before,' said Sir John.

'Ah!' muttered Father Concha, as he hurried on towards the Palazzo Barenna. 'So far, so good. Where the fox is, will be found the stolen fowl.'

Concepcion Vara, who was saddling his horse in the stable yard of the inn, saw the Padre pass.

'Ah, clever one!' he muttered, 'with your jokes about my wife. Now you may make a false journey for all the help you receive from me.'

And a few minutes later Concepcion rode across the Bridge of Alcantara, some paces behind Conyngham, who deemed it wise to return to his duties at Madrid without delay.

Despite the great heat on the plains, which, indeed, made it almost dangerous to travel at midday, the streets of Toledo were cool and shady enough, as Sir John Pleydell traversed them in search of the Palazzo Barenna. The Contessa was in, and the Englishman was ushered into a vast room, which even the taste of the day could not entirely deprive of its mediaeval grandeur. Sir John explained to the servant in halting Spanish that his name was unknown to the Senora Barenna, but that—a stranger in some slight difficulty—he had been recommended to seek her assistance.

Sir John was an imposing-looking man, with that grand air which enables some men not only to look, but to get over a wall while an insignificant wight may not so much as approach the gate. The senora's curiosity did the rest. In a few minutes the rustle of silk made Sir John turn from the contemplation of a suit of armour.

'Madame speaks French?'

'But yes, senor.'

Madame Barenna glanced towards a chair, which Sir John hastened to bring forward. He despised her already, and she admired his manner vastly.

'I have taken the immense liberty of intruding myself upon your notice, Madame.'

'Not to sell me a Bible?' exclaimed Senora Barenna, with her fan upheld in warning.

'A Bible! I believe I have one at home, in England, Madame, but—'

'It is well,' said Madame sinking back and fanning herself rather faintly. 'Excuse my fears. But there is an Englishman—what is his name? I forget.'

'Borrow.'

'Yes; that is it, Borrow. And he sells Bibles; and Father Concha, my confessor, a bear, but a holy man—a holy bear, as one might say- -has forbidden me to buy one. I am so afraid of disobeying him, by heedlessness or forgetfulness. There are, it appears, some things in the Bible which one ought not to read, and one naturally—'

She finished the sentence with a shrug, and an expressive gesture of the fan.

'One naturally desires to read them,' suggested Sir John. 'The privilege of all Eve's daughters, Madame.'

Senora Barenna treated the flatterer to what the French call a fin sourire, and wondered how long Julia would stay away. This man would pay her a compliment in another moment.

'I merely called on the excuse of a common friendship, to ask if you can tell me the whereabouts of General Vincente,' said Sir John, stating his business in haste and when the opportunity presented itself.

'Is it politics?' asked the lady, with a hasty glance round the room.

'No, it is scarcely politics; but why do you ask? You are surely too wise, Madame, to take part in such. It is a woman's mission to please—and when it is so easy!'

He waved his thin white hand in completion of a suggestion which made his hearer bridle her stout person.

'No, no,' she whispered, glancing over her shoulder at the door. 'No; it is my daughter. Ah! senor, you can scarce imagine what it is to live upon a volcano!'

And she pointed to the oaken floor with her fan. Sir John deemed it wise to confine his display of sympathy to a glance of the deepest concern.

'No,' he said; 'it is merely a personal matter. I have a communication to make to my friend General Vincente or to his daughter.'

'To Estella?'

'To the Senorita Estella.'

'Do you think her beautiful? Some do, you know. Eyes—I admit— yes, lovely.'

'I admire the senorita exceedingly.'

'Ah yes, yes. You have not seen my daughter, have you, senor? Julia—she rather resembles Estella.'

Senora Barenna paused and examined her fan with a careless air.

'Some say,' she went on, apparently with reluctance, 'that Julia is- -well—has some advantages over Estella. But I do not, of course. I admire Estella, excessively—oh yes, yes.'

And the senora's dark eyes searched Sir John's face. They might have found more in sculptured marble.

'Do you know where she is?' asked Sir John, almost bluntly. Like a workman who has mistaken his material, he was laying aside his finer conversational tools.

'Well, I believe they arrive in Toledo this evening. I cannot think why. But with General Vincente one never knows. He is so pleasant, so playful—such a smile—but you know him. Well, they say in Spain that he is always where he is wanted. Ah!' Madame paused and cast her eyes up to the ceiling, 'what it is to be wanted somewhere, senor.'

And she gave him the benefit of one of her deepest sighs. Sir John mentally followed the direction of her glance, and wondered what the late Count thought about it.

'Yes, I am deeply interested in Estella—as indeed is natural, for she is my niece. She has no mother, and the General has such absurd ideas. He thinks that a girl is capable of choosing a husband for herself. But to you—an Englishman—such an idea is naturally not astonishing. I am told that in your country it is the girls who actually propose marriage.'

'Not in words, Madame—not more in England than elsewhere.'

'Ah,' said Madame, looking at him doubtfully, and thinking, despite herself, of Father Concha.

Sir John rose from the chair he had taken at the senora's silent invitation.

'Then I may expect the General to arrive at my hotel this evening,' he said. 'I am staying at the Comercio, the only hotel, as I understand, in Toledo.'

'Yes, he will doubtless descend there. Do you know Frederick Conyngham, senor?'

'Yes.'

'But everyone knows him!' exclaimed the lady vivaciously. 'Tell me how it is. A most pleasant young man, I allow you—but without introductions and quite unconnected. Yet he has friends everywhere.'

She paused and, closing her fan, leant forward in an attitude of intense confidence and secrecy.

'And how about his little affair?' she whispered.

'His little affair, Madame?'

'De coeur,' explained the lady, tapping her own breast with an eloquent fan.

'Estella,' she whispered after a pause.

'Ah!' said Sir John, as if he knew too much about it to give an opinion. And he took his leave.

'That is the sort of woman to break one's heart in the witness box,' he said as he passed out into the deserted street, and Senora Barenna, in the great room with the armour, reflected complacently that the English lord had been visibly impressed.

General Vincente and Estella arrived at the hotel in the evening, but did not of course appear in the public rooms. The dusty old travelling carriage was placed in a quiet corner of the courtyard of the hotel, and the General appeared on this, as on all occasions, to court retirement and oblivion. Unlike many of his brothers-in-arms, he had no desire to catch the public eye.

'There is doubtless something astir,' said the waiter, who, in the intervals of a casual attendance on Sir John, spoke of these things, cigarette in mouth. 'There is doubtless something astir, since General Vincente is on the road. They call him the Stormy Petrel, for when he appears abroad there usually follows a disturbance.'

Sir John sent his servant to the General's apartment about eight o'clock in the evening asking permission to present himself. In reply, the General himself came to Sir John's room.

'My dear sir,' he cried, taking both the Englishman's hands in an affectionate grasp, 'to think that you were in the hotel and that we did not dine together. Come, yes, come to our poor apartment, where Estella awaits the pleasure of renewing your acquaintance.'

'Then the senorita,' said Sir John, following his companion along the dimly-lighted passage, 'has her father's pleasant faculty of forgetting any little contretemps of the past?'

'Ask her,' exclaimed the General in his cheery way. 'Ask her.' And he threw open the door of the dingy salon they occupied.

Estella was standing with her back to the window, and her attitude suggested that she had not sat down since she had heard of Sir John's presence in the hotel.

'Senorita,' said the Englishman, with that perfect knowledge of the world which usually has its firmest basis upon indifference to criticism, 'senorita, I have come to avow a mistake and to make my excuses.'

'It is surely unnecessary,' said Estella, rather coldly.

'Say rather,' broke in the General in his smoothest way, 'that you have come to take a cup of coffee with us and to tell us your news.'

Sir John took the chair which the General brought forward.

'At all events,' he said, still addressing Estella, 'it is probably a matter of indifference to you, as it is merely an opinion expressed by myself which I wish to retract. When I first had the pleasure of meeting you, I took it upon myself to speak of a guest in your father's house, fortunately in the presence of that guest himself, and I now wish to tell you that what I said does not apply to Frederick Conyngham himself, but to another whom Conyngham is screening. He has not confessed so much to me, but I have satisfied myself that he is not the man I seek. You, General, who know more of the world than the senorita, and have been in it almost as long as I have, can bear me out in the statement that the motives of men are not so easy to discern as younger folks imagine. I do not know what induced Conyngham to undertake this thing; probably he entered into it in a spirit of impetuous and reckless generosity, which would only be in keeping with his character. I only know that he has carried it out with a thoroughness and daring worthy of all praise. If such a tie were possible between an old man and a young, I should like to be able to claim Mr. Conyngham as a friend. There, senorita—thank you, I will take coffee. I made the accusation in your presence. I retract it before you. It is, as you see, a small matter.'

'But it is of small matters that life is made up,' put in the General in his deferential way. 'Our friend,' he went on after a pause, 'is unfortunate in misrepresenting himself. We also have a little grudge against him—a little matter of a letter which has not been explained. I admit that I should like to see that letter.'

'And where is it?' asked Sir John.

'Ah!' replied Vincente, with a shrug of the shoulders and a gay little laugh, 'who can tell? Perhaps in Toledo, my dear sir— perhaps in Toledo.'



CHAPTER XXIII. LARRALDE'S PRICE.



'It is as difficult to be entirely bad as it is to be entirely good.'

