"You must blow her a kiss to pay for the song," Pilar said. "Don't you know that? But then, you haven't been in Spain long—except in your thoughts. That's expected; just as a girl must politely kiss her hand to a bull-fighter if he kisses his to her; for if she doesn't, she puts the evil-eye upon him; and like as not he's gored the next time he goes into the arena. Oh, I love the coplas! And wasn't that woman singing in good Spanish? Even the common people speak well here, for Valladolid and Toledo Spanish is the best in Spain."

I looked back and kissed my hand to the girl, who would have been insulted had I thrown money; and lifting my eyes once more to the towering city, I saw a mediaeval background such as old masters love to give their pictures.

The landscape was wild, and unchanged to all appearance from the days when the Crescent and the Cross battled for supremacy on those stony hills and in those savage gorges. Once again, I felt myself a crude anachronism, in my automobile, nor did the impression leave me when Toledo was hidden round a corner; nor when we flashed past ancient Eastern norias, slowly turned by sleepy horses or indignant donkeys; nor with glimpses of sentinel watch-towers, or ruined castles—such "castles in Spain" as Don Pedro promised to the Black Prince's soldiers—and seldom gave if they were worth giving.

Now, our business was to hark back to the king's highway between Madrid and Seville—that road on which Dick thriftily planned his quick service of automobiles for passengers and market gardeners; but to-day there was none of that excitement of the chase to which we were accustomed. I was depressed despite the good omen of the goats, and an encounter with a mule who had four white feet—a sign of some extraordinary piece of luck, according to Pilar's Dream-Book. The gently undulating, olive-silvered country, with its occasional far-off hamlets and fine church spires did not interest me, and I was not as thankful as I should have been for the good road.

At last we had left the zone of brown cities and sombre hued villages, and come into the zone of dazzling white habitations, which meant that we were nearing the southern land, loved by the sun. The huge, semi-fortified, high-walled farmhouses standing in lonely spaces were white as great shells floating solitary on seas of waving green. The close-grouped knots of cottages huddled together for mutual protection might have been cut from blocks of marble; and their tenants were vivid creatures, burning like tropical flowers against the dazzling white of their rough walls.

Never for ten minutes was the landscape the same. From olive plantations we rushed into a bleak country of savage hills, where windmills planted upon rocks beckoned with slowly moving arms; so down into flowery valleys with a thread of silver river tangled in the grasses near a long white road. And always the horizon was broken with tumbled mountains, purple, gold, and rose, swimming in a sea of light and changing colour.

"Soon we'll be in Cervantes' country," said the Cherub; "and good country it is—for sport. I come myself sometimes with friends, after wild boar; and there are plenty of rabbits to be had when there's nothing better."

"Don't speak of rabbits," said Dick. "It makes me hungry to think of them; and as nobody has said anything about lunching, and we're having such a good run, I haven't liked to mention it. Still, there's that Andaluz ham and goodness knows how many other things wasting their sweetness—"

The Cherub shook his head. "We mustn't stop here. It will be better to wait till we come to another road-mender's house. We're sure to pass one before long. Then we'll pull up, and the women will bring us water, or anything we want."

"I believe what you're really thinking of, is brigands!" exclaimed Pilar.

"Well," smiled the Cherub, "maybe something of the sort was in my mind; though you need have no fear, my Pilarcita."

"As if I would—a soldier's daughter!" sneered Pilarcita. "I wish we would meet the Seven Men of Ecija, or El Vivillo himself—if they haven't caught him yet. It would be fun."

"No fun with you among us, child," the Cherub said. "The chivalrous bandoleros of the past exist in these days only in story books and ballads. Vivillo is a villainous brute, and a little farther south we'll find no one on the road who'll care to speak his name. They'll call him Senor Coso. As for the Seven Men of Ecija, one says that they're disbanded long ago, yet there's a rumour that they still exist; and by the way, Don Ramon, for generations that famous band of seven brigands has had a connection—at least in old wives' gossip—with the Dukes of Carmona."

"How's that?" I inquired, interested; for though I had heard many things about that house, I had not heard the story at which Colonel O'Donnel hinted.

"I wonder you don't know!" said he. "Why, the tale runs that, more than a hundred years ago, the baby heir of the Carmonas was ailing. If they lost him, the title would go to another branch of the family; but the Duchess had died within a few days of his birth, and no foster-mother could be found to give the child health. Then the Duke caused it to be known far and near that, if any woman could save his boy, she should have a pension for life, enough to keep her in comfort with all her family; and that her daughter and her daughter's daughter should, if she chose to make the contract, be foster-mothers of future Dukes of Carmona. In answer to this proclamation came a woman of Ecija, the town of the brigands; a Juno of a creature. She nursed the ailing heir back to health, and when the child had become devoted to her, the secret leaked out that she was the married sister of the terrible priest who led the brigand band. But she was not sent away for that reason. Instead, the Duke used his influence successfully to obtain a pardon for her husband, the priest's brother-in-law, when he was taken red-handed for robbery and murder between Carmona and Seville; and in gratitude for this the man promised that his sons and sons' sons should be always at the disposal of the ducal house. For the rest, the story goes that more than once in the last century this promise has been exacted and fulfilled in secret."

"I wouldn't put it past the present Carmona to have a nest of bandits up his sleeve," said Dick. "It's a pretty black sleeve, if some of the things one hears are true. But here's a road-mender's cottage. What about halting, and cocking snooks at El Vivillo?"

"It will do very well," replied the Cherub. "If worst came to worst, we could make a good defence from inside."

"Honestly, aren't you pulling our legs about the brigands?" asked Dick, half-scornful and half-amused, as we slowed down.

"No," said the Cherub. "I'm not joking, if that's what you mean; for we are on the borders of the bandido country now. It will be years before brigandage is stamped out in Spain; and you must have read of the trouble there's been lately. Not that I think there's much chance of an encounter, but it's well to be prepared; for if a band of men jump at you with carbines to their shoulders, there's no getting out revolvers."

"H'm!" muttered Dick. "I suppose you know what you're talking about; but I wouldn't mind betting that these people would laugh if we asked, 'What about brigands?'"

"All right; let us ask," said the Cherub calmly.

By this time the car had stopped close to a tiny white box of a house set a few yards back from the road, with a strip of grass for a lawn; and an old man, evidently an ex-soldier, with a plump wife and a pretty daughter were coming out. We interchanged various compliments; said that, with the kind permission of his honour, the road-mender, we would lunch near his house; were told that the house and everyone as well as everything in it, was at our worship's disposal; and finally the Cherub murmured a question as to whether any bandidos had been seen lately.

This way and that the old man glanced before answering. Then below his breath replied that, as it happened, four gentlemen of the profession had passed no more than three or four hours ago. They were out of luck, for they had been hunted by the civil guard; and as they were hungry had gone over to the right, there, to see what could be got at the nearest farm. As for this place, it was safe enough, for there was nothing in it which even a brigand would have; and one had to be agreeable to these persons, if they stopped to rest or chat; it was more prudent.

"You see, you would have lost your money if I'd taken your bet, Senor Waring," said the Cherub.

Never was such a lunch as that we had by the roadside. We all worked at spreading out the contents of the hampers, while the road-mender and his family bustled about, not as inferiors with the hope of a tip, but helping us as friends and hosts.

When we arrived, not a soul was to be seen, save the dwellers in the white box. The only living things beside the trio and ourselves, were the larks that sprang heavenward pouring jewels from throbbing throats, and a few unknown birds of brilliant red and yellow, like drifting flower-petals. But whether these birds carried the news, or whether it blew over the country with the scented wind, certain it is that an audience collected to gaze upon us, as clouds boil up over a clear horizon.

It was not an intrusive crowd that came; neither did they approach offensively near, or stare with vulgar curiosity. It's component members—three or four handsome young mule-drivers, princely in shabbiness; an elderly tiller of the soil, with the eyes and profile of a half-tamed hawk; an old woman and a young girl madonna-like in their hooded cloaks, as they sat their patient donkeys; and a couple of shy children with the eyes of startled deer—hovered, paused, and ruminated, ready to take flight, like wild creatures of the forest, at a rude look or chaffing word.

But they got no rude looks or chaffing words from us, though we dared not smile too invitingly, lest they misunderstand, and flee from us, offended. We bowed gravely; they gravely bowed in return. Then, following a hurried whisper of advice from the tactful Cherub, we continued our meal. But presently, sandwich in hand, he strolled towards the scattered group, mingled with it, and murmured. What he murmured, we in the car and round it could not hear; but the chill uncertainty on those dark faces brightened into sympathetic amusement.

"He's telling them about ourselves and the automobile," chuckled Pilarcita. "Oh, I know him! He's probably making up nonsense about the car and its workings. In another minute they'll be his slaves, and friends of us all."

As she whispered, the plump figure sauntered back. "I think that now it's safe to offer them a share of our food," said he, in the manner of one who imparts a delicious secret. "They are dying for some; but they'll refuse unless we go about it in the right way, for they're as proud as we are."

