It was very dark under the overhanging rock on that night of clouds and of wind that died and rose and died again. Dominic"s voice was heard speaking low between the short gusts.
"Friend of the Senora, eh?"
"That"s what the world says, Dominic."
"Half of what the world says are lies," he p.r.o.nounced dogmatically. "For all his majesty he may be a good enough man. Yet he is only a king in the mountains and to-morrow he may be no more than you. Still a woman like that-one, somehow, would grudge her to a better king. She ought to be set up on a high pillar for people that walk on the ground to raise their eyes up to. But you are otherwise, you gentlemen. You, for instance, Monsieur, you wouldn"t want to see her set up on a pillar."
"That sort of thing, Dominic," I said, "that sort of thing, you understand me, ought to be done early."
He was silent for a time. And then his manly voice was heard in the shadow of the rock.
"I see well enough what you mean. I spoke of the mult.i.tude, that only raise their eyes. But for kings and suchlike that is not enough. Well, no heart need despair; for there is not a woman that wouldn"t at some time or other get down from her pillar for no bigger bribe perhaps than just a flower which is fresh to-day and withered to-morrow. And then, what"s the good of asking how long any woman has been up there? There is a true saying that lips that have been kissed do not lose their freshness."
I don"t know what answer I could have made. I imagine Dominic thought himself unanswerable. As a matter of fact, before I could speak, a voice came to us down the face of the rock crying secretly, "Ola, down there!
All is safe ash.o.r.e."
It was the boy who used to hang about the stable of a muleteer"s inn in a little shallow valley with a shallow little stream in it, and where we had been hiding most of the day before coming down to the sh.o.r.e. We both started to our feet and Dominic said, "A good boy that. You didn"t hear him either come or go above our heads. Don"t reward him with more than one peseta, Senor, whatever he does. If you were to give him two he would go mad at the sight of so much wealth and throw up his job at the Fonda, where he is so useful to run errands, in that way he has of skimming along the paths without displacing a stone."
Meantime he was busying himself with striking a fire to set alight a small heap of dry sticks he had made ready beforehand on that spot which in all the circuit of the Bay was perfectly screened from observation from the land side.
The clear flame shooting up revealed him in the black cloak with a hood of a Mediterranean sailor. His eyes watched the dancing dim light to seaward. And he talked the while.
"The only fault you have, Senor, is being too generous with your money.
In this world you must give sparingly. The only things you may deal out without counting, in this life of ours which is but a little fight and a little love, is blows to your enemy and kisses to a woman... . Ah! here they are coming in."
I noticed the dancing light in the dark west much closer to the sh.o.r.e now. Its motion had altered. It swayed slowly as it ran towards us, and, suddenly, the darker shadow as of a great pointed wing appeared gliding in the night. Under it a human voice shouted something confidently.
"_Bueno_," muttered Dominic. From some receptacle I didn"t see he poured a lot of water on the blaze, like a magician at the end of a successful incantation that had called out a shadow and a voice from the immense s.p.a.ce of the sea. And his hooded figure vanished from my sight in a great hiss and the warm feel of ascending steam.
"That"s all over," he said, "and now we go back for more work, more toil, more trouble, more exertion with hands and feet, for hours and hours.
And all the time the head turned over the shoulder, too."
We were climbing a precipitous path sufficiently dangerous in the dark, Dominic, more familiar with it, going first and I scrambling close behind in order that I might grab at his cloak if I chanced to slip or miss my footing. I remonstrated against this arrangement as we stopped to rest.
I had no doubt I would grab at his cloak if I felt myself falling. I couldn"t help doing that. But I would probably only drag him down with me.
With one hand grasping a shadowy bush above his head he growled that all this was possible, but that it was all in the bargain, and urged me onwards.
When we got on to the level that man whose even breathing no exertion, no danger, no fear or anger could disturb, remarked as we strode side by side:
"I will say this for us, that we are carrying out all this deadly foolishness as conscientiously as though the eyes of the Senora were on us all the time. And as to risk, I suppose we take more than she would approve of, I fancy, if she ever gave a moment"s thought to us out here.
Now, for instance, in the next half hour, we may come any moment on three carabineers who would let off their pieces without asking questions.
Even your way of flinging money about cannot make safety for men set on defying a whole big country for the sake of-what is it exactly?-the blue eyes, or the white arms of the Senora."
He kept his voice equably low. It was a lonely spot and but for a vague shape of a dwarf tree here and there we had only the flying clouds for company. Very far off a tiny light twinkled a little way up the seaward shoulder of an invisible mountain. Dominic moved on.