To those who say that there is no Faith, Spain is in itself a palpable answer. No country in the world can show such cathedrals as those of Granada, Cordova, Seville, Toledo, Burgos. In any other land any one of these great structures would suffice. But in Spain these huge monuments to that Faith which has held serenely through war and fashion, through thought and thoughtlessness, are to be found in all the great cities. And the queen of them all is Toledo.

Father Concha, that sour-visaged philosopher, had a queer pride in his profession and in the history of that Church which is to-day seen in its purest form in the Peninsula, while it is so entangled with the national story of Spain that the two are but one tale told from a different point of view. As a private soldier may take pleasure in standing on a great battlefield noting each spot of interest—here a valley of death, there the scene of a cavalry charge of which the thunder will echo down through all the ages—so Concha, a mere country priest, liked to pace the aisles of a great cathedral, indulging the while in a half-cynical pride. He was no great general, no leader, of no importance in the ranks. But he was of the army, and partook in a minute degree in those victories that belonged to the past. It was his habit thus to pay a visit to Toledo Cathedral whensoever his journeys led him to Castile. It was, moreover, his simple custom to attend the early mass which is here historical; and, indeed, to walk through the church, grey and cool, with the hush that seems to belong only to buildings of stupendous age, is in itself a religious service.

Concha was passing across the nave, hat in hand, a gaunt, ill-clad, and somewhat pathetic figure, when he caught sight of Sir John Pleydell. The Englishman paused involuntarily and looked at the Spaniard. Concha bowed.

'We met,' he said, 'for a moment in the garden of General Vincente's house at Ronda.'

'True,' answered Sir John. 'Are you leaving the Cathedral? We might walk a little way together. One cannot talk idly—here.'

He paused and looked up at the great oak screen—at the towering masonry.

'No,' answered Concha gravely. 'One cannot talk idly here.'

Concha held back the great leathern portiere, and the Englishman passed out.

'This is a queer country, and you are a queer people,' he said presently. 'When I was at Ronda I met a certain number of persons— I can count them on my fingers. General Vincente, his daughter, Senora Barenna, Senorita Barenna, the Englishman Conyngham, yourself, Senor Concha. I arrived in Toledo yesterday morning; in twenty-four hours I have caught sight of all the persons mentioned, here in Toledo.'

'And here, in Toledo, is another of whom you have not caught sight,' said Concha.

'Ah?'

'Yes; Senor Larralde.'

'Is he here?'

'Yes,' said Concha.

They walked on in silence for some minutes.

'What are we all doing here, Padre?' inquired Sir John, with his cold laugh.

'What are you doing here, senor?'

Sir John did not answer at once. They were walking leisurely. The streets were deserted, as indeed the streets of Toledo usually are.

'I am putting two and two together,' the great lawyer answered at length. 'I began doing so in idleness, and now I have become interested.'

'Ah!'

'Yes. I have become interested. They say, Padre, that a pebble set in motion at the summit of a mountain may gather other pebbles and increase in bulk and speed until, in the form of an avalanche, it overwhelms a city in the valley.'

'Yes, senor.'

'And I have conceived the strange fancy that Frederick Conyngham, when he first came to this country, set such a pebble in motion at the summit of a very high mountain. It has been falling and falling silently ever since, and it is gaining in bulk. And you, and General Vincente, and Estella Vincente, and Senorita Barenna, and Frederick Conyngham, and in a minor degree myself, are on the slope in the track of the avalanche, and are sliding down behind it. And the General and Estella, and yourself and Conyngham, are trying to overtake it and stop it. And, reverendo, in the valley below is the monarchy of Spain—the Bourbon cause.'

Father Concha, remembering his favourite maxim that no flies enter a shut mouth, was silent.

'The pebble was a letter,' said Sir John.

'And Larralde has it,' he added after a pause. 'And that is why you are all in Toledo—why the air is thick with apprehension, and why all Spain seems to pause and wait breathlessly. Will the avalanche be stopped, or will it not? Will the Bourbons—than whom history has known no more interesting and more unsatisfactory race, except our own Stuarts—will the Bourbons fall, Senor Padre?'

'Ah!' said Concha, whose furrowed face and pessimistic glance betrayed nothing. 'Ah!'

'You will not tell me, of course. You know much that you will not tell me, and I merely ask you from curiosity. You perhaps know one thing, and that I wish to learn from you—not out of curiosity, but because I, too, would fain overtake the avalanche and stop it. I am no politician, senor, though of course I have my views. When a man has reached my age, he knows assuredly that politics merely mean self-aggrandisement, and nothing else. No—the Bourbons may fall; Spain may follow the lead of France and make an exhibition of herself before the world as a Republic. I am indifferent to these events. But I wish to do Frederick Conyngham a good turn, and I ask you to tell me where I shall find Larralde—you who know everything, Senor Padre.'

Concha reflected while they walked along on the shady side of the narrow street. It happened to be the street where the saddlers live, and the sharp sound of their little hammers on leather and wood came from almost every darkened doorway. The Padre had a wholesome fear of Esteban Larralde, and an exaggerated estimation of that schemer's ability. He was a humble-minded old man, and ever hesitated to pit his own brain against that of another. He knew that Sir John was a cleverer man than Larralde, deeper versed in that side of human nature where the seams are and the knots and the unsightly stitches; older, more experienced, and probably no more scrupulous.

'Yes,' said the priest, 'I can tell you that. Larralde lodges in the house of a malcontent, one Lamberto, a scribbling journalist, who is hurt because the world takes him at its own valuation and not at his. The house is next to the little synagogue in the Calle de Madrid, a small stationer's shop, where one may buy the curse of this generation—pens and paper.'

'Thank you,' said Sir John, civilly and simply. This man has no doubt been ill-painted, but some may have seen that with different companions he wore a different manner. He was, as all successful men are, an unconscious actor, and in entering into the personality of the companion of the moment he completely sank his own. He never sought to be all things to all men, and yet he came near to the accomplishment of that hard task. Sir John was not a sympathetic man; he merely mistook life for a court of justice, and arraigned all human nature in the witness-box, with the inward conviction that this should by rights be exchanged for the felon's dock.

With Concha he was as simple, as direct, and as unsophisticated as the old priest himself, and now took his leave without attempting to disguise the fact that he had accomplished a foreset purpose.

Without difficulty he found the small stationer's shop next to the synagogue in the Calle de Madrid, and bade the stationer—a spectacled individual with upright hair and the air of seeking something in the world which is not usually behind a counter—take his card to Senor Larralde. At first the stationer pretended ignorance of the name, but on discovering that Sir John had not sufficient Spanish to conduct a conversation of intrigue, disappeared into a back room, whence emanated a villanous smell of cooking.

While Sir John waited in the little shop, Father Concha walked to the Plazuela de l'Iglesia Vieja, which small square, overhanging the Tagus and within reach of its murmuring voice, is deserted except at midday, when the boys play at bull-fighting and a few workmen engage in a grave game of bowls. Concha sat, book in hand, opened honestly at the office of the day and hour, and read no word. Instead, he stared across the gorge at the brown bank of land which commands the city and renders it useless as a fortress in the days of modern artillery. He sat and stared grimly, and thought perhaps of those secret springs within the human heart that make one man successful and unhappy, while another, possessing brains and ability and energy, fails in life, yet is perhaps the happier of the two. For it had happened to Father Concha, as it may happen to writer and reader at any moment, to meet one who in individuality bears a resemblance to that self which we never know and yet are ever conscious of.

Sir John Pleydell, a few hundred yards away, obeyed the shopman's invitation to step upstairs with something approaching alacrity.

Larralde was seated at a table strewn with newspapers and soiled by cigarette ash. He had the unkempt and pallid look of one who has not seen the sun or breathed fresh air for days. For, as Concepcion had said, this was a conspirator who preferred to lurk in friendly shelter while others played the bolder game at the front. Larralde had, in fact, not stirred abroad for nearly a week.

'Well, senor,' he said, with a false air of bravado. 'How fares it with your little undertaking?'

'That,' replied Sir John, 'is past—and paid for. And I have another matter for your consideration. Conyngham is not, after all, the man I seek.'

Sir John's manner had changed. He spoke as one having authority. And Larralde shrugged his shoulders, remembering a past payment.

'Ah!' he said, rolling a cigarette with a fine air of indifference.

'On the one hand,' continued Sir John judicially, 'I come to make you an offer which can only be beneficial to you; on the other hand, Senor Larralde, I know enough to make things particularly unpleasant for you.'

Larralde raised his eyebrows and sought the matchbox. His thoughts seemed to amuse him.

'I have reason to assume that a certain letter is now in your possession again. I do not know the contents of this letter, and I cannot say that I am at all interested in it. But a friend of mine is particularly anxious to have possession of it for a short space of time. I have, unasked, taken upon myself the office of intermediary.'

Larralde's eyes flashed through the smoke.

'You are about to offer me money; be careful, senor,' he said hotly, and Sir John smiled.

'Be careful, that it is enough,' he suggested. 'Keep your grand airs for your fellows, Senor Larralde. Yes, I am about to offer you two hundred pounds—say three thousand pesetas—for the loan of that letter for a few hours only. I will guarantee that it is read by one person only, and that a lady. This lady will probably glance at the first lines, merely to satisfy herself as to the nature of its contents. Three thousand pesetas will enable you to escape to Cuba if your schemes fail. If you succeed, three thousand pesetas will always be of use, even to a member of a Republican Government.'