Pilar was not allowed to move, because, in Spain, women are to be worshipped from afar, and must not mingle with strangers. But she handed plates of the dainties supplied by Dona Rosita, to Dick and me, and thus laden we wandered towards our audience.

"Offer something first to the road-mender's family," suggested the Cherub, and we obeyed. "Probably you are not hungry," was his preface. "Why should you be, when you have plenty of food as good as ours, maybe better? But here are things from Madrid. It may happen they are new to you. We shall be pleased if you taste them."

Then proud, hesitating fingers hesitated no longer, but descended upon thin slices of ham, shredded and sweetened eggs, cheese, and mazapan. Nobody betrayed eagerness, but faces beamed, especially when the road-mender, proud of us as if we had been his relations, went round with our wineskin, cordially bidding every man put it to his lips.

As the company ate and drank, the Cherub circulated among them, and soon was primed with the abbreviated life-story of each person, though he had apparently asked no questions. Somehow, it was the first impulse of the most reserved soul to confide in the Cherub; and when the meal was finished, and no excuse remained for lingering, the wild birds, tamed by kindness, flew away regretfully.

"They'll all have good words to speak for automobilists after this," said Pilar.

"Until some ruffian comes tearing along, upsetting their carts and breaking their illusions," added Dick.

When we were ready to go on, the road-mender's wife would not be content unless Pilar would have a look at the house, which she took, and came back delighted. "Tiny rooms, but clean as wax," she reported. "Pictures and crucifixes and Toledo knives on the snow-white walls, and beautiful bright copper in the kitchen. I believe I could be happy to live there—with someone I loved."

Was the image of Don Cipriano in her mind as she said this? or Dick's tanned face and whimsical grey eyes? Or did she think only of an existence in the society of her father?

"Beware gutters!" was the road-mender's last word as we spun away; and we were glad of the warning; for despite careful driving, a few seconds of inattention might have sent us crashing into and over a deep trough across the road, half hidden by thick dust. There were many of these gutters, which might have been put underneath in the form of culverts; but, as the Cherub remarked, since nobody takes the trouble to complain, in Spain, why should anyone bother?

There were broken patches, too, where somebody had begun to build a bridge, and then apparently forgotten all about going on with it; but luckily there were side tracks made by other pioneers, by which, with care, one could skirt the great square hole, and land safely on the other side.

Thus we arrived before a walled town with a Moorish gateway; and, for all the changes which had come or gone since the days of those who set it up, the place might have been under a spell of enchantment, a kind of "sleeping sickness," for at least five hundred unnoticeable years.

Our maps said that it was Ciudad Real; Colonel O'Donnel added that of all garrison towns it was the one which young officers hated worst. And while the car paused with panting motor for a discussion as to the way on, two dark youths by the roadside interested themselves in our situation. They had red handkerchiefs twisted round their heads, and the smarter of the pair wore two sombreros, one over the other—a simple way of carrying his Sunday hat on week-days; and they looked up from a meal of maize bread and onions to enter into conversation.

Had our honours any doubt as to the road? If so, and our worships would deign to mention the destination desired, they might have the happiness of helping us.

We wanted to go to Manzanares, I replied.

In that case, replied the owner of the two sombreros, there was a short cut which would be of assistance. Not only would it save us a bad section of road, but an hour's time as well. We must not go through the town, but turn to the left round the wall, nor must we enter the village which we would soon see, but skirt that also. Presently we would come to fields planted with olives, and our way would lead through these. We must not be disheartened if it appeared wild and rough. We should be able to pass, and in the end would be glad that we had availed ourselves of such advice.

Taking this for granted, I gave each of the lads a peseta, which they accepted more as their just due than as a favour. To avoid the town, it seemed that we must steer into chaos, void and formless; but there were only a few hundred yards of desert. Beyond, we found ourselves in a good road, which led to the white village we had been told to expect; and there, as we were already primed with information, we wasted no time in asking questions. Instead, we plunged into open country, with a vista of olive trees in the grey-green distance. From fair, the road dwindled to doubtful; then to a certainty of badness. It narrowed; softened to a sandbank; hardened into a wilderness of rocks and stones scattered between deep ruts dug by the wheels of ox-carts. Apparently no other vehicles than these had ever weathered the terrors of this passage; yet we persevered; for here were the promised olive trees, so near, indeed, that we lurched against them as we rocked from side to side. We had been warned whatever happened not to be discouraged, and we cheered each other bravely, while our heads bumped the roof. "We shall be out of this presently," we gasped. "It will surely be all right soon."

Meanwhile, however, it was a nightmare; the sort of thing which a delirious chauffeur might dream and rave of, in a fever; and instead of improving, the way grew worse.

"Can it be possible those chaps deceived us on purpose?" I jerked out between chattering teeth, as the car sprang from one three-foot rut into another, in spite of Ropes' coaxing.

"I'll bet it's a trick of Carmona's," gasped Dick, at the risk of biting his tongue. "I thought that fellow in the two hats looked a fox."

"I did see them laughing when I glanced round after we passed," said Pilar, as jumpily as if she rode a trotting horse. "But I—thought—they were pleased with the pesetas."

"I expect they'd got more than we gave, to send us the wrong way," growled Dick. "We must have been dreaming not to think of it."

"We can't go about suspecting everyone we meet to be in Carmona's pay," said I. "We'd be mistaken as often as right, and then we should feel small. After all, there isn't much harm done."

"It's a wonder we haven't smashed something, sir," sighed the much enduring Ropes.

"That's what Carmona prayed to his demons we would do," said Dick.

"I'll back San Cristobal against them all," said I.

"Besides, there was the mule with the four white feet, and the goat-herd," Pilar reminded me.

"I can't say they've brought us luck."

"Wait," said Pilar.

"Meanwhile let's turn back," said Dick. "Another hundred yards like this, and even if we don't smash the differential or the chassis, Ropes will get side-slip of the brain. Half an hour of such driving must be equal to a week in Purgatory for a chauffeur."

We did turn back, and feeling years older, arrived once more at the point from which he had started. We would have given something to see the man with the two hats, and his companion, but they had prudently taken themselves off, like full-fed vultures. This time we made no inquiries, but trusted to our intuition and our maps, which, without once contradicting each other, led us into a decent road that seemed like a path to paradise after all we had endured.

Making up for lost time, and revelling in joy of motion, we put on our best speed, which for a few moments brought the roadside telegraph posts as close together as fir trees in a Norwegian forest. But suddenly the motor slowed, and stopped with a tired sigh within sight of a village white as newly polished silver.

"Petrol gone," said Ropes. "It oughtn't to be, but it is. Extra strain in that short cut of the Duke's used it up."

He got out, and untied a bidon from the reserve store fastened upon the foot-board. But the tin was light in his hand as a feather. He gave a low whistle, and a shadow darkened his face, a shadow which was not made by the brim of his motor-cap as he bent his head to examine the bidon.

"There's a leak here, sir," he said to me—for though Dick was now supposed to be his master, in moments of stress he clung to old habits. "Looks as if the tin had been pricked with some sharp instrument. H'm! Shouldn't wonder if it had been. It would be of a piece with all the rest."

"You mean at Toledo?"

"Yes, sir. Everything was right, then. I bought enough petrol in Madrid to last to Cordoba, pretty well all we could carry, and ordered more to meet us there, grande vitesse, in case I couldn't get it—as you said we were sure now to go that way."

"Well, let's look at your other bidons. We shall be in a fix if we're held up here."

"Two more empty," announced Ropes. "And three bidons don't suddenly take to leaking, of themselves. I suppose if I'd had my wits about me, I'd have looked, at Toledo, before starting; but who's to think of everything? I did have a thorough go at the car, for fear of mischief, but forgot the bidons However, there's one to go on with, I'm pretty sure; for it's stowed away in a place nobody would think of, if they had to do the villain act in a hurry."

Whereupon he handed out a new bidon from the tool box, and we both gave a sigh of relief to see that it was intact. At least, we had now enough to get us to Manzanares; and at worst we could but be hung up there while Ropes went back by train as far as Madrid to buy petrol.

While we had been making these discoveries, however, the village had been discovering us. It was not the time of year, as Pilar said, for bears and monkeys to arrive by road, therefore when something was seen approaching rapidly and stopping suddenly, the inhabitants of the white town had not been able to bear the suspense. Somebody had given the word that there was a thing to see, and out Torralba came pouring in its hundreds, a brilliant procession a full quarter of a mile long.

Youth and beauty took the lead. Girls with arms thrown round the shoulders of one another's blue, pink, or yellow jackets skipped along the dazzling road like peasant graces. Little, star-eyed brown boys had apparently taken the trouble to step off Murillo's canvases to find out what we were, while their toddling sisters cried at being outdistanced. Behind these came men, middle-aged and old, in strange-shaped caps like fur and leather coal-scuttles, women with bare black heads, or faded blue handkerchiefs shadowing withered faces, and beggars hobbling on their sticks; a shouting, laughing army pouring its bright coloured stream down the white line of the straight road. And before the Gloria had been refreshed with her long drink of petrol, the wave of life had broken round her bonnet. Bright eyes stared, brown hands all but touched us; and children knew not whether to shriek with fright or laugh with joy as they saw themselves reflected in the glass turned up against our roof. But at the first cough of the motor as it throbbed into waking, the throng rolled back, dividing to let us pass, as if the car had cloven it in two, and joining again to tear home in our wake.