"Fancy yourself lying here, on this wild spot, with a leg smashed by a shot or perhaps with a bullet in your side. It might happen. A star might fall. I have watched stars falling in scores on clear nights in the Atlantic. And it was nothing. The flash of a pinch of gunpowder in your face may be a bigger matter. Yet somehow it"s pleasant as we stumble in the dark to think of our Senora in that long room with a shiny floor and all that lot of gla.s.s at the end, sitting on that divan, you call it, covered with carpets as if expecting a king indeed. And very still ..."
He remembered her-whose image could not be dismissed.
I laid my hand on his shoulder.
"That light on the mountain side flickers exceedingly, Dominic. Are we in the path?"
He addressed me then in French, which was between us the language of more formal moments.
"_Prenez mon bras_, _monsieur_. Take a firm hold, or I will have you stumbling again and falling into one of those beastly holes, with a good chance to crack your head. And there is no need to take offence. For, speaking with all respect, why should you, and I with you, be here on this lonely spot, barking our shins in the dark on the way to a confounded flickering light where there will be no other supper but a piece of a stale sausage and a draught of leathery wine out of a stinking skin. Pah!"
I had good hold of his arm. Suddenly he dropped the formal French and p.r.o.nounced in his inflexible voice:
"For a pair of white arms, Senor. _Bueno_."
He could understand.
CHAPTER III
On our return from that expedition we came gliding into the old harbour so late that Dominic and I, making for the cafe kept by Madame Leonore, found it empty of customers, except for two rather sinister fellows playing cards together at a corner table near the door. The first thing done by Madame Leonore was to put her hands on Dominic"s shoulders and look at arm"s length into the eyes of that man of audacious deeds and wild stratagems who smiled straight at her from under his heavy and, at that time, uncurled moustaches.
Indeed we didn"t present a neat appearance, our faces unshaven, with the traces of dried salt sprays on our smarting skins and the sleeplessness of full forty hours filming our eyes. At least it was so with me who saw as through a mist Madame Leonore moving with her mature nonchalant grace, setting before us wine and gla.s.ses with a faint swish of her ample black skirt. Under the elaborate structure of black hair her jet-black eyes sparkled like good-humoured stars and even I could see that she was tremendously excited at having this lawless wanderer Dominic within her reach and as it were in her power. Presently she sat down by us, touched lightly Dominic"s curly head silvered on the temples (she couldn"t really help it), gazed at me for a while with a quizzical smile, observed that I looked very tired, and asked Dominic whether for all that I was likely to sleep soundly to-night.
"I don"t know," said Dominic, "He"s young. And there is always the chance of dreams."
"What do you men dream of in those little barques of yours tossing for months on the water?"
"Mostly of nothing," said Dominic. "But it has happened to me to dream of furious fights."
"And of furious loves, too, no doubt," she caught him up in a mocking voice.
"No, that"s for the waking hours," Dominic drawled, basking sleepily with his head between his hands in her ardent gaze. "The waking hours are longer."
"They must be, at sea," she said, never taking her eyes off him. "But I suppose you do talk of your loves sometimes."
"You may be sure, Madame Leonore," I interjected, noticing the hoa.r.s.eness of my voice, "that you at any rate are talked about a lot at sea."
"I am not so sure of that now. There is that strange lady from the Prado that you took him to see, Signorino. She went to his head like a gla.s.s of wine into a tender youngster"s. He is such a child, and I suppose that I am another. Shame to confess it, the other morning I got a friend to look after the cafe for a couple of hours, wrapped up my head, and walked out there to the other end of the town... . Look at these two sitting up! And I thought they were so sleepy and tired, the poor fellows!"
She kept our curiosity in suspense for a moment.
"Well, I have seen your marvel, Dominic," she continued in a calm voice.
"She came flying out of the gate on horseback and it would have been all I would have seen of her if-and this is for you, Signorino-if she hadn"t pulled up in the main alley to wait for a very good-looking cavalier. He had his moustaches so, and his teeth were very white when he smiled at her. But his eyes are too deep in his head for my taste. I didn"t like it. It reminded me of a certain very severe priest who used to come to our village when I was young; younger even than your marvel, Dominic."
"It was no priest in disguise, Madame Leonore," I said, amused by her expression of disgust. "That"s an American."
"Ah! _Un Americano_! Well, never mind him. It was her that I went to see."
"What! Walked to the other end of the town to see Dona Rita!" Dominic addressed her in a low bantering tone. "Why, you were always telling me you couldn"t walk further than the end of the quay to save your life-or even mine, you said."