Larralde reflected. He had lately realised the fact that the Carlist cause was doomed. There is a time in the schemes of men, and it usually comes just before the crisis, when the stoutest heart hesitates and the most reckless conspirator thinks of his retreat. Esteban Larralde had begun to think of Cuba during the last few days, and the mention of that haven for Spanish failures almost unnerved him.

'In a week,' suggested Sir John again, 'it may be—well—settled one way or the other.'

Larralde glanced at him sharply. This Englishman was either well- informed or very cunning. He seemed to have read the thought in Larralde's mind.

'No doubt,' went on the Englishman, 'you have divined for whom I want the letter and who will read it. We have both mistaken our man. We both owe Conyngham a good turn—I, in reparation, you, in gratitude; for he undoubtedly saved the Senorita Barenna from imprisonment for life.'

Larralde shrugged his shoulders.

'Each man,' he said, 'must fight for himself.'

'And the majority of us for a woman as well,' amended Sir John. 'At least, in Spain, chivalry is not dead.'

Larralde laughed. He was vain, and Sir John knew it. He had a keen sight for the breach in his opponent's armour.

'You have put your case well,' said the Spaniard patronisingly, 'and I do not see why, at the end of a week, I should not agree to your proposal. It is, as you say, for the sake of a woman.'

'Precisely.'

Larralde leant back in his chair, remembering the legendary gallantry of his race, and wearing an appropriate expression.

'For a woman,' he repeated with an eloquent gesture.

'Precisely.'

'Then I will do it, senor. I will do it.'

'For two hundred pounds?' inquired Sir John coldly.

'As you will,' answered the Spaniard, with a noble indifference to such sordid matters.



CHAPTER XXIV. PRIESTCRAFT.



'No man I fear can effect great benefits for his country without some sacrifice of the minor virtues.'

The Senora Barenna was a leading social light in Toledo, insomuch as she never refused an invitation.

'One has one's duties towards society,' she would say with a sigh. 'Though the saints know that I take no pleasure in these affairs.'

Then she put on her best Seville mantilla and bustled off to some function or another, where she talked volubly and without discretion.

Julia had of late withdrawn more and more from that life of continued and mild festivity of which it is to be feared the existence of many women is composed. This afternoon she sat alone in the great gloomy house in Toledo, waiting for Larralde. For she, like thousands of her sisters, loved an unworthy object—faute de mieux—with open eyes and a queer philosophy that bade her love Larralde rather than love none. She had lately spent a large part of her existence in waiting for Larralde, who, indeed, was busy enough at this time, and rarely stirred abroad while the sun was up.

'Julia,' said Senora Barenna to Concha, 'is no longer a companion to me. She does not even attempt to understand my sensitive organisation. She is a mere statue, and thinks of nothing but politics.'

'For her, Madame, as for all women, there would be no politics if there were no politicians,' the priest replied.

This afternoon Julia was more restless than ever. Larralde had not been to see her for many days, and had only written a hurried note from time to time in answer to her urgent request, telling her that he was well and in no danger.

She now no longer knew whether he was in Toledo or not, but had sufficient knowledge of the schemes in which he was engaged to be aware of the fact that these were coming to a crisis. Esteban Larralde had indeed told her more than was either necessary or discreet, and it was his vanity that led him into this imprudence. We are all ready enough to impart information which will show our neighbours that we are more important than we appear.

After a broiling day the sun was now beginning to lose a little of his terrific power, and, in the shade of the patio upon which the windows of Julia's room opened, the air was quite cool and pleasant. A fountain plashed continuously in a little basin that had been white six centuries ago, when the Moors had brought the marble across the Gulf of Lyons to build it. The very sound of the water was a relief to overstrained nerves, and seemed to diminish the tension of the shimmering atmosphere.

Julia was alone, and barely made pretence to read the book she held in her hand. From her seat she could see the bell suspended on the opposite wall of the courtyard, of which the deep voice at any time of day or night had the power of stirring her heart to a sudden joy. At last the desired sound broke the silence of the great house, and Julia stood breathless at the window while the servant leisurely crossed the patio and threw open the great door, large enough to admit a carriage and pair. It was not Larralde, but Father Concha, brought hither by a note he had received from Sir John Pleydell earlier in the afternoon.

'I shall have the letter in a week from now,' the Englishman had written.

'Which will be too late,' commented Concha pessimistically.

The senora was out, they told him, but the senorita had remained at home.

'It is the senorita I desire to see.'

And Julia, at the window above, heard the remark with a sinking heart. The air seemed to be weighted with the suggestion of calamity. Concha had the manner of one bringing bad news. She forgot that this was his usual mien.

'Ah, my child,' he said, coming into the room a minute later and sitting down rather wearily.

'What?' she asked, her two hands at her breast.

He glanced at her beneath his brows. The wind was in the north- east, dry and tingling. The sun had worn a coppery hue all day. Such matters affect women and those who are in mental distress. After such a day as had at last worn to evening, the mind is at a great tension, the nerves are strained. It is at such times that men fly into sudden anger and whip out the knife. At such times women are reckless, and the stories of human lives take sudden turns.

Concha knew that he had this woman at a disadvantage.

'What?' he echoed. 'I wish I knew. I wish at times I was no priest.'

'Why?'

'Because I could help you better. Sometimes it is the man and not the priest who is the truest friend.'

'Why do you speak like this?' she cried. 'Is there danger? What has happened?'

'You know best, my child, if there is danger; you know what is likely to happen.'

Julia stood looking at him with hard eyes—the eyes of one in mortal fear.

'You have always been my friend,' she said slowly, 'my best friend.'

'Yes. A woman's lover is never her best friend.'

'Has anything happened to Esteban?'

The priest did not answer at once, but paused, reflecting, and dusting his sleeve, where there was always some snuff requiring attention at such moments.

'I know so little,' he said. 'I am no politician. What can I say? What can I advise you when I am in the dark? And the time is slipping by—slipping by.'

'I cannot tell you,' she answered, turning away and looking out of the window.

'You cannot tell the priest—tell the man.'

Then, suddenly, she reached the end of her endurance. Standing with her back towards him, she told her story, and Concha listened with a still, breathless avidity as one who, having long sought knowledge, finds it at last when it seemed out of reach. The little fountain plashed in the courtyard below; a frog in the basin among the water- lilies croaked sociably while the priest and the beautiful woman in the room above made history. For it is not only in kings' palaces nor yet in Parliaments that the story of the world is shaped.

Concha spoke no word, and Julia, having begun, left nothing unsaid, but told him every detail in a slow mechanical voice, as if bidden thereto by a stronger will than her own.

'He is all the world to me,' she said simply, in conclusion.

'Yes; and the happiest women are those who live in a small world.'

A silence fell upon them. The old priest surreptitiously looked at his watch. He was essentially a man of action.

'My child,' he said, rising, 'when you are an old woman with children to harass you and make your life worth living, you will probably look back with thankfulness to this moment. For you have done that which was your only chance of happiness.'

'Why do you always help me?' she asked, as she had asked a hundred times.

'Because happiness is so rare that I hate to see it wasted,' he answered, going towards the door with a grim laugh.

He passed out of the room and crossed the patio slowly. Then, when the great door had closed behind him, he gathered up the skirts of his cassock and hurried down the narrow street. In such thoroughfares as were deserted he ran with the speed and endurance of a spare, hard-living man. Woman-like, Julia had, after all, done things by half. She had timed her confession too late.

At the hotel they told the Padre that General Vincente was at dinner and could not be disturbed.

'He sees no one,' the servant said.

'You do not know who I am,' said Concha, in an irony which, under the circumstances, he alone could enjoy. Then he passed up the stairs and bade the waiter begone.

'But I carry the General's dessert,' protested the man.

'No,' said Concha half to himself, 'I have that.'

Vincente was indeed at table with Estella. He looked up as the priest entered, fingering a cigarette delicately.

'How soon can you take the road?' asked Concha abruptly.

'Ten minutes—the time for a cup of coffee,' was the answer, given with a pleasant laugh.

'Then order your carriage.'

Vincente looked at his old friend, and the smile never left his lips, though his eyes were grave enough. It was hard to say whether aught on earth could disturb this man's equanimity. Then the General rose and went to the window which opened upon the courtyard. In the quiet corner near the rain-tank, where a vine grows upon trellis-work, the dusty travelling-carriage stood, and upon the step of it, eating a simple meal of bread and dried figs, sat the man who had the reputation of being the fastest driver in Spain.

'In ten minutes, my good Manuel,' said the General.

'Bueno,' grumbled the driver, with his mouth full—a man of few words.

'Is it to go far?' asked the General, turning on his heel and addressing Concha.

'A long journey.'

'To take the road, Manuel,' cried Vincente, leaning out. He closed the window before resuming his seat.

'And now, have you any more orders?' he asked with a gay carelessness. 'I counted on sleeping in a bed to-night.'

'You will not do that,' replied Concha, 'when you hear my news.'

'Ah!'

'But first you must promise me not to make use of the information I give you against any suspected persons—to take, in fact, only preventive measures.'

'You have only to name it, my friend. Proceed.'