All the able-bodied women who had not come out to meet us were sitting before the doors of their white houses, making lace mantillas and flounces for the young Queen-elect,—Torralba is famous for its lace-makers,—and they waved work-worn hands as we ran by, wishing us good speed, or throwing an improvised copla after the vanishing Gloria.

Now we were in Don Quixote land; and had we gone back to his day as we entered his country of La Mancha, our red car could have roused little more excitement. Village after village turned out for us; always the same gorgeous colours against the background of white houses and blue arch of sky; always the same brilliant eyes and rich brown faces with scarlet lips that laughed. It was even a relief to the monotony to meet a band of fierce-eyed young carters ranged in a line with big stones in their hands, wanting to bash in the aristocrat's features, if the aristocrats frightened their mules. But neither the aristocrats nor mules showed fear. Pilar even leaned out, as if daring the four or five sullen fellows to throw their stones into a girl's face, and their arms fell inoffensively.

"I don't believe any Spaniard, no matter how bad, would hurt a woman who had done him no harm!" she exclaimed.

The road, with its rutty, irritating surface, seemed endless. We had started late, according to our promise, and having lost more than an hour on the "short cut," grey wings of twilight began at last to fold in the landscape. It was long since we had passed a village; Manzanares was not yet near, and I began to wonder whether the Gloria would not again grow thirsty before we could give her drink.

Turn after turn; always the same jolting; always the same scene, till our minds wearied. Then, suddenly rounding a bend, we came upon something which made every one of us forget boredom.

There was the Duke's car—the grey car which we had sworn to avoid—stuck in a caniveau that cut the road in two. There were Carmona and his chauffeur staring balefully into the inner workings of the motor; there were the Duchess and Lady Vale-Avon, dust-powdered and disconsolate, sitting forlornly on roadside hillocks; and there was Monica, her veil off, walking up and down impatiently with her little hands buried in the pockets of her grey coat, the last gleam of sunset finding a responsive note in the gold of her hair.

"What did I tell you!" exclaimed Pilar. "The goat-herd! The mule with the white feet! It's the luck of the Dream-Book!"



XXIII

THE GLORIFICATION OF MONICA

Slowing up, we were almost upon the group; and for once we were welcome to our enemies. Even Carmona's face brightened, a flicker of hope lit Lady Vale-Avon's grey eyes; and the Duchess deliberately courted us with a smile.

As for Monica, she was radiant as a child who has been surprised by the home-coming of loved ones; yet there was a new wistfulness in her eyes, despite the joy she showed.

"Oh, how glorious that you've come to the rescue!" she cried, all dimples and roses. Still, she looked from me to Pilar, and from Pilar to me, as if she longed to ask one or the other some question which it was impossible to speak; and I said to myself that it would go hard with me if I did not find out before I was many hours older, what that question was.

Any port is welcome in a storm or among fellow-motorists, if you are helpless by the roadside with several ladies when night is coming on; and Carmona's first words showed that he had no scruple in making use of us. But with the trials he had gone through, and his natural preference for the help of any other car rather than the hated Gloria, he was in a black mood. He wished to be civil, lest we should be goaded into leaving him in the lurch; yet it was plainly such an effort that I could have laughed aloud. Pilar would have been able to quote paragraph and page of her Dream-Book.

The worst damage to the car was a broken spring, though something seemed to have gone wrong also with the ignition in that disastrous bump into the caniveau. They had been where we found them for a couple of hours, Carmona admitted, without encountering any vehicle or animal to give them a tow. The first hope had been to stagger on to Manzanares (which originally they had meant to pass) with a broken spring; but the bee in the motor's bonnet could not be made to buzz, and in despair, Carmona had been about to send his chauffeur on foot, in search of some conveyance for the ladies and their luggage. More hours must have passed, at best, before the man could have returned to the rescue, and already everybody was hungry.

The ladies of the Duke's party had to be transferred to the Gloria; and Dick, with airs of ownership, urged vague and voluble reasons why I should be their companion in the tonneau. We were the masters of the situation, and Carmona's face, as he was obliged to take his seat beside the chauffeur who must steer the car in tow, repaid me for grievous wrongs.

Pilar, not to be outdone in ingenuity by Dick, did for me what I could not do for myself, in contriving that I should sit next to Monica. Though I could say nothing for her ears which other ears might not hear, it was a joy to feel her slight shoulder nestling warm against my arm, to know that she could not be snatched from me by her mother or Carmona, but that as it was now, so it must be for many moments, perhaps an hour, to come. There was also satisfaction to be got from the fact that my enemy, bumping on behind in his own disabled car (propelled by our generosity and power), was glaring with malice, envy, and all uncharitableness at my back.

My one regret in these moments which should have been perfect, was that my prophetic soul hadn't caused me to write a long letter to Monica, which I might have been able to slip into her hand under cover of rugs and darkness.

Ropes had to light the lamps before we saw more of Manzanares than an illusive church spire which kept appearing and disappearing like a will-o'-the-wisp. But the petrol held out, and the Gloria's breathing was regular, despite the weight she had to tow over ruts and across gutters. Once, however, Ropes looked back at me with an expressive movement of the shoulders which I interpreted as, "we're lucky if we get there!" so I could have shouted "hurrah!" at sight of the first houses, though they brought my last moment of happiness.

Another instant, and the population of Manzanares was answering to the thrum of our motor, as soldiers to the call of the drum. From somewhere, their saints alone knew where, an army of children poured into the long straight street, and as we slowed to avoid wholesale murder, they took advantage of our consideration to swarm up the car like ants. They ran shouting beside us, climbed on to the steps, hung on behind, fighting so ruthlessly for choice positions that they all but fell under the wheels. One would not have supposed there could be other children left in Spain. How there could be room for these in the town of Manzanares was a wonder; how they could all have turned out on the second in their thousands, was a miracle; and their promptness would have done credit to any commander.

The shrill cries of this legion, drowning the sound of the motor, and increasing as the contingent was swelled from each side street, roused the town. Families left their tables and rushed to the door, their supper in their hands. Bakers with white arms left to-morrow's bread in the troughs; a group of farriers shoeing a horse stopped work, until the glowing iron paled. Shopkeepers who had lighted their windows with a blaze of electricity, ran into the street. Mules and donkeys tied to doorposts shared the general excitement, plunged and reared before the advance of the human breaker with the car on its crest snapped their cords, and dashed into their master's houses.

Never, among all our successes, had we made such a succes fou as this; but then, never before had we had a car in tow. Half our triumph belonged to the Lecomte; yet either of us would gladly have dispensed with all; and had it not been for a small but determined policeman who struggled to preserve the credit of the town, we might have been half the night fighting our way to an hotel.

He dealt blows and exhortations indiscriminately, piloted us through side streets which it would never have occurred to our imagination to enter, and with exertions worthy of him who "singly kept the bridge," helped us make a lane for the ladies to dart into the door of the little fonda.

It was an iron door of elaborate openwork, leading, Moorish fashion, through a shallow vestibule into a patio—the first we had seen on our way south; and if it had not been slammed shut with a loud click, by some person inside, half Manzanares would have poured after the fugitives.

Assured of the ladies' safety, the men of the two (outwardly) united parties remained to help the chauffeurs and a bewildered landlord to take down luggage. Overwhelmed by a wave of halfgrown children and a thick spray of babies, Carmona's man lost his presence of mind. The two cars had hardly stopped before the little creatures were in them, and on them, and under them, trying to pinch the tyres, blowing the horn, squalling, laughing, crying. "Mon Dieu, c'est un obsession!" wailed the unfortunate Frenchman; and even the imperturbable Ropes showed signs of "nerves."

As fast as the thronging goblins were beaten off, they were up again in redoubled force; but so merry they were, and so handsome was each bold brown face, with its dazzling eyes, that it was impossible to be angry. Somehow, we rescued the luggage, and with the aid of the landlord pitched, or slid, or rolled it through the door, momentarily opened.

"For Heaven's sake, sir, see me through this!" implored Ropes, noticing that the men of the party were on the point of following the luggage. "Hate to trouble you, but I don't think my Spanish will run to it." In pity I climbed into the car to go with him to the stable which the landlord indicated as our garage. It was an experience to be remembered in nightmares; yet there was in it a sort of schoolboy pleasure. We seemed to have done battle against the whole force of the army out against us; nevertheless when we returned to the fonda, swept along by a large bodyguard, we found a regiment assembled round the door. How we got through was food for another wild dream, but we did get through, to stand panting on the other side of the grating, in the patio.

Dozens of dark faces were pressed against the bars, like tier above tier of glowing pansies in a flower-bed; and we knew at last the sensation of those who are the observed, not the observers, in a menagerie.