The old priest paused and passed his hand across his brow. He was breathless still, and looked worn.

'It is,' he said, 'a very grave matter. I have not had much experience in such things, for my path has always lain in small parochial affairs—dealings with children and women.'

Estella was already pouring some wine into a glass. With a woman's instinct she saw that the old man was overwrought and faint. It was a Friday, and in his simple way there was no more austere abstinent than Father Concha, who had probably touched little food throughout the long hot day.

'Take your time, my friend; take your time,' said the General, who never hurried and was never too late. 'A pinch of snuff now—it stimulates the nerves.'

'It is,' said Concha at length—breaking a biscuit in his long bony fingers and speaking unembarrassedly with his mouth full—'it is that I have by the merest accident lighted upon a matter of political importance.'

The General nodded, and held his wine up to the light.

'There are matters of much political importance,' he said, 'in the air just now.'

'A plot,' continued Concha, 'spreading over all Spain; the devil is surely in it, and I know the Carlists are. A plot, believe me, to assassinate and rob and kidnap.'

'Yes,' said the General with his tolerant little smile. 'Yes, my dear Padre. Some men are so bloodthirsty; is it not so?'

'This plot is directed against the little Queen; against the Queen Regent; against many who are notable Royalists occupying high posts in the Government or the army.'

He glanced at Estella, and then looked meaningly at the General, who could scarcely fail to comprehend. 'Let us deal with the Queen and the Queen Regent,' said Vincente; 'the others are probably able to take care of themselves.'

'None can guard himself against assassination.'

The General seemed for a moment inclined to dispute this statement, but shrugged his shoulders and finally passed it by.

'The Queen,' he said. 'What of her?'

In response, Concha took a newspaper from his pocket and spread it out on the table. After a brief search up and down the ill-printed columns, he found the desired paragraph, and read aloud:

'The Queen is in Madrid. The Queen Regent journeys from Seville to rejoin her daughter in the capital, prosecuting her journey by easy stages and accompanied by a small guard. Her Majesty sleeps at Ciudad Real to-night, and at Toledo to-morrow night.'

'This,' said Concha, folding the newspaper, 'is a Carlist and revolutionary rag whose readers are scarcely likely to be interested for a good motive in the movements of the Queen Regent.'

'True, my dear Padre—true,' admitted Vincente, half reluctantly.

'Many kiss hands they would fain see chopped off. In the streets and on the Plaza I have seen many reading this newspaper and talking over it with unusual interest. Like a bad lawyer, I am giving the confirmation of the argument before the argument itself.'

'No matter—no matter.'

'Ah! but we have no time to do things ill or carelessly,' said the priest. 'My story is a long one, but I will tell it as quickly as I can.'

'Take your time,' urged the General soothingly. 'This great plot, you say, which is to spread over all Spain—'

'Is for to-morrow night, my friend.'



CHAPTER XXV. SWORDCRAFT.



'Rien n'est plus courageux qu'un coeur patient, rien n'est plus sur de soi qu'un esprit doux.'

The General set down his glass, and a queer light came into his eyes, usually so smiling and pleasant.

'Ah! Then you are right, my friend. Tell us your story as quickly as possible.'

'It appears,' said Concha, 'that there has been in progress for many months a plot to assassinate the Queen Regent and to seize the person of the little Queen, expelling her from Spain, and bringing in, not Don Carlos, who is a spent firework, but a Republic—a more dangerous firework, that usually bursts in the hands of those that light it. This plot has been finally put into shape by a letter—'

He paused, tapped on the table with his bony fingers, and glanced at Estella.

'A letter which has been going the round of all the malcontents in the Peninsula. Each faction-leader, to show that he has read it and agrees to obey its commands, initials the letter. It has then been returned to an intermediary, who sends it to the next—never by post, because the post is watched—always by hand, and usually by the hand of a person innocent of its contents.'

'Yes,' murmured the General absently, and there was a queer little smile on Estella's lips.

'To think,' cried Concha, with a sudden fire less surprising in Spain than in England, 'to think that we have all seen it—have touched it! Name of a saint! I had it under my hand in the hotel at Algeciras, and I left it on the table. And now it has been the round, and all the initials are placed upon it, and it is for to- morrow night.'

'Where have you learnt this?' asked the General in a voice that made Estella look at him. She had never seen him as his enemies had seen him, and even they confessed that he was always visible enough in action. Perhaps there was another man behind the personality of this deprecating, pleasant-spoken little sybarite—a man who only appeared (oh rara avis!) when he was wanted.

'No matter,' replied Concha, in a voice as hard and sharp.

'No; after all, it is of no matter, so long as your information is reliable.'

'You may stake your life on that,' said Concha, and remembered the words ever after. 'It has been decided to make this journey from Seville to Madrid the opportunity of assassinating the Queen Regent.'

'It will not be the first time they have tried,' put in the General.

'No. But this time they will succeed, and it is to be here—to- morrow night—in Toledo. After the Queen Regent's death, and in the confusion that will supervene, the little Queen will disappear, and then upon the rubbish-heap will spring up the mushrooms as they did in France; and this rubbish-heap, like the other, will foul the whole air of Europe.'

He shook his head pessimistically till the long, wispy grey hair waved from side to side, and his left hand, resting on the wrist- bone on the table, made an indescribable gesture that showed a foetid air tainted by darksome growths.

There was a silence in the room broken by no outside sound but the chink of champed bits as the horses stood in their traces below. Indeed, the city of Toledo seemed strangely still this evening, and the very air had a sense of waiting in it. The priest sat and looked at his lifelong friend, his furrowed face the incarnation of cynical hopelessness. 'What is, is worst,' he seemed to say. His yellow, wise old eyes watched the quick face with the air of one who, having posed an insoluble problem, awaits with a sarcastic humour the admission of failure.

General Vincente, who had just finished his wine, wiped his moustache delicately with his table-napkin. He was thinking— quickly, systematically, as men learn to think under fire. Perhaps, indeed, he had the thoughts half matured in his mind—as the greatest general the world has seen confessed that he ever had—that he was never taken quite by surprise. Vincente smiled as he thought: a habit he had acquired on the field, where a staff, and perhaps a whole army, took its cue from his face and read the turn of fortune there. Then he looked up straight at Estella, who was watching him.

'Can you start on a journey, now—in five minutes?' he asked.

'Yes,' she answered, rising and going towards the door.

'Have you a white mantilla among your travelling things?' he asked again.

Estella turned at the doorway and nodded. 'Yes,' she said again.

'Then take it with you, and a cloak, but no heavy luggage.'

Estella closed the door.

'You can come with us?' said the General to Concha, half command, half interrogation.

'If you wish it.'

'You may be wanted. I have a plan—a little plan,' and he gave a short laugh. 'It may succeed.'

He went to a side table, where some cold meats still stood, and, taking up a small chicken daintily with a fork, he folded it in a napkin.

'It will be Saturday,' he said simply, 'before we have reached our journey's end, and you will be hungry. Have you a pocket?'

'Has a priest a pocket?' asked Concha, with a grim humour, and he slipped the provisions into the folds of his cassock. He was still eating a biscuit hurriedly.

'I believe you have no money?' said the General suddenly.

'I have only enough,' admitted the old man, 'to take me back to Ronda; whither, by the way, my duty calls me.'

'I think not. Your Master can spare you for a while; my mistress cannot do without you.'

At this moment Estella came back into the room ready for her journey. The girl had changed of late. Her face had lost a little roundness and had gained exceedingly in expression. Her eyes, too, were different. That change had come to them which comes to all women between the ages of twenty and thirty, quite irrespective of their state. A certain restlessness, or a quiet content, are what one usually sees in a woman's face. Estella's eyes wore that latter look, which seems to indicate a knowledge of the meaning of life and a contentment that it should be no different.

Vincente was writing at the table.

'We shall want help,' he said, without looking up. 'I am sending for a good man.'

And he smiled as he shook the small sand-castor over the paper.

'May one ask,' said Concha, 'where we are going?'

'We are going to Ciudad Real, my dear friend, since you are so curious. But we shall come back—we shall come back.'

He was writing another despatch as he spoke, and at a sign from him Estella went to the door and clapped her hands, the only method of summoning a servant in general use at that time in Spain. The call was answered by an orderly, who stood at attention in the doorway for a full five minutes while the General wrote further orders in his neat, small calligraphy. There were half a dozen letters in all—curt military despatches without preamble and without mercy. For this soldier conducted military matters in a singularly domestic way, planning his campaigns by the fireside and bringing about the downfall of an enemy while sitting in his daughter's drawing-room. Indeed, Estella's blotting-book bore the impress of more than one death warrant or an order as good as such, written casually on her stationery and with her pen.

'Will you have the goodness to despatch these at once?' was the message taken by the orderly to the General's aide-de-camp, and the gallopers, who were always in readiness, smiled as they heard the modest request.

'It will be pleasant to travel in the cool of the evening, provided that one guards against a chill,' said the General, making his final preparations. 'I require but a moment to speak to my faithful aide- de-camp, and then we embark.'

The moon was rising as the carriage rattled across the Bridge of Alcantara, and Larralde, taking the air between Wamba's Gate and the little fort that guards the entrance to the city, recognised the equipage as it passed him. He saw also the outline of Concha's figure in the darkest corner of the carriage, with his back to the horses, his head bowed in meditation. Estella he saw and recognised, while two mounted attendants clattering in the rear of the carriage testified by their presence to the fact that the General had taken the road again.

'It is well,' said Larralde to himself. 'They are all going back to Ronda, and Julia will be rid of their influence. Ronda will serve as well as Toledo so far as Vincente is concerned. But I will wait to make sure that they are not losing sight of him.'

So Senor Larralde, cloaked to the eyebrows, leant gracefully against the wall, and, like many another upon the bridge after that breathless day, drank in the cool air that rose from the river. Presently—indeed, before the sound of the distant wheels was quite lost—two horsemen, cloaked and provided with such light luggage as the saddle can accommodate, rode leisurely through the gateway and up the incline that makes a short cut to the great road running southward to Ciudad Real. Larralde gave a little nod of self- confidence and satisfaction, as one who, having conceived and built up a great scheme, is pleased to see each component part of it act independently, and slip into its place.

The General's first thought was for Estella's comfort, and he utilised the long hill which they had to ascend on leaving the town to make such arrangements as space would allow for their common ease.

'You must sleep, my child,' he said. 'We cannot hope to reach Ciudad Real before midday to-morrow, and it is as likely as not that we shall have but a few hours' rest there.'

And Estella, who had travelled vast distances over vile roads so long as her memory went back, who had never known what it is to live in a country that is at peace, leant back in her corner and closed her eyes. Had she really been disposed to sleep, however, she could scarcely have done it, for the General's solicitude manifested itself by a hundred little devices for her greater repose. For her comfort he made Concha move.

'An old traveller like you must shift for yourself,' he said gaily.

'No need to seek shelter for an old ox,' replied Concha, moving into the other corner, where he carefully unfolded his pocket- handkerchief and laid it over his face, where his long nose, protruding, caused it to fall into fantastic folds. He clasped his hands upon his hat, which lay on his knee, and, leaning back, presently began to snore gently and regularly—a peaceful, sleep- inducing sound, and an excellent example. The General, whose sword seemed to take up half the carriage, still watched Estella, and if the air made her mantilla flutter, drew up the window with the solicitude of a lover and a maternal noiselessness. Then, with one hand on hers, and the other grasping his sword, he leant back, but did not close his eyes.

Thus they travelled on through the luminous night. The roads were neither worse nor better than they are to-day in Spain—than they were in England in the Middle Ages—and their way lay over the hill ranges that lie between the watersheds of the Tagus and the Guadiana. At times they passed through well-tended valleys, where corn and olives and vines seemed to grow on the same soil, but for the greater part of the night they ascended and descended the upper slopes, where herds of goats, half awakened as they slept in a ring about their guardian, looked at them with startled eyes. The shepherds and goatherds, who, like those of old, lay cloaked upon the ground, and tended their flocks by night, did not trouble to raise their heads.

Concha alone slept, for the General had a thousand thoughts that kept him awake and bright-eyed, while Estella knew from her father's manner and restlessness that these were no small events that now stirred Spain, and seemed to close men's mouths, so that near friends distrusted one another, and brother was divided against brother. Indeed, others were on the road that night, and horsemen passed the heavy carriage from time to time.

In the early morning a change of horses was effected at a large inn near the summit of a pass above Malagon, and here an orderly, who seemed to recognise the General, was climbing into the saddle as the Vincentes quitted their carriage and passed into the common room of the venta for a hasty cup of coffee.

'It is the Queen's courier,' said the innkeeper grandly, 'who takes the road before her Majesty in order to secure horses.'

'Ah,' said the General, breaking his bread and dropping it into his cup. 'Is that so? The Queen Regent, you mean?'

'Queen or Queen Regent, she requires four horses this evening, Excellency—that is all my concern.'

'True, my friend; true. That is well said. And the horses will be forthcoming, no doubt.'

'They will be forthcoming,' said the man. 'And the Excellency's carriage is ready.'

In the early morning light they drove on, now descending towards the great valley of the Guadiana, and at midday, as Vincente had foreseen, gained a sight of the ancient city of Ciudad Real lying amid trees below them. Ciudad Real is less interesting than its name, and there is little that is royal about its dirty streets and ill-kept houses. No one gave great heed to the travelling-carriage, for this is a great centre where travellers journeying east or west, north or south, must needs pause for a change of horses. At the inn there were vacant rooms, and that hasty welcome accorded to the traveller at wayside houses where none stay longer than they can help.

'No,' said the landlord, in answer to the General's query. 'We are not busy, though we expect a lady who will pass the hour of the siesta here and then proceed northward.'



CHAPTER XXVI. WOMANCRAFT.



'Il est rare que la tete des rois soit faite a la mesure de leur couronne.'

In the best room of the inn where Vincente and his tired companions sought a few hours' rest there sat alone, and in thought, a woman of middle age. Somewhat stout, she yet had that air which arouses the attention without being worthy of the name of beauty. This lady had doubtless swayed men's hearts by a word or a glance, for she still carried herself with assurance, and a hundred little details of her dress would have told another woman that she still desired to please. She wore a white mantilla.

The hour of the siesta was over, and after the great heat of the day a cool air was swinging down on the bosom of the river to the parched lowlands. It stirred the leaves of a climbing heliotrope which encircled the open windows, and wafted into the ill-furnished room a scent of stable-yard and dust.

The lady, sitting with her chin resting in the palm of her small white hand, seemed to have lately roused herself from sleep, and now had the expectant air of one who awaits a carriage and is about to set out on a long journey. Her eyes were dark and tired-looking, and their expression was not that of a good woman. A sensual man is usually weak, but women are different; and this face, with its faded complexion and tired eyes, this woman of the majestic presence and beautiful hands, was both strong and sensual. This, in a word, was a Queen who never forgot that she was a woman. As it was said of the Princess Christina, so it has been spoken of the Queen, that many had killed themselves for hopeless love of her. For this was the most dangerous of the world's creatures—a royal coquette. Such would our own Queen Bess have been had not God, for the good of England, given her a plain face and an ungainly form. For surely the devil is in it when a woman can command both love and men. Queen Christina, since the death of a husband who was years older than herself (and, as some say, before that historic event), had played a woman's game with that skill which men only half recognise, and had played it with the additional incentive that behind her insatiable vanity lay the heavier stake of a crown.

She was not the first to turn the strong current of man's passion to her own deliberate gain—nay, ninety-nine out of a hundred women do it. But the majority only play for a suburban villa and a few hundred pounds a year; Queen Christina of Spain handled her cards for a throne and the continuance of an ill-starred dynasty.

As she sat in the hotel chamber in Ciudad Real—that forlornest of royal cities—her face wore the pettish look of one who, having passed through great events, having tasted of great passions and moved amid the machinery of life and death, finds the ordinary routine of existence intolerably irksome. Many faces wear such a look in this country; every second beautiful face in London has it. And these women—heaven help them—find the morning hours dull, because every afternoon has not its great event and every evening the excitement of a social function.

The Queen was travelling incognita, and that fact alone robbed her progress of a sense of excitement. She had to do without the shout of the multitude—the passing admiration of the man in the street. She knew that she was yet many hours removed from Madrid, where she had admirers, and the next best possession—enemies. Ciudad Real was intolerably dull and provincial. A servant knocked at the door.

'General Vincente, your Majesty, craves the favour of a moment.'

'Ah!' exclaimed the Queen, the light returning to her eyes, a faint colour flushing her cheek. 'In five minutes I will receive him.'

And there is no need to say how the Queen spent those minutes.

'Your Majesty,' said the General, bending over her hand, which he touched with his lips, 'I have news of the greatest importance.'

The suggestion of a scornful smile flickered for a moment in the royal eyes. It was surely news enough for any man that she was a woman—beautiful still—possessing still that intangible and fatal gift of pleasing. The woman slowly faded from her eyes as they rested on the great soldier's face, and the Queen it was who, with a gracious gesture, bade him be seated. But the General remained standing. He alone perhaps of all the men who had to deal with her- -of all those military puppets with whom she played her royal game— had never crossed that vague boundary which many had overstepped to their own inevitable undoing.

'It concerns your Majesty's life,' said Vincente bluntly, and calm in the certainty of his own theory that good blood, whether it flow in the veins of man or woman, assuredly carries a high courage.

'Ah!' said the Queen Regent, whose humour still inclined towards those affairs which interested her before the affairs of State. 'But with men such as you about me, my dear General, what need I fear?'

'Treachery, Madame,' he answered, with his sudden smile and a bow. 'Treachery.'

She frowned. When a Queen stoops to dalliance a subject must not be too practical.

'Ah! What is it that concerns my life? Another plot?' she inquired shortly.

'Another plot, but one of greater importance than those that exist in the republican cafes of every town in your Majesty's kingdom. This is a widespread conspiracy, and I fear that many powerful persons are concerned in it; but that, your Majesty, is not my department nor concern.'

'What is your concern, General?' she asked, looking at him over her fan.

'To save your Majesty's life to-night.'

'To-night!' she echoed, her coquetry gone.

'To-night.'

'But how and where?'

'Assassination, Madame, in Toledo. You are three hours late in your journey. But all Toledo will be astir awaiting you, though it be till dawn.'

The Queen Regent closed her fan slowly. She was, as the rapid events of her reign and regency have proved, one of those women who rise to the occasion.