Everyone was in the patio, where electric lights hanging from the balconies mingled with rich yellow lamplight and ruddy firelight streaming from the kitchen. All the luggage was piled anyhow, in a chaotic heap surging with suit-cases, boiling with dressing-bags; while near by, like Marius and a friend or two at the ruins of Carthage, stood the Duchess, Lady Vale-Avon, Carmona, Dick, and the Cherub. Monica and Pilar had been talking at a distance with a young girl of the house, but seeing me gravitate in their direction, Lady Vale-Avon called her daughter.

"The ladies are saying they can't stay here," announced Dick, his voice in sympathy with a twinkle in his eyes.

"I'm not saying so," cut in Monica. "I think it will be fun; a real adventure. The landlady's wonderful, and all her daughters and nieces beauties. If we're nice to them, they'll be adorable to us."

"The place is a den!" exclaimed Lady Vale-Avon. "There must be something better in the town."

"I'm afraid there isn't," said the Duke. "This accident has made me helpless. I'm horribly sorry; but we can't get on anywhere else to-night."

"We can sit up," said the Duchess, "in the automobile."

"Do let's look at the rooms," begged Monica. "And don't let them see we're finding fault. Their feelings will be hurt."

"What nonsense!" replied Lady Vale-Avon. "As if they had feelings!"

"If you don't consider them, they won't take pains to make you comfortable," I said, knowing by instinct the people with whom we had to deal. "They're beginning to suspect already that something's wrong, and judging from the expression of their faces it will take only a little more for the landlord to say he has no rooms. Then we really may have to sit in the automobiles."

The keeper of the fonda and his family, who had come so warmly to welcome the strangers, were now hovering aloof, silent and suspicious, their spirits dashed by the contemptuous looks of Lady Vale-Avon and the Duchess. Standing in semi-darkness, the landlord's face was a blur of brown shadow, featureless, save for a pair of enormous eyes burning with an emotion which was no longer hospitality. His wife, whose broad shoulder was pressed against her husband's as if to form a line of defence, was a dark-browed, gypsy-like woman, who must once have been beautiful, and might now be formidable. Behind them were grouped a handsome boy, and three or four extraordinarily pretty girls with red and white roses in their hair.

"They wouldn't dare turn us out!" exclaimed Lady Vale-Avon. "They can never have had persons of our sort before."

"If you asked, they'd probably retort that Dukes and Marquesses were thick as blackberries," said I.

She glanced at Carmona, hoping for support, but he shrugged his shoulders in despair; and a look from me was a signal for the Cherub to step forward.

The atmosphere had begun to tingle, and in a few moments more it might have been too late to make peace with these proud and self-respecting people, who had never submitted to indignity. But in the space of six seconds the magnetism of the Cherub had begun to do its work. He murmured, nodded, and smiled, took the family into his confidence with a few graphic gestures, explained that the ladies were upset by an accident, appealed to the landlord's chivalry, and the landlady's heart. Gathering frowns were chased away by smiles; and when Monica showed her dimples to the boy and girls with a look which pleaded for kindness, the battle was fought and won.

They had not many bedrooms. Several were engaged by commercial travellers, but these gentlemen should be stowed into one room, their clothing and luggage moved at once. Oh, they would not object when they learned that it was a question of accommodating ladies; or if they did, they must eat their objections for supper; it was no matter. And the landlord and landlady would give up their room, a good one, their worships need have no fear. All should be ready in the opening and closing of an eye. But would we meanwhile have supper? There was always enough for a few unexpected ones.

Having listened so far, the Cherub turned blandly to Carmona. These arrangements need not include the Senor Duque's party, unless he liked, of course, but—his palms were extended as if to receive the decision. Plump it fell into them. Everyone must stay, and make the best of it.

So the ladies were bundled into a room where they might get rid of the dust, and the men into another; clean rooms, with whitewashed walls, bare save for a pictured saint or two in lurid colours; floors covered with coarse, bright matting; and iron beds with lace-frilled and embroidered pillows.

In a quarter of an hour everyone was ready for dinner, but five out of fifteen minutes I had given to the hasty scribbling of a pencilled note for Monica. I hoped to slip it into her hand in the dining-room, but she was closely under guard; and Carmona annexed four seats at the head of the long table, by which manoeuvre he secured isolation for his party. It was safe from any sortie of ours, as there was a scattered contingent of commercial travellers already earnestly engaged in dining on either side of the table. Two polite men on the left, and three on the right, all with napkins tucked under their chins, rose, offering to move rather than divide friends; but Carmona assured them that the sacrifice was unnecessary. As they were all paralysed by Monica's beauty, of a type so different from any to which they were accustomed, they had not the self-command to protest; and as dinner went on (in many courses of which the landlord was evidently proud), they could scarcely do justice to their merluza served with grilled lemon and minced red Spanish pepper; their tortilla of eggs, potatoes, peas, and ham; their pigeons with olives, or even their freshly baked maccaroni, for gazing languorously at the vision of pink and white and gold.

Such charms as Pilar's, though unsurpassable of their kind, went for nothing with these ardent gentlemen; and even the landlord's son, daughters, and nieces who waited upon their guests, forgot half their duties in abject admiration. "An angel!" "a saint!" "a princess of fairyland!" were a few of their whispered adjectives; and when the object of their worship was snatched away by her mother and the Duchess, before the goats'-milk cheese had been brought round, a gloom fell upon the room. The commercial travellers galloped through the remainder of the meal, and went out, hoping perhaps, if they promenaded the street, to have the joy of seeing a light in the radiant being's window. The pretty girls of the household vanished with murmured excuses, leaving us at the mercy of the boy, who sighed grievously, dropped a sugar bowl, and spilled coffee within an ace of the Cherub's shoulder.

Pilar presently disappeared also, leaving her three men alone at the table, observed only by a few dozen eager faces pressed against the iron bars protecting the open window.

Soon we heard peals of laughter from the patio; the pretty girls were sallying forth on a foraging expedition in search of a warming-pan to heat the beds of the three great ladies, who feared dampness. In twenty minutes they came back, and we arrived in the patio in time to see the triumphal entrance of four or five charming creatures, bearing among them a long-handled brass vessel which had probably existed since the days of Philip the Second. But this was only the beginning of the fun; and we made an excuse of our cigarettes to linger, and hear what we could not see.

It was not a beautiful patio; and the public still surged outside the iron-grated door in the hope of further insight into the private lives of the travelling menagerie; but our luggage had been carried to the rooms which were now ready (thanks to the complaisance of the dazzled commercial gentlemen), and there were garden seats, on which we settled ourselves in spite of the chill in the evening air.

From the rooms above we heard laughter and ecstatic cries. Evidently the warming-pan was making a sensation as it went its round, or something else had happened; and when at last the girls trooped downstairs from the balcony, I beckoned them to come our way. They skipped to us, wild with delight at the prospect of pouring out their hearts to an appreciative audience.

The great warming-pan, stuffed with embers that glowed and paled, was laid on the tiled pavement while the girls wove themselves into a group, with interlacing arms.

"Why are you so happy?" I asked

"Happy? We have been in paradise, with the angels," replied the prettiest girl with crimson roses stuck in a bank of copper hair.

"There was but one angel," objected her brunette cousin.

"That is true. The two old ones think themselves everything, but they are less than nothing. I would not change my years for theirs, with their jewels and their quarterings. Thanks be to God, in our Spain, we are all as noble as the nobles, or at least in this province!"

"You are also all beautiful!" said I.

"That you can say so, senor, after seeing that wonder!" exclaimed the landlord's eldest daughter, a creature of carnation and flame. "Ah, the joy of it, we have been undressing her!"

"If you could have seen her, with gold hair down to her knees!" gasped a gypsy of fifteen. "And when we had got her dress off, and she was in her—"

"Hush, Micaela! it is not seemly that you should mention such garments in the presence of senores!" broke in the girl of the copper coronet.

["Now you are as bad as I was, Mariquita!"]

NOW YOU ARE AS BAD AS I WAS, MARIQUITA

"But why, then, since they are most beautiful? You know well, Mariquita, you yourself said they were like the handwork of fairies, and her shoulders—"

"Be silent, foolish one, or I shall have to burn your nose off with the warming-pan!"

"And what did the elder ladies say to the young lady's new maids?" I asked quickly, as great eyes began to flash, and scarlet lips to pout.

Back came the smiles, and the maidens fell into a fit of schoolgirl giggling.

"There was but one Majesty there, praise be to the saints, the English one, who is no doubt the mother of our lady angel. They have two rooms between them, but that of the senorita is tiny, with no door of its own, and only a square glazed hole for a window, though the bed is as good as any, and we have given it the best linen. When we took in the warming-pan, our angel tried to say in Spanish that she was sure our beds were dry and well aired, as indeed they were. She had taken off her bodice, and was undoing her hair, which was so beautiful we could have fallen down and prayed to her as a saint. Then we could not resist, but began helping her to undress, talking about her beauty. She was not offended, though we kissed her hands, and that silly Micaela one of her tiny white feet when we had pulled off the stocking—"

"Now you are as bad as I was, Mariquita."

"No, indeed; what is a stocking? A thing it is as well to go without as to wear. That is different. The angel laughed till she was close to tears, and said we were far nicer maids than the one her mother had sent on by railway train in starting by automobile. After this, she would be spoiled for others; and she gave us each one a present. Lola, two wondrous hatpins with blue stones in silver—not that she would ever suffer the tortures of a hat, but it is a great thing to have them. Teresa, a sweet round purse of blue leather, of the size to hold a five peseta piece; Micaela, a handkerchief with lace on the edge, and me an embroidered veil like a gossamer. What did we care that Her Majesty the mother would have sent us away if she could? She had not enough Spanish to make us understand what we did not wish to understand, and at last she saved her breath for another day. But by that time we had finished, for we had put our angel into her night-dress, a thing of cobwebs and lace kept together by blue ribbons, which I should have thought good enough for a queen to wear when mounting her throne."

"You must show us your presents," said I, with deliberate cunning. All were displayed on the instant, with chattering, laughing, and clamourous claims for rival merits. But the veil was the thing which I looked on to covet. She had worn it one day after rain, when the roads had been clear of dust, and her face had gleamed through the lace as a star gleams through a floating cloud-film. I felt that I could not see it in other hands than mine.

While the Cherub compared the gifts with eloquence, I drew Mariquita apart. "I want that veil very much," said I; "so much that I'll give you a hundred pesetas if you'll part with it."

She opened her tobacco-brown eyes. "But the senor is only a man, and cannot know that the bit of embroidered net is worth no more, in money, than fifteen pesetas at most."

"It wasn't its money-worth I was thinking about."

"A—ah, I see! The senorito—yes, of course, it would be strange if he did not! I love my new veil, not only because it is pretty, but more because it came to me from the most beautiful senorita I have ever seen. Still, since the senorito will value it even more than I can, I will give it to him, though not for the hundred pesetas. I will give it for nothing except his thanks."

I told the girl she was too good; that I could not rob her of the gift just made; but she insisted, and I saw that her pride would be hurt if I refused. So I accepted, while a way of benefitting myself and rewarding her occurred to my mind.

"You see how it is with me." I said, with a confidential air. "You have been very generous. Will you be helpful too?"

"You may trust me," she answered. "I love a love affair, especially if there is difficulty. I shall have an acknowledged novio myself soon, I hope. He is a bull-fighter—only a beginner, but he will be great one day, and though my father made a long face at first, now he shrugs his shoulders; and when that is done, there is always hope. Her Majesty the mother makes the long face, does she not?"

I nodded.

"She will shrug the shoulders by and by."

"I doubt it. But meanwhile, I've written a letter. Will you try to give it to the young lady?"

"Yes," said Mariquita. "I will try my best. I think I can do it. Not to-night, for she has gone to bed, and there would be no excuse to get back to her room, since I must pass through Her Majesty's. But to-morrow morning I will take the ladies' hot water, with oh, such an innocent face! And I will take the letter too."

"Thank you many times," said I.

"The thing isn't done yet."

"It's for your goodwill I thank you in advance. And this is for your bull-fighter, as a present from his novia."

I took out my scarf-pin. Her face flushed with pleasure, as it would have flushed for no sum of money. She might have waived away a present for herself, but she could not resist one for the novio, and I was thanked far beyond the gift's merit.

If she went to bed happy, so did I, for I believed that Monica would have my letter in the morning; and if the wistfulness in her eyes meant some new trouble in which I had a part, I hoped that the words I had written might banish it.



XXIV

THE GOODWILL OF MARIQUITA

Nevertheless I could not sleep on my hard but clean pillows, for wondering about that look of Monica's, and its meaning; and whenever I shut my eyes, hordes of red and yellow figures poured out of white houses upon white roads, forming irritating, kaleidoscopic patterns on my tired retina.

Each hour that passed was cried by the watchman, far away, and then close under my window; a fearsome cry like a groan of agony uttered by a madman in a dying spasm.

I was glad when morning came; and after such a bath as two or three miniature jugs of water afforded (the deer-eyed boy wondered in the name of all the saints what I could do with so many), I threw off the brain-clouds of a sleepless night.

Before long Monica would have my letter. She would know—if she could have doubted—that if I had loved her at first, I worshipped her now. She would know why we had not followed more closely yesterday; and why—unless Carmona chose to accept our help again—we would go on before the grey car to-day. She would know also that my most earnest hope was to take her away, out of the reach of harm.

I was dressed, and had had my coffee and hard, fat roll of Spanish bread, by half-past seven, as I was sure Ropes would be wanting to see me. I would not have disturbed Dick, who slept in a room across the patio, but I found him in the dining-room, wrestling with a glass of thick chocolate and a finger-shaped sweet biscuit. "I'm trying to like Spanish customs," said he.

I laughed.

"Because, if I'm going to carry through that scheme of mine about motor traffic, I may have to live on the spot, you see."

"Oh!" said I. "And what about Colonel O'Donnel's copper mines? Have you thought of a means to persuade him it's his duty to have them worked?"

"In a way, I have," Dick answered dryly. "An indirect sort of way. What about our gasoline? Heard anything about it?"

"No. I'm going to find Ropes."

"Rather a sell for Carmona, if he did order our bidons pricked, to feel it's his fault if we're held up as long as he is."

"There's Ropes in the patio," I said. "I'll go and interview him."

"What news?" I asked.

"Well, sir, I did what the landlord said last night, and had a try for moto-naphtha—as they call it here—at the chemist's."

"Did they have any?"

"Oh yes, sir, they had some. As much as a pint apiece, in the two shops. They wanted to sell it by the ounce."

Dick and I laughed, though my mirth was not care-free. I had visions of being stuck at this place until Ropes made a journey to Madrid and back, Carmona's car slipping away long before we were ready.

"I was afraid it was hopeless to look for petrol here," I said, striving for resignation, even though I saw Mariquita going upstairs with two battered tins of hot water.

"Not yet, sir. A man who heard me asking for moto-naphtha at the chemist's, advised me to try the cemetery."

"The cemetery? You misunderstood the word."

"No, sir; it was cemetery. And what's more, he said the Mayor keeps it there to kill lobsters."

This statement, delivered somewhat nervously, was received with derision.

"The fellow was stuffing you," said Dick.

"I don't think so, sir."

"Then he's mad," I insisted. "Fishing for lobsters with moto-naphtha in a cemetery at Manzanares is a story Baron Munchausen would have thought twice about before telling."

"Langostas does mean langouste—or lobsters, I suppose, sir?" asked Ropes.

"Ye—es," I answered thoughtfully. Then lightning flashed across the darkness of my mind. "It means locusts as well," said I. "They use petrol to kill locusts, and for some reason best known to themselves keep it at the cemetery. We'll go, Ropes, and persuade them to sell us more than an ounce."

"Right, sir. At once?"

"In a moment," said I.

Mariquita, empty-handed, was coming downstairs. I waylaid her, under that portion of the balcony hidden from the window of Lady Vale-Avon's room.

"Did you deliver the letter?" I asked.

"Yes, senor."

"To the young lady herself?"

"To herself. But I must tell you what worries me, senor. As I was leaving the outer room, I heard a sound like a cry of distress, from the inner room. I looked back, and Her Majesty the mother had gone in. That is all I know. I could do nothing, whatever had happened, and I felt it would be well to escape before I could be questioned."

"What do you think happened?"

"How can I tell, senor? Unless the terrible lady snatched your letter from the angel."

"At least, I hope the angel had had time to read it."

"I do not know, senorito. There was not much time; but she might have been quick; and if the letter was not long, there is still hope."

This was poor comfort. All my joyous anticipations dashed, I tried to think of some way of finding out whether Monica had read my letter, and whether there were any way of smuggling another to her.

The note had been written in such haste, that I scarcely knew what I had said. No name had been signed; nevertheless, if Lady Vale-Avon read what I had written, she would say to herself, "It is not Cristobal O'Donnel who says these things, but a more dangerous man." If she had the letter, she could show it to Carmona; but, as I thought the matter over, I decided that it was unlikely she would do this.

Spaniards, especially Spaniards with Moorish blood in their veins, do not like to think girls they love capable of carrying on secret correspondence with other men; and I imagined that Lady Vale-Avon was a woman to guess this. Already Carmona knew that Lady Monica was interested in someone else, or had a girlish fancy for him, which might or might not have been frightened away. But his desire for her would not be whetted by the fact that she was receiving letters from that someone else, perhaps sending them to him; and it struck me that Lady Vale-Avon would conceal the correspondence, rather than flaunt it in Carmona's face. If I were right, then I was as safe as before from the Duke's jealousy; but, had Monica read my letter?

On the alert as her mother would be now, I should find it more difficult than ever to communicate with the girl. Yet I could not bear to leave Manzanares in fear of a misunderstanding.

Nothing more could be done at the moment, however; and I hurried Ropes off that we might finish our errand and get back by the time that Monica was down.

It appeared that the man who had volunteered information about moto-naphtha was waiting to act as guide. He was still at the chemist's, and from there led us to the Casa Consistorial. At the Casa Consistorial were two policemen in the hall, warming themselves over a hole in the ground, where glowed charcoal embers. But the Mayor had not arrived. Without him nothing could be arranged. Besides, even if he were present and willing to consent, the key of the cemetery was with the cura, who might be anywhere.