'Then one must act at once,' she said.

The General bowed.

'What have you done?' she asked.

'I have sent to Madrid for a regiment that I know; they are as my own children. I have killed so many of them that the remainder love me. I have travelled from Toledo to meet your Majesty on the road, or here.'

'And what means have you of preventing this thing?'

'I have brought the means with me, Madame.'

'Troops?' asked the Queen doubtfully, knowing where the canker-worm lay hidden.

'A woman and a priest, Madame.'

'And—'

'And I propose that your Majesty journey to Madrid in my carriage, attended only by my orderlies, by way of Aranjuez. You will be safe in Madrid, where the Queen will require her mother's care.'

'Yes. And the remainder of your plan?'

'I will travel back to Toledo in your Majesty's carriage with the woman and the priest and your bodyguard—just as your Majesty is in the habit of travelling. Toledo wants a fight; nothing else will satisfy them. They shall have it—before dawn. The very best I have to offer them.'

And General Vincente gave a queer, cheery little laugh, as if he were arranging a practical joke.

'But the fight will be round my carriage—'

'Possibly. I would rather that it took place in the Calle de la Ciudad, or around the Casa del Ayuntamiento, where your Majesty is expected to sleep to-night.'

'And these persons—this woman who risks her life to save mine—who is she?'

'My daughter,' answered the General gravely.

'She is here—in the hotel now?'

The General bowed.

'I have heard that she is beautiful,' said the Queen, with a quick glance towards her companion. 'How is it that you have never brought her to Court, you who come so seldom yourself?'

Vincente made no reply.

'However, bring her to me now.'

'She has travelled far, Madame, and is not prepared for presentation to her Queen.'

'This is no time for formalities. She is about to run a great risk for my sake, a greater risk than I could ever ask her to run. Present her as one woman to another, General.'

But General Vincente bowed gravely and made no reply. The colour slowly rose to the Queen Regent's face—a dull red. She opened her fan, closed it again, and sat with furtive downcast eyes. Suddenly she looked up and met his gaze.

'You refuse,' she said, with an insolent air of indifference. 'You think that I am unworthy to—meet your daughter.'

'I think only of the exigency of the moment,' was his reply. 'Every minute we lose is a gain to our enemies. If our trick is discovered Aranjuez will be no safer for your Majesty than is Toledo. You must be safely in Madrid before it is discovered in Toledo that you have taken the other route, and that the person they have mistaken for you is in reality my daughter.'

'But she may be killed,' exclaimed the Queen.

'We may all be killed, Madame,' he replied lightly. 'I beg that you will start at once in my carriage with your chaplain and the holy lady who is doubtless travelling with you.'

The Queen glanced sharply at him. It was known that although her own life was anything but exemplary, she loved to associate with women who, under the cloak of religion and an austere virtue, intrigued with all parties and condoned the Queen's offences.

'I cannot understand you,' she said, with that sudden lapse into familiarity which had led to the undoing of more than one ambitious courtier. 'You seem to worship the crown and despise the head it rests on.'

'So long as I serve your Majesty faithfully—'

'But you have no right to despise me,' she interrupted passionately.

'If I despised you, should I be here now—should I be doing you this service?'

'I do not know. I tell you I do not understand you.'

And the Queen looked hard at the man who, for this very reason, interested one who had all her life dealt and intrigued with men of obvious motive and unblushing ambition.

So strong is a ruling passion that even in sight of death (for the Queen Regent knew that Spain was full of her enemies and rendered callous to bloodshed by a long war) vanity was alert in this woman's breast. Even while General Vincente, that unrivalled strategist, detailed his plans, she kept harking back to the question that puzzled her, and but half listened to his instructions.

Those desirous of travelling without attracting attention in Spain are wise to time their arrival and departure for the afternoon. At this time, while the sun is yet hot, all shutters are closed, and the business of life, the haggling in the market-place, the bustle of the barrack yard, the leisurely labour of the fields, are suspended. It was about four o'clock—indeed, the city clocks were striking that hour—when the two carriages in the inn yard at Ciudad Real were made ready for the road. Father Concha, who never took an active part in passing incidents while his old friend and comrade was near, sat in a shady corner of the patio and smoked a cigarette. An affable ostler had in vain endeavoured to engage him in conversation. Two small children had begged of him, and now he was left in meditative solitude.

'In a short three minutes,' said the ostler, 'and the Excellencies can then depart. In which direction, reverendo, if one may ask?'

'One may always ask, my friend,' replied the priest. 'Indeed, the holy books are of opinion that it cannot be overdone. That chin strap is too tight.'

'Ah, I see the reverendo knows a horse.'

'And an ass,' added Concha.

At this moment the General emerged from the shadow of the staircase, which was open and of stone. He was followed by Estella, as it would appear, and they hurried across the sunlighted patio, the girl carrying her fan to screen her face.

'Are you rested, my child?' asked Concha at the carriage door.

The lady lowered the fan for a moment and met his eyes. A quick look of surprise flashed across Concha's face and he half bowed. Then he repeated his question in a louder voice:

'Are you rested, my child, after our long journey?'

'Thank you, my father, yes.'

And the ostler watched with open-mouthed interest.

The other carriage had been drawn up to that side of the courtyard where the open stairway was, and here also the bustle of departure and a hurrying female form, anxious to gain the shade of the vehicle, were discernible. It was all done so quickly, with such a military completeness of detail, that the carriages had passed through the great doorway and the troopers—merely a general's escort—had clattered after them before the few onlookers had fully realised that these were surely travellers of some note.

The ostler hurried to the street to watch them go.

'They are going to the north,' he said to himself, as he saw the carriages turn in the direction of the river and the ancient Puerta de Toledo. 'They go to the north—and assuredly the General has come to conduct her to Toledo.'

Strange to say, although it was the hour of rest, many shutters in the narrow street were open, and more than one peeping face was turned towards the departing carriages.



CHAPTER XXVII. A NIGHT JOURNEY.



'Let me but bear your love, I'll bear your cares.'

At the cross-roads on the northern side of the river the two carriages parted company, the dusty equipage of General Vincente taking the road to Aranjuez that leads to the right and mounts steadily through olive groves. The other carriage—which, despite its plain and sombre colours, still had an air of grandeur and almost of royalty, with its great wheels and curved springs—turned to the left and headed for Toledo. Behind it clattered a dozen troopers, picked men, with huge swinging swords and travel-stained clothes. The dust rose in a cloud under the horses' feet and hovered in the sullen air. There was no breath of wind, and the sun shone through a faint haze which seemed only to add to the heat.

Concha lowered the window and thrust forward his long inquiring nose.

'What is it?' asked the General.

'Thunder—I smell it. We shall have a storm to-night.' He looked out mopping his brow. 'Name of a saint! how thick the air is.'

'It will be clear before the morning,' said Vincente the optimist.

And the carriage rattled on towards the city of strife, where Jew, Goth and Roman, Moor and Inquisitor, have all had their day. Estella was silent, drooping with fatigue. The General alone seemed unmoved and heedless of the heat—a man of steel, as bright and ready as his own sword.

There is no civilised country in the world so bare as Spain, and no part of the Peninsula so sparsely populated as the Castiles. The road ran for the most part over brown and barren uplands, with here and there a valley where wheat and olives and vineyards graced the lower slopes. The crying need of all nature was for shade; for the ilex is a small-leaved tree giving a thin shadow with no cool depths amid the branches. All was brown and barren and parched. The earth seemed to lie fainting and awaiting the rain. The horses trotted with extended necks and open mouths, their coats wet with sweat. The driver—an Andalusian, with a face like a Moorish pirate—kept encouraging them with word and rein, jerking and whipping only when they seemed likely to fall from sheer fatigue and sun-weariness. At last the sun began to set in a glow like that of a great furnace, and the reflection lay over the land in ruddy splendour.

'Ah!' said Concha, looking out, 'it will be a great storm—and it will soon come.'

Vast columns of cloud were climbing up from the sunset into a sullen sky, thrown up in spreading mares' tails by a hundred contrary gusts of wind, as if there were explosive matter in the great furnace of the west.

'Nature is always on my side,' said Vincente, with his chuckling laugh. He sat, watch in hand, noting the passage of the kilometres.

At last the sun went down behind a distant line of hill—the watershed of the Tagus—and immediately the air was cool. Without stopping, the driver wrapped his cloak round him, and the troopers followed his example. A few minutes later a cold breeze sprung up suddenly, coming from the north and swirling the dust high in the air.

'It is well,' said Vincente, who assuredly saw good in everything; 'the wind comes first, and therefore the storm will be short.'

As he spoke the thunder rolled among the hills.

'It is almost like guns,' he added, with a queer look in his eyes suggestive of some memory.

Then, preceded by a rushing wind, the rain came, turning to hail, and stopping suddenly in a breathless pause, only to recommence with a renewed and splashing vigour. Concha drew up the windows, and the water streamed down them in a continuous ripple. Estella, who had been sleeping, roused herself. She looked fresh, and her eyes were bright with excitement. She had brought home with her from her English school that air of freshness and a dainty vigour which makes Englishwomen different from all other women in the world, and an English schoolgirl one of the brightest, purest, and sweetest of God's creatures.

Concha looked at her with his grim smile—amused at a youthfulness which could enable her to fall asleep at such a time and wake up so manifestly refreshed.