Off we dashed to the cura's house, and just in time. Five minutes later, and we might have had to wait hours for him. But there he was, a delightful, white-haired old man, who would be charmed to open the cemetery for our worships, since it was not to bury us; but he could make no move in that direction without the honourable concurrence of the Mayor.

Back, then, we bustled to the Casa Consistorial, with the sensation of shuttlecocks, played between battledores at cross purposes.

But at last the second battledore was ready to send us in the right direction. The Mayor, a young man, who looked like a lawyer in tall hat and frock-coat, was as polite as only a Spaniard can be. He put himself, and his house, and Manzanares at our service. It was something like being given the freedom of London; and what was more to the point than anything else, he offered us as much moto-naphtha as the town possessed, at any price we pleased to pay.

The question was, how much did the town possess; a single quart, or a hundred gallons? The Mayor himself was not sure, so we rattled off in an ancient "simon" to the cemetery to find out; and luckily were able to carry away all we were likely to need for the next two days, while leaving some for the locusts. But between the Casa Consistorial, the house of the cura, the distant cemetery, and the drive back to our stable-garage, it had taken us nearly three hours to achieve our end. Then there was a little lingering with the car, to make sure that all was well and no more tricks had been played; and the walk back to the fonda exhausted the last of my patience. I had not expected to be gone more than an hour, and I had been gone three. Meanwhile, I said to myself, almost anything might have happened. My idea had been to get back by the time that Monica was dressed, and now, for all I could tell, she might have gone.

Dick laughed at this suggestion, for, said he, Carmona's chauffeur was not a worker of miracles except, perhaps, on other men's cars; and he could not have got his master's in order and ready to start. His arguments were reasonable; nevertheless, like many other plausible deductions, they were wrong; for the first news we heard at the hotel was that the grey automobile had left nearly an hour before. The chauffeur, it seemed, had been up all night working, and had had assistance in the early morning at a machine-shop. The injuries had been patched up, and the car was expected to get on either to Andujar, or Linares if a certain bridge had been finished.

After all, this was not as bad as if we had made no promise to the Duchess. We were bound not to lie in wait for, or closely follow, her son's car; and had it not been for the "luck of the Dream-Book," Carmona and his party would have been far away last night when we arrived at Manzanares. Had I not been tortured by doubts about the fate of my letter, I might have been philosopher enough to say: "Patience, until Seville!"

As it was, patience was the last virtue I could cultivate; and for what remained of that day, I was unable to find the smallest pleasure in motoring.

Again we were on the highroad between Madrid and Seville; yet the waving ruts and ridges of hardened mud were sprinkled with a green glaze of grass, as if in treacherous attempt at concealment. Dust curled behind us like smoke, creeping under the tarpaulin that covered our luggage on the roof, and into our suit-cases, powdering our clothing like fine white sugar.

Despite the good springs and deep cushions of the car, Pilar's light body danced up and down, as Dick said, like a bit of American popcorn over a hot fire; and our two guests, who had thought themselves motor enthusiasts, did not respond ardently to Dick's forced praises of the sport.

How glorious, said he (every other word emphasized with a bump), how glorious not to be bound down to the fixed and inconvenient hours of trains. To stop where and when you like; to start on again when you choose; never to have your view of the choicest bit of scenery blotted out in a tunnel; to be grimed by no railway smoke; always to feel your face fanned by a fresh breeze, tingling with ozone; to read—if you had the seeing eye—the whole life of the country in writing on the road; the tracks of heavy carts; the delicate prints of donkey's feet, trotting to market laden with wine or fruit; the tracing of diligence wheels, or old-fashioned carriages on their way to a bull-fight; the footmarks of peasants economically carrying their shoes over their shoulders; the clover-like imprint of sheeps' little hoofs, and goats'; the pads of shepherd dogs. To flash through kinematographic glimpses of vineland and oliveland, and graceful blue mountain shapes; to see strange villages of whose existence you would never know when plodding along by train; to fly from one living reminder of Don Quixote to another, as we were doing to-day (had we not seen the inn where he was knighted?)—Bang! Never before can I remember hailing with delight the pistol-like report which can mean but one thing; the bursting of a tyre. But I was enchanted that Dick's eloquence should be interrupted.

We had jolted through wine-making Valdepenas, where the red juice of the grape seems to spout from a grey valley of stones; we had passed, in the quaint market-place, the posada which Don Quixote knew; we had bounced through Santa Cruz de Mudela, with its fine old fifteenth century church, and had seen its famous and gaily coloured garters exposed for sale in the shops; and now we were far from towns or villages, out in the country.

Luckily, everybody was ready for lunch, and Pilar and the Cherub had had the forethought to order things which would not have occurred to Dick or me. Not far away, on the crest of a hill-billow, stood a road-mender's house, with an outside, adobe oven like a huge beehive. We crawled to it, travelling on the collapsed tyre, and were served by a delightful brown family; served as if we had been the King and his suite who had lunched (so said the brown family) on that spot a few weeks ago. Out came the chairs which the King and his friends had sat in, plates and glasses from which the King and his friends had drunk; and the simple people derived a childlike pleasure from dwelling on the episode.

As before, the news of our presence seemed to flash through the air and bring, in the same mysterious way, an audience out of empty space. Pilar said that the people who came were in reality wild birds, seen by our sophisticated eyes in the form of human beings; and as if they had been wild birds, we coaxed them, till they trusted us and fed with us, drinking from our wineskin the blood of the Spanish grape, almost innocent of alcohol. The soft Spanish language, as it fell from their lips, was rich as the taste of that Spanish wine on the tongue, and stirred in my heart a pride of kinsmanship.

While we others lunched, Ropes jacked up the Gloria and changed the inner tube, pausing now and then to munch a sandwich or swallow a draught of wine with an unruffled air characteristic of him. When the road-mender mentioned that four bandidos had been captured in the morning by the civil guard, on the road along which we had passed, his expression did not change by the twitching of a muscle. Indeed, he looked equal to disposing of half a dozen brigands without the aid of a single guardia civile.

After forty minutes by the wayside, we set off to penetrate farther into that melancholy country which Cervantes loved, and almost at once were in the Venta de Cordenas, that wide and stony waste where Don Quixote rode to do his penance. The gayest spirits must have been dashed by the gloom of the knight's self-imposed prison, and mine were not improved. I had a disquieting impression that Monica's voice, calling an appeal, came echoing from the mountain walls.

Of course, there was nothing in it, except superstitious nonsense of which I ought to be ashamed; yet I could not shut my ears to her voice, which seemed to cry the words her fingers once had written: "Don't desert me! Don't leave me alone!"

Always the echo followed, as the car mounted higher on the slopes of the Sierra Morena, and such glories of Spain opened out before our eyes as we had not seen yet, even in the splendid Gorge of Pancorbo.

Crest above crest, great chains of mountains cut the smooth sapphire of the sky; and as we serpentined into their closer grasp, each loop of the Alpine road gave a new and more fantastic combination of rock and stream. The car was boring into a gorge of astounding sublimity, a hammer-stroke of Vulcan which had cleft the mountain and left behind chips of copper, of gold, of silver, and a rich sprinkling of precious gems.

As the god's hammer fell, out of the ruin it made were shaped marvels of form; Olympian castles and giant statues, images of such savage creatures as roamed devastating the earth in days when man was in his childhood.

Even the calm countenance of Ropes was transfigured by this burst of splendour. "Makes you forget that roads can be bad, and tyres go wrong, doesn't it, sir?" he said to me. "I could drive through places like these, day and night on end, without food or drink, never knowing if I was done up."

And praise from a chauffeur is praise indeed!

We were in the defile of Despenaperros, the most terrific and, at the same time, the noblest gorge of Spain; and I should have known it from stories told by my father, who had once fought with bandoleros upon this very road. Down into the river that tossed up white plumes of foam far below, he had flung one man, while another fired shot after shot from his carbine, screened behind a rock on the opposite side of the ravine, scarcely a biscuit-throw away.

Long before, too, history had been made in this mountain passage whose walls had rung with wilder sounds than the screaming of our siren. The rival battle-cries of Moor and Spaniard had echoed among the rocks, and Christian blood and pagan had mingled in the white spume of the river.

I thought of these things, as I looked down into the silent depths of the gulf, and saw the sparkling veins of granite, and purple masses of slate gleam with volcanic life and colour. But still I heard the haunting echo of Monica's voice, in the solitude through which she must lately have passed, perhaps leaving some message, if I could only know.

Was it merely a fantastic twist of my nerves, or was her spirit calling, trying to make itself heard and understood?

It was Pilar who broke the spell by a sudden clapping of her hands. "Andalucia! dear Andalucia!" she cried; and each one of us, subdued and silenced by the majesty of the scene, started as if waking from sleep.

She was pointing at a stone obelisk, looking at which her father smiled and raised his hat.

"No more cold," said he; "no more winds to nip our noses. Here's the dividing line between the north countries and the country of the sun."

Then, as if the obelisk had been the finger of some genie invoking a magic change, an enchantment blurred the stem features of the landscape. It was as though the fierce face of an angry giant had been transformed into that of a beautiful, laughing woman with the sun in her eyes.

The defile opened when we had slipped past a half-hidden mountain hamlet or two; widened into a valley bright with colour as the jewels on the spread tail of a peacock; and boat-like, the car rode an undulating sea of green and azure and gold, that scintillated as if a spray of diamonds were tossed into air with the speed of our going.

At Santa Elena we were in a Spain I had not seen. At La Carolina we burst into a world fair and fertile as the Garden of Eden; and I remembered the Moorish legend that Heaven is built on the blue that hangs over Andalucia.

Hedges of aloe brandished zincen swords and darts; cacti sprawled and leered along the roadside; set in the vivid green of ripening grain, olive groves seemed carved from jade; or the bare rosy shoulders of sloping hillsides turned by contrast their pale tints to tarnished silver. Vines with young gold leaves trailed the purple earth; avenues of acacias dripped perfumes; and as the sun leaned towards the west, the quivering pink light on violet mountains gave to Andalucia the vivid, almost violent colouring one sees in sensational posters.

Each girl we passed wore a bright flower shining star-like through the black cloud of her hair. The men had discarded the fur-trimmed Louis XI caps for the broad-brimmed, grey sombreros de Cordoba, and the horses or mules were harnessed with gay splashes of red and blue colour, and bobbing tassels.

We had talked of Linares, the lead-mining town, as a halting-place for the night, as we were pledged not to track down the Lecomte; and on the outskirts of Bailen, as twilight fell, the Gloria was brought to a sudden stop in the midst of a pulsating crowd, that we might ask the way.

If we aroused their curiosity, they piqued us to the same emotion, for most of the men, and there were hundreds, not only wore upon their legs a kind of divided pinafore, but carried on their backs an apparatus which would have excited wonder in any other than this fairy country.

The machine reminded me at first glance of a fire-extinguisher; then of some appliance used by miners to hold a supply of oxygen. One part of me wished to know what the instrument was; the other preferred to remain in ignorance, lest the explanation should prove too commonplace. But Waring had all my curiosity, and none of my scruples; so he asked a question with a gesture more intelligible than his Spanish; and just as I had feared, the weird union of reservoirs and nozzles was no more than a contrivance for spraying vines to protect them from phylloxera.

As always, we brought the fascinations of the Cherub to bear upon the crowd, as one trains the latest gun upon the enemy; and his crooning brought out facts which made Dick think it high time he got things into shape, and his motor service to running. It seemed that once upon a time a good road had been made from Bailen to Linares, but the road was crossed by a river; and when the masonry supports for a bridge had been built, it turned out that girders had been forgotten. Somehow, it was nobody's place to jog anybody else's memory, and there the matter had ended, so long ago that grass and flowers had sprouted among the futile stones.

It appeared the most natural thing in the world to the people of Bailen, who were accustomed to ford the river, when they wanted to cross, with horses; but though the weather had been dry for the last few days, the recent torrents which had fallen in the mountains, still swelled the volume of water to such a height that it might "put out the fire in the automobile."

I was glad to hear this, because if it would put out our fire, it would put out Carmona's; and as he was prudent in matters concerning his car, he would probably have stopped at Andujar; thus fate would again bring me near to Monica, despite our promise.

The main reason for going to Linares was because the Cherub believed there was a fair hotel, built to accommodate Englishmen collected for the lead-mining; therefore it was without regret that we turned the Gloria to follow the carretera to Cordoba.

Our advisers ran after us with a warning to avoid the rough cobbles of Bailen by taking the ronda which skirts the town on its left. So slowly, in dusk that blossomed blue as the myrtle flower, we passed round outside the town, regained the high road, leaping at speed into a world of wide, silvery spaces and mystery of violet hollows, diving into the deep valley of the swollen river, and rejoicing in a hard surface of good macadam for fifteen miles or more.

Thus we arrived at Andujar, the lights of our great acetylene lamps (lit before the sky turned from opal to amethyst) prying into dark doorways and windows as Roentgen rays pry through flesh to bone.

In the white glare, pretty girls in doorways looked like actresses in a costume play, waiting in the wings to "go on." But no yells of a stage mob ever were so realistic as those of the unrehearsed band who howled over my poor Gloria as she deposited her passengers at the fonda; and Ropes and I pushed her through a wall of human beings to a stable-garage, where her flywheel gushed a protest of fiery sparks on the high stone step of entrance.

The fonda was passable; but Carmona and his party were not there; neither were they anywhere else in Andujar, as we made it our business to discover; and we guessed that the grey car must after all have ventured to Linares.

As it had vanished, we were free to start when we chose next morning. So we chose an early hour, flying over good roads through a land embroidered with the scarlet of poppies, the blue of gentian, the pink of clover, and gold of buttercups, stitched in with the silver of little running streams.

" 'Give us bread and give us bulls,' is the cry of this country," said the Cherub, greeting with joyous glances each feature of his loved Andalucia.

"It sounds like a beef sandwich," Dick reflected aloud; but Pilar reproached him for flippancy. "You mustn't make jokes about bread in Andalucia!" she exclaimed. "And it's called a sin ever to throw away a crumb. Because it's the gift of Heaven, if you drop a bit you must pick it up and apologize by kissing it."

"Why not eat it instead?" asked Dick.

"You can do that afterwards. And if bread's made with holes in it, you must stand the holey side up, because the spirit of God enters through the holes to bless you."

"I thought only olives were sacred in Andalucia," said Dick, staring away over enormous tracts of the silver-grey trees growing out of copper soil, waving as far as the eye could follow, to the floating line of ethereal blue mountains.

"They're sacred, too," assented Pilar. "Did you know, in the old days they used to be sold only for gold, gold carried on mule back in great bags, and exchanged on the spot, for the trees—so many for so much? We have olives at our place, and they're gathered in such a nice old-fashioned way; papa doesn't care for new ways, even if they make a little more money. It's pretty to watch. I should like you to see it, only—Senor Waring doesn't like old-fashioned things."

"I like making the 'little more money,' I'm afraid," Dick confessed.

"Sometimes I like money too—when I want to buy anything. At other times I don't care. Lately I've been saving up. I've got one thousand nine hundred pesetas."

"Good gracious!" laughed Dick, "are you going to buy a bull-farm with such a gigantic sum?"

"Funny you should have said that. I'm going to buy one bull. He's the only possession of the Duke of Carmona's that I want, and I want him so much that I've sacrificed oh,—I can't remember how many Paris hats, and shoes, and silk petticoats, and pretty dresses to get him, with all my own money! The worst of it is, he'll never know about the hats and things."

Dick was looking interested now.

"What in the name of goodness will you do with him when you get him?" he inquired.

"Save him," said the girl.

"From what?"

"From the bull-ring. Oh, he's a toro bravo, is Vivillo, a heart of gold. Not the most famous torero in Spain shall pierce it. I've loved him for four years, since he was a baby at his mother's side, and Rafael Calmenare used to take me to visit him; loved him better even than Corcito, and all this time I've been saving up to buy him before he's of the age for a corrida. Now I've enough, or nearly, and there aren't many weeks to waste, for soon he'll be five; and already he has the strength and courage of three bulls, my Vivillo! I long to see him again—long for the day when I can put my arms round his great neck, and say, 'Hermanito, you're mine!' "

"Your arms round his neck!" gasped Dick. "A fighting bull! You're joking. Say you mean an Irish bull, and put me out of misery."

"He's a true Spanish grandee of a bull, and my arms have been round his neck often," said Pilarcita.

"Then he can't be very fierce."

"He can be terrible. He has nearly killed two men—strangers who teased him, so he meant no harm, poor darling! and they daren't let any except black horses come near him. No Muira bull is more savage than he if he's roused. You know, the Duke of Carmona's bulls are as celebrated as the Muiras themselves. But Vivillo has always loved me, and one or two others—me best, though—and he'll eat out of my hand, the great brown velvet beast, like a kitten."

"How long since he's seen you?" asked Dick.

"Six weeks."

"I wouldn't trust his memory."

"I trust it as I would my brother's. You shall see me petting him."

"Great Scott! you won't let her risk her life with this wild beast, will you, Colonel O'Donnel?" Dick cried out.

But the Cherub smiled his placid smile.

"Don Cipriano calls her Una, because she can tame wild beasts," said he.

Dick's face became almost too expressive. If he did not want Pilar's eyes to read his every emotion, I thought he would be wiser to put on his motor-mask.



XXV

WHAT CORDOBA LACKED

Through a flowery field of cloth-of-gold we came, while the afternoon was young, into Cordoba—"Kartuba the Important," lying like a grave entombing its dead glory, prone at the foot of tombstone mountains.

After the dazzle of wild-flowers shining in the sun, and the ozone of country breezes, a sudden entrance into the network of narrow streets was like being thrown, without a clue, into the Minotaur's dark labyrinth.

I had thought that no town could have narrower streets than Toledo; but the streets of Cordoba were mere slits between house-walls. As we scraped through on the car, Dick likened the town to a huge white cake divided into slices by a sharp knife, but left in shape with only one or two pieces pulled out to loosen the mass.