A halt was made at a roadside venta, where the travellers partook of a hurried meal. Darkness came on before the horses were sufficiently rested, and by the light of an ill-smelling lamp the General had his inevitable cup of coffee. The rain had now ceased, but the sky remained overcast and the night was a dark one. The travellers took their places in the carriage, and again the monotony of the road, the steady trot of the horses, the sing-song words of encouragement of their driver, monopolised the thoughts of sleepy minds. It seemed to Estella that life was all journeys, and that she had been on the road for years. The swing of the carriage, the little varieties of the road, but served to add to her somnolence. She only half woke up when, about ten o'clock, a halt was made to change horses, and the General quitted the carriage for a few minutes to talk earnestly with two horsemen, who were apparently awaiting their arrival. No time was lost here, and the carriage went forward with an increased escort. The two new-comers rode by the carriage, one on either side.

When Estella woke up, the moon had risen and the carriage was making slow progress up a long hill. She noticed that a horseman was on either side, close by the carriage window.

'Who is that?' she asked.

'Conyngham,' replied the General.

'You sent for him?' inquired Estella, in a hard voice.

'Yes.'

Estella was wakeful enough now, and sat upright, looking straight in front of her. At times she glanced towards the window, which was now open, where the head of Conyngham's charger appeared. The horse trotted steadily, with a queer jerk of the head and that willingness to do his best which gains for horses a place in the hearts of all who have to do with them.

'Will there be fighting?' asked Estella suddenly.

The General shrugged his shoulders.

'One cannot call it fighting. There may be a disturbance in the streets,' he answered.

Concha, quiet in his corner, with his back to the horses, watched the girl, and saw that her eyes were wide with anxiety now—quite suddenly. She, who had never thought of fear till this moment. She moved uneasily in her seat, fidgeting as the young ever do when troubled. It is only with years that we learn to bear a burden quietly.

'Who is that?' she asked shortly, pointing to the other window, which was closed.

'Concepcion Vara—Conyngham's servant,' replied the General, who for some reason was inclined to curtness in his speech.

They were approaching Toledo, and passed through a village from time to time, where the cafes were still lighted up, and people seemed to be astir in the shadow of the houses. At last, in the main thoroughfare of a larger village within a stage of Toledo, a final halt was made to change horses. The street, dimly lighted by a couple of oil lamps swinging from gibbets at the corners of a crossroad, seemed to be peopled by shadows surreptitiously lurking in doorways. There was a false air of quiet in the houses, and peeping eyes looked out from behind the bars that covered every window, for even modern Spanish houses are barred as if for a siege, and in the ancient villages every man's house is indeed his castle.

The driver had left the box, and seemed to be having some trouble with the ostlers and stable-helps; for his voice could be heard raised in anger and urging them to greater haste.

Conyngham, motionless in the saddle, touched his horse with his heel, advancing a few paces so as to screen the window. Concepcion, on the other side, did the same, so that the travellers in the interior of the vehicle saw but the dark shape of the horses and the long cloaks of their riders. They could perceive Conyngham quickly throw back his cape in order to have a free hand. Then there came the sound of scuffling feet and an indefinable sense of strife in the very air.

'But we will see—we will see who is in the carriage!' cried a shrill voice, and a hoarse shout from many bibulous throats confirmed the desire.

'Quick!' said Conyngham's voice. 'Quick—take your reins—never mind the lamps.'

And the carriage swayed as the man leapt to his place. Estella made a movement to look out of the window, but Concha had stood up against it, opposing his broad back alike to curious glances or a knife or a bullet. At the other window the General, better versed in such matters, held the leather cushion upon which he had been sitting across the sash. With his left hand he restrained Estella.

'Keep still,' he said. 'Sit back. Conyngham can take care of himself.'

The carriage swayed forward, and a volley of stones rattled on it like hail. It rose jerkily on one side, and bumped over some obstacle.

'One who has his quietus,' said Concha; 'these royal carriages are heavy.'

The horses were galloping now. Concha sat down rubbing his back. Conyngham was galloping by the window, and they could see his spur flashing in the moonlight as he used it. The reins hung loose, and both his hands were employed elsewhere, for he had a man half across the saddle in front of him, who held to him with one arm thrown round his neck, while the other was raised and a gleam of steel was at the end of it. Concepcion, from the other side, threw a knife over the roof of the carriage—he could hit a cork at twenty paces but he missed this time.

The General, from within, leant across Estella, sword in hand, with gleaming eyes. But Conyngham seemed to have got the hold he desired, for his assailant came suddenly swinging over the horse's neck, and one of his flying heels crashed through the window by Concha's head, making that ecclesiastic swear like any layman. The carriage was lifted on one side again, and bumped heavily.

'Another,' said Concha, looking for broken glass in the folds of his cassock. 'That is a pretty trick of Conyngham's.'

'And the man is a horseman,' added the General, sheathing his sword- -'a horseman. It warms the heart to see it.'

Then he leant out of the window and asked if any were hurt.

'I am afraid, Excellency, that I hurt one,' answered Vara. 'Where the neck joins the shoulder. It is a pretty spot for the knife— nothing to turn a point.'

He rubbed a sulphur match on the leg of his trouser, and lighted a cigarette as he rode along.

'On our side no accidents,' continued Vara, with a careless grandeur, 'unless the reverendo received a kick in the face.'

'The reverendo received a stone in the small of the back,' growled Concha pessimistically, 'where there was already a corner of lumbago.'

Conyngham, standing in his stirrups, was looking back. A man lay motionless on the road, and beyond, at the cross-roads, another was riding up a hill to the right at a hand gallop.

'It is the road to Madrid,' said Concepcion, noting the direction of the Englishman's glance.

The General, leaning out of the carriage window, was also looking back anxiously.

'They have sent a messenger to Madrid, Excellency, with the news that the Queen is on the road to Toledo,' said Concepcion.

'It is well,' answered Vincente, with a laugh.

As they journeyed, although it was nearly midnight, there appeared from time to time, and for the most part in the neighbourhood of a village, one who seemed to have been awaiting their passage, and immediately set out on foot or horseback by one of the shorter bridle-paths that abound in Spain. No one of these spies escaped the notice of Concepcion, whose training amid the mountains of Andalusia had sharpened his eyesight and added keenness to every sense.

'It is like a cat walking down an alley full of dogs,' he muttered.

At last the lights of Toledo hove in sight, and across the river came the sound of the city clocks tolling the hour.

'Midnight,' said Concha. 'And all respectable folk are in their beds. At night all cats are grey.'

No one heeded him. Estella was sitting upright, bright-eyed and wakeful. The General looked out of the window at every moment. Across the river they could see lights moving, and many houses that had been illuminated were suddenly dark.

'See,' said the General, leaning out of the window and speaking to Conyngham, 'they have heard the sound of our wheels.'

At the farther end of the Bridge of Alcantara, on the road which now leads to the railway station, two horsemen were stationed, hidden in the shadow of the trees that border the pathway.

'Those should be Guardias Civiles,' said Concepcion, who had studied the ways of those gentry all his life. 'But they are not. They have horses that have never been taught to stand still.'

As he spoke the men vanished, moving noiselessly in the thick dust which lay on the Madrid road.

The General saw them go—and smiled. These men carried word to their fellows in Madrid for the seizure of the little Queen. But before they could reach the capital the Queen Regent herself would be there—a woman in a thousand, of inflexible nerve, of infinite resource.

The carriage rattled over the narrow bridge which rings hollow to the sound of wheels. It passed under the gate that Wamba built and up the tree-girt incline to the city. The streets were deserted, and no window showed a light. A watchman in his shelter, at the corner by the synagogue, peered at them over the folds of his cloak, and noting the clank of scabbard against spur, paid no further heed to a traveller who took the road with such outward signs of authority.

'It is still enough—and quiet,' said Concha, looking out.

'As quiet as a watching cat,' replied Vincente.



CHAPTER XXVIII. THE CITY OF STRIFE.



'What lot is mine Whose foresight preaches peace, my heart so slow To feel it!'

Through these quiet streets the party clattered noisily enough, for the rain had left the rounded stones slippery, and the horses were too tired for a sure step. There were no lights at the street corners, for all had been extinguished at midnight, and the only glimmer of a lamp that relieved the darkness was shining through the stained-glass windows of the Cathedral, where the sacred oil burnt night and day.

The Queen was evidently expected at the Casa del Ayuntamiento, for at the approach of the carriage the great doors were thrown open and a number of servants appeared in the patio, which was but dimly lighted. By the General's orders the small body-guard passed through the doors, which were then closed, instead of continuing their way to the barracks in the Alcazar.

This Casa del Ayuntamiento stands, as many travellers know, in the Plaza of the same name, and faces the Cathedral, which is without doubt the oldest, as it assuredly is the most beautiful, church in the world. The mansion-house of Toledo, in addition to some palatial halls which are of historic renown, has several suites of rooms used from time to time by great personages passing through or visiting the city. The house itself is old, as we esteem age in England, while in comparison to the buildings around it it is modern. Built, however, at a period when beauty of architecture was secondary to power of resistance, the palace is strong enough, and General Vincente smiled happily as the great doors were closed. He was the last to look out into the streets and across the little Plaza del Ayuntamiento, which was deserted and looked peaceful enough in the light of a waning moon.