Still, the stone-paved slits contrived to make pictures; with here and there a pair of splendid Moorish doors, a row of ancient eastern-patterned windows, or a fairy glimpse of a sunlit patio beyond a tunnel of shadow; a fountain spraying jewels, a waving of palms and glow of hanging roses.

"She's sure to be here," I said to myself, as we stopped at last before the principal hotel. "Since the journey's supposed to be a pleasure trip, Carmona's bound to give his guests time to see the sights of Cordoba."

But nothing was known of the Duke and his party at the hotel, although there was a rumour that an automobile had passed through the town in the morning.

The Cherub, consulted, was of opinion that if Carmona's car had come, it must have remained.

"There'd be nowhere for them to stop afterwards short of Seville," he said, "unless Carmona, and that's near Seville. They must be lurking in Cordoba—perhaps at the Marques de Villa-blanca's, who's a friend of the Duke's. We shall come across our lovely little lady presently, if we get about in the town; in the Paseo del Gran Capitan, or the Patio de los Naranjos, or the cathedral, or by the ruins of the Alcazar."

"Besides, I thought you'd made up your mind not to worry till we got to Seville," said Dick.

"So I had," I answered. "But I have a feeling as if something had gone wrong."

"Any reason for the feeling—except the feeling itself?" asked Dick.

I shook my head, not caring to mention the letter that might have gone astray. "Nothing I can define."

"Then I guess it's all right, and you're developing nerves."

"I know just how he feels," said Pilar, with a reproachful look at Dick, with whom she was at odds since the episode of the bull. "There was an expression in Lady Monica's eyes, wasn't there, at Manzanares, as if she were sad? Oh, I saw it; and they wouldn't let me get within whispering distance of her afterwards, or I should have found out what it meant. I had the idea that they were particularly anxious to keep me away, and I wondered if there were any new reason. I'm not surprised that Don Ramon is worried. One can see that Senor Waring's never been in love!"

"Oh, haven't I?" exclaimed Dick; which, of course made matters worse; and to mend them, he went on blundering. "What do you know about the symptoms?"

"Girls are born knowing things it takes men years to learn," said Pilar.

It did not allay my anxiety that she should have noticed what I had noticed. But I clung to the Cherub's assurance, hoping, when we had set out on our explorations, to meet her, to see her face light up with the radiance I knew.

But there were no strangers save ourselves, and a few wandering Americans under the palms and orange trees of the paseo dedicated to the memory of El Gran Capitan.

We wandered—Pilar keeping at my side, and leaving Dick to her father—from gate to gate outside the Mosque-Cathedral which once made Cordoba the Mecca of Europe; gazing up at the tremendous mass of honey-coloured masonry rising like a vast fortress from its buttresses of stone; lingering under the bell-tower of the Puerta del Perdon because Pilar "felt as if something would happen there." But nothing did happen; and we went to face the blighting of renewed hopes in the Court of Oranges, whose melancholy charm and sensuous perfume was sad as the song of a nightingale when summer is dying.

She was not there; nor could we find her in the marble forest of the pillared cathedral, though, while Dick and Pilar made up their differences over the jewelled mosaics, I searched for her.

"I tell you, Ramon, there's some satisfaction in feeling that you're looking at the best things the world's got to show," said Dick, almost in my ear, "and there are lots of them in your country, especially in Cordoba, though I suppose the Moors would weep to see it now. But you don't seem to be enjoying them, in spite of risking such a lot to come where they are."

I didn't remind him that the risk I ran was for the one best thing in all the world, which was only temporarily in my country, and that my depression came because it was not at the moment visible. But Pilar did not need reminding, and in the way of sweet women, tried to "keep my mind occupied" by talking history and legend, confusing them deliciously, and defending her stories of beautiful Egilona and fair Florinda by saying that, anyhow, nobody cared whether they were true or not. Besides, what was history, since dull people were continually discovering that none of the best bits had ever happened?

"I choose to believe in Florinda," she cried, "and all the other beautiful women who influenced kings, and made wars, and upset countries. Without them and their love-stories, history would be like faded tapestry without gold threads."

So Dick ceased to argue, and in silence we left the gem-like perfection of the third Mihrab, to wander once more through the wilderness of gleaming columns that were now like over-arching trees, now like falling fountains.

No dusky vista out of those many changing ones framed the figure I longed to see; and when we had left the cathedral and climbed to the gardens and towers where stood once the Alcazar of Gothic and Moorish glories, it was the same story of disappointment. Only the Americans we had seen in the paseo were there, more interested than I in such fragments as they could catch of Pilar's tales. Dungeons where Theodofredo had been blinded, and Witica the wicked had paid for his crimes; vanished halls where Rodrigo reigned and loved before the dark day beside the Guadalete lost the crown for him and Christendom; what did they hold of interest since the garden of lilacs and roses which covered their ruins was empty of one Presence?

When we had seen everything, I left my friends in the hall of the hotel choosing curios from glass cases, and went out again in search of news concerning the automobile which had passed in the morning.

Presumably it had attracted a crowd, yet no one seemed to know anything of it until at last, just as I was giving up hope, I met an old man who had seen a large grey motor-car at the railway station. A few minutes later, I had solved the mystery of the Lecomte's disappearance. It had arrived early; its passengers had been conducted round Cordoba in the smallest possible time by Carmona; it had then been driven to the station; and with its late occupants had gone to Seville by the same train.

There might have been several motives for this move. The car might have been partially disabled, not having been properly prepared at Manzanares; or Carmona might have determined to thwart the destiny which so far had kept me near him. I was inclined to accept the latter theory, and it did not tend to promote my peace of mind.

I was glad to hear, however, that the train was not due at Seville until late that evening. If we made an early start next day, it was not likely that the situation could be much changed before I arrived, free of obligations to the Duchess.

Of course, said Pilar, before I had time to ask, they would be ready to start early, oh, very early. It would be beautiful to be in the country before the sun had drunk up the dew on the grass, and withered the roses of dawn in the clouds. There was no fear of cold now that we were in dear Andalucia. Yes! we would have coffee at six, and leave at half-past.

I should not have dared suggest such a trial of moral courage, but I accepted the sacrifice; so the roses of morning which Pilar loved still bloomed in the garden of the sky, and trailed their reflection in the Guadalquivir, as we rolled over the old bridge and past the white, Moorish hills.

A morning in Paradise could scarcely be more beautiful; and the pinky-purple blossoms of the alamo shimmering in a rosy mist against dark cypress trees, or mingling with the white lace of hawthorn was a colour-symphony of Spring.

Dignified country houses no longer raised brown-tiled roofs from among groves of olives; but an illimitable sea of waving downs lay bathed in the amber light of Spain. Then, olive woods again, with a foam, of field-flowers spraying their gnarled feet, hedges of sweetbrier, tangled with tall, wild lilacs, and blossoming thorn. Beyond, high hills up which the Gloria stormed boldly, frightening the horses of a troop of laughing soldiers who rode without saddles; over stony roads, mere rough tracks drawn through meadows, where bulls grazed, and bellowed at the automobile; thus to a village which first showed itself like a white crown on a hilltop, and proved to be inhabited by women and children of surpassing beauty. Never were such eyes as those which looked from the faces in the quick-gathering crowd; eyes like black wells with fallen stars in their depths.

Peasant houses by the wayside had thatched roofs, grey and glistening as silver plush; and outside ovens like huge cups turned upside down. The fields were gay with flowers; the distance floated in waves of azure gauze which touched the sky.

On we swept, as though to find the joining place, but found only Ecija, the Town of the Seven Brigands, with its grand bridge and pearl-white Moorish mills, in the yellow, swift-running Genil.

Kings had been lodged behind those brass-nailed doors and wrought-iron balconies, the Cherub said; and malefactors famed in history and ballad had swung from that tall gallows which caught the eye before Ecija's eight church towers. There had been famous fighting, too, by the river bank; but now the place slept, dreaming of peace, and the whirr of the mill-wheels sounded as comforting as the "chum-chum" of a motor that runs by night.

So we flashed out of the Province of Cordoba into the Province of Seville, and tall, slender palms, rearing feathered heads among walnut trees and oaks, were signposts pointing south. It was early in April, but the air was the air of an English June, and I wondered to see men muffled in long capas. "They do it to keep out the sun, as in the north to keep out the wind," explained Pilar; but she only laughed when Dick asked why they shaved their donkeys' backs, why they put red and yellow muzzles on their donkeys' mouths, why they always carried plaid "railway rugs" on their beasts' backs or their own, and why their trousers and leggings were made in one piece?

Beyond the olives, black clumps of umbrella pines flung ink-blots against the sky, and a purple carpet of budding heather was torn apart to let the road pass through. It was ideal motor-country, and Dick recalled with sneers the sixty horse-power man in Biarritz, who had feared the experiment.

"The way is to do what you want to do, and find out as you go along whether it can be done or not," he soliloquized.

I wondered if he were thinking of another difficult road, not to be travelled by motors—a road where perhaps Don Cipriano already knew the way.