The carriage door was opened by a lacquey, and Conyngham gave Estella his hand. All the servants bowed as she passed up the stairs, her face screened by the folds of her white mantilla. There was a queer hush in this great house, and in the manner of the servants. The cathedral clock rang out the half-hour. The General led the way to the room on the first floor that overlooks the Plaza del Ayuntamiento. It is a vast apartment, hung with tapestries and pictures such as men travel many miles to see. The windows, which are large in proportion to the height of the room, open upon a stone balcony, which runs the length of the house and looks down upon the Plaza and across this to the great facade of the Cathedral. Candles, hurriedly lighted, made the room into a very desert of shadows. At the far end, a table was spread with cold meats and lighted by high silver candelabra.

'Ah!' said Concha, going towards the supper-table.

Estella turned, and for the first time met Conyngham's eyes. His face startled her. It was so grave.

'Were you hurt?' she asked sharply.

'Not this time, senorita.'

Then she turned with a sudden laugh towards her father. 'Did I play my part well?' she asked.

'Yes, my child.' And even he was grave.

'Unless I am mistaken,' he continued, glancing at the shuttered windows, 'we have only begun our task.' He was reading, as he spoke, some despatches which a servant had handed to him.

'There is one advantage in a soldier's life,' he said, smiling at Conyngham, 'which is not, I think, sufficiently recognised—namely, that one's duty is so often clearly defined. At the present moment it is a question of keeping up the deception we have practised upon these good people of Toledo sufficiently long to enable the Queen Regent to reach Madrid. In order to make certain of this we must lead the people to understand that the Queen is in this house until, at least, daylight. Given so much advantage, I think that her Majesty can reach the capital an hour before any messenger from Toledo. Two horsemen quitted the Bridge of Alcantara as we crossed it, riding towards Madrid; but they will not reach the capital—I have seen to that.'

He paused and walked to one of the long windows, which he opened. The outer shutters remained closed, and he did not unbar them, but stood listening.

'All is still as yet,' he said, returning to the table, where Father Concha was philosophically cutting up a cold chicken. 'That is a good idea of yours,' he said. 'We may all require our full forces of mind and body before the dawn.'

He drew forward a chair, and Estella, obeying his gesture, sat down and so far controlled her feelings as to eat a little.

'Do queens always feed on old birds such as this?' asked Concha discontentedly; and Vincente, spreading out his napkin, laughed with gay good humour.

'Before the dawn,' he said to Conyngham, 'we may all be great men, and the good Concha here on the high road to a bishopric.'

'He would rather be in bed,' muttered the priest, with his mouth full.

It was a queer scene, such as we only act in real life. The vast room, with its gorgeous hangings, the flickering candles, the table spread with delicacies, and the strange party seated at it—Concha eating steadily, the General looking round with his domesticated little smile, Estella with a new light in her eyes and a new happiness on her face, Conyngham, a giant among these southerners, in his dust-laden uniform—all made up a picture that none forgot.

'They will probably attack this place,' said the General, pouring out a glass of wine; 'but the house is a strong one. I cannot rely on the regiments stationed at Toledo, and have sent to Madrid for cavalry. There is nothing like cavalry—in the streets. We can stand a siege—till the dawn.'

He turned, looking over his shoulder towards the door; for he had heard a footstep unnoticed by the others. It was Concepcion Vara who came into the room, coatless, his face grey with dust, adding a startling and picturesque incongruity to the scene.

'Pardon, Excellency,' he said, with that easy grasp of the situation which always made an utterly unabashed smuggler of him, 'but there is one in the house whom I think his Excellency should speak with.'

'Ah!'

'The Senorita Barenna.'

The General rose from the table.

'How did she get in here?' he asked sharply.

'By the side door in the Calle de la Ciudad. The keeper of that door, Excellency, is a mule. The senorita forced him to admit her. The sex can do so much,' he added, with a tolerant shrug of the shoulders.

'And the other—this Larralde?'

Concepcion raised his hand with outspread fingers, and shook it slowly from side to side from the wrist, with the palm turned towards his interlocutor—a gesture which seemed to indicate that the subject was an unpleasant, almost an indelicate, one.

'Larralde, Excellency,' he said, 'is one of those who are never found at the front. He will not be in Toledo to-night—that Larralde.'

'Where is the Senorita Barenna?' asked the General.

'She is downstairs—commanding his Excellency's soldiers to let her pass.'

'You go down, my friend, and bring her here. Then take that door yourself.'

Concepcion bowed ceremoniously and withdrew. He might have been an ambassador, and his salutation was worthy of an Imperial Court.

A moment later Julia Barenna came into the room, her dark eyes wide with terror, her face pale and drawn.

'Where is the Queen Regent?' she asked, looking from one face to the other, and seeing all her foes assembled as if by magic before her.

'Her Majesty is on the road between Aranjuez and Madrid—in safety, my dear Julia,' replied the General soothingly.

'But they think she is here. The people are in the streets. Look out of the window. They are in the Plaza.'

'I know it, my dear,' said the General.

'They are armed—they are going to attack this house.'

'I am aware of it.'

'Their plan is to murder the Queen.'

'So we understand,' said the General gently. He had a horror of anything approaching sensation or a scene, a feeling which Spaniards share with Englishmen. 'That is the Queen for the time being,' added Vincente, pointing to Estella.

Julia stood looking from one to the other—a self-contained woman made strong by love. For there is nothing in life or human experience that raises and strengthens man or woman so much as a great and abiding love. But Julia Barenna was driven and almost panic-stricken. She held herself in control by an effort that was drawing lines in her face never to be wiped out.

'But you will tell them? I will do it. Let me go to them. I am not afraid.'

'No one must leave this house now,' said the General. 'You have come to us, my dear, you must now throw in your lot with ours.'

'But Estella must not take this risk,' exclaimed Julia. 'Let me do it.'

And some woman's instinct sent her to Estella's side—two women alone in that great house amid this man's work, this strife of reckless politicians.

'And you, and Senor Conyngham,' she cried, 'you must not run this great risk.'

'It is what we are paid for, my dear Julia,' answered the General, holding out his arm and indicating the gold stripes upon it.

He walked to the window and opened the massive shutters, which swung back heavily. Then he stepped out on to the balcony without fear or hesitation.

'See,' he said, 'the square is full of them.'

He came back into the room, and Conyngham, standing beside him, looked down into the moonlit Plaza. The square was, indeed, thronged with dark and silent shadows, while others, stealing from the doorways and narrow alleys with which Toledo abounds, joined the groups with stealthy steps. No one spoke, though the sound of their whispering arose in the still night air like the murmur of a breeze through reeds. A hundred faces peered upwards through the darkness at the two intrepid figures on the balcony.

'And these are Spaniards, my dear Conyngham,' whispered the General. 'A hundred of them against one woman. Name of God! I blush for them.'

The throng increased every moment, and withal the silence never lifted, but brooded breathlessly over the ancient town. Instead of living men, these might well have been the shades of the countless and forgotten dead who had come to a violent end in the streets of a city where Peace has never found a home since the days of Nebuchadnezzar. Vincente came back into the room, leaving shutter and window open.

'They cannot see in,' he said, 'the building is too high. And across the Plaza there is nothing but the Cathedral, which has no windows accessible without ladders.'

He paused, looking at his watch.

'They are in doubt,' he said, speaking to Conyngham. 'They are not sure that the Queen is here. We will keep them in doubt for a short time. Every minute lost by them is an inestimable gain to us. That open window will whet their curiosity, and give them something to whisper about. It is so easy to deceive a crowd.'

He sat down and began to peel a peach. Julia looked at him, wondering wherein this man's greatness lay, and yet perceiving dimly that, against such as he, men like Esteban Larralde could do nothing.

Concha, having supped satisfactorily, was now sitting back in his chair seeking for something in the pockets of his cassock.

'It is to be presumed,' he said, 'that one may smoke—even in a palace.'

And under their gaze he quietly lighted a cigarette with the deliberation of one in whom a long and solitary life had bred habits only to be broken at last by death.

Presently the General rose and went to the window again.

'They are still doubtful,' he said, returning, 'and I think their numbers have decreased. We cannot allow them to disperse.'

He paused, thinking deeply.

'My child,' he said suddenly to Estella, 'you must show yourself on the balcony.'

Estella rose at once; but Julia held her back.

'No,' she said; 'let me do it. Give me the white mantilla.'

There was a momentary silence while Estella freed herself from her cousin's grasp. Conyngham looked at the woman he loved while she stood, little more than a child, with something youthful and inimitably graceful in the lines of her throat and averted face. Would she accept Julia's offer? Conyngham bit his lip and awaited her decision. Then, as if divining his thought, she turned and looked at him gravely.

'No,' she said; 'I will do it.'

She went towards the window. Her father and Conyngham had taken their places, one on each side, as if she were the Queen indeed. She stood for a moment on the threshold, and then passed out into the moonlight, alone. Immediately there arose the most terrifying of all earthly sounds—the dull, antagonistic roar of a thousand angry throats. Estella walked to the front of the balcony and stood, with an intrepidity which was worthy of the royal woman whose part she played, looking down on the upturned faces. A red flash streaked the darkness of a far corner of the square, and a bullet whistled through the open window into the woodwork of a mirror.