The portress laughed.
"A likely story," she said, "that I am to trail across the yard and leave my business here, to fetch the Lady Superior from her devotions to see a young man at the outer gate."
"If you do not admit me," Rollo went on, unabashed, "not only the Lady Superior will suffer, but the cause which all good Christians have at heart."
He suddenly thrust his bare hand close to the wicket and showed the ring which Etienne had given him.
"Do you know this?" he said.
At his first threatening motion the woman had mechanically withdrawn, but now curiosity brought her again closer to the grating, on perceiving that Rollo made no attempt to intrude his hand within.
"These are the royal arms of Spain, are they not?" she said, and dropped an involuntary curtsy.
Then Rollo played his trump card. The ring was made with a certain secret spring beneath the stone, which when touched sprang up like the lid of a box, and a beautiful little miniature was revealed, encircled with hair of a dark brown colour.
"Do you know who that is?" he said.
"His absolute Majesty Carlos Quinto!" said the portress with a deep reverence.
"Well, then," Rollo went on, "take this ring, and with it the hair of the anointed and Christian King. It is a great trust, but I give it into your hands. Carry it reverently as a token to the Lady Superior that a messenger from the King waits to speak a word with her!"
The head of the portress disappeared from the young man"s sight with the profundity and compa.s.s of the reverence with which she received the image of the sovereign of all true Catholic hearts. She went off immediately, and by standing on tiptoe in the white dust, Rollo could see her heavy black skirts playing bo-peep with a pair of very thick ankles.
As the young man stood drumming his fingers upon the window-sill, with his nail he detached flake after flake of plaster, and filliped each as it fell into the courtyard. He had only occupied himself with this amus.e.m.e.nt for five minutes, when suddenly the most piquant face in the world appeared at the wicket.
"Better that you should look to your horse," a pair of red lips said in the soft Southland speech of Andalucia, "he is chafing himself to pieces on a too tight curb!"
"Thank you, Senorita!" said Rollo, his heart instantly disturbed within him, for he was a merciful man by nature and consistently kind to his beast. Then he turned about, loosened the curb, and, looking over his horse, noticed that the tail strap also lathered the animal, whereupon he eased that. Then with a smiling countenance he turned for approval to the face at the wicket, but he was too late. His mentor had vanished.
He waited full ten minutes in the glaring sunshine, till indeed he well-nigh staggered as he felt the hot beams reflected full upon him from the whitewashed brick and painted door. There was not a handbreadth of shade anywhere, and the iron handles and girds of the barred windows were nearly red-hot.
Presently, however, through the breathless noonday he heard heavy footsteps approaching, accompanied by a most raucous and asthmatical breathing. The door of the porter"s lodge was opened, and he caught again the heavy rustle of cloth clogging itself about unwontedly hasty ankles.
"The Mother Superior waits!" gasped the portress, opening the great door suddenly, and the young man found himself forthwith within the Convent of the Holy Innocents.
The Lady Superior proved to be a woman of about fifty-five or sixty years of age, in person stout and rubicund, a smile of good humour habitually repressed upon her lips, and a mouth slightly pulled down at the corners, contradicting the first impression of her jovial countenance.
"You are young, Colonel," she said, frowning upon Rollo"s good looks with a certain affectation of gloom quite foreign to her nature, "very young to be the messenger of a King!"
"I can, indeed, hardly claim that honour," said Rollo, smiling and bowing, "but I have the honour to belong to the army of Carlos Quinto, and to be entrusted with a most serious mission on his behalf. My good friend Don Baltasar Varela, Prior of the Abbey of Montblanch, a name probably known to you----"
"He is my cousin germane--my good and honoured friend," said the Lady Superior.
Rollo bowed.
"He has given me a general introduction to all religious houses where the name of the true King is held in reverence. You will observe that the mandate bears the seal of the Propaganda of the Faith and is dated from Rome itself!"
The Lady Superior looked again at the great and pious names upon Rollo"s commission, and marvelled yet more.
"So young," she said, "so boyish almost--yet so highly honoured! It is wonderful!"
Then she handed the parchment back to him.
"How can I a.s.sist you?" she said. "Command me. There is nothing consistent with the order and discipline of this house that I will not grant to you!"
Rollo bowed grandly.
"I thank you in the name of my master," he said; "the King will not forget fitly to reward his faithful servants. I ask what is indeed somewhat irregular, but is nevertheless necessary. There is a man of this place, who for the King"s cause has become an outlaw, one Ramon Garcia----"
The Prioress rose from her seat indignantly.
"He is a murderer--in intent, if not in act," she said. "He is no true man, but a villain----"
"Many men have been called so," said Rollo, gravely, "who for the King"s sake have borne reproach gladly--of whom this Ramon, called El Sarria, is one. What he has done has been by order of our Don Carlos----"
"Indeed, that is true, my lady," interjected a very pretty and unconventual young person, rising suddenly from behind certain frames of embroidery where she had been at work unseen, "the gentleman refers to that same Ramon Garcia, whose letters recommendatory I had the honour of submitting to you this morning. To kill in the King"s name is surely no sin, else were soldiering a sin, and your reverend worthiness knows that, shriven or unshriven, the soldiers of Carlos Quinto go straight to heaven. And none can deny that, while on earth, a handsome uniform covers a mult.i.tude of sins!"
"Hush, child, hush!" cried the Abbess, holding up her hands in horror; "your talk savours of the world. And indeed, that reminds me--how in the world came you here?"
"I was seated at the embroidery," said the girl, demurely; "you set me the task yourself to be ready for our Lady of the Pillar"s festival on Tuesday next."
"Well, child, well--you can go now," said the Abbess, with a nod of dismission; "I would speak with this young man alone!"
The girl cast a look at Rollo which remained with him long. It seemed to say, "I would gladly talk more with you, for your person is somewhat to my mind, and I do not think that further converse with me would prove entirely disagreeable to you!"
This message was conveyed in a single glance, and Rollo, not the most impressionable of youths, read it every syllable without the slightest difficulty.
He held up his hand almost involuntarily.
"If this damosel is by any chance the Senorita Concha Cabezos, as I have some reason to suppose, though I have never before seen the young lady, it might be advantageous if she remained. She was formerly, as I am informed, in the family of Don Ramon Garcia, and can a.s.sist my mission very materially."
Then Rollo opened out his plans in so far as they concerned Dolores, showing the Prioress how important it was, for the success of the arduous mission on which they had been despatched, that El Sarria should leave no anxieties behind him, and beseeching her for the sake of the King"s cause, to receive Dolores within the convent as she had already received her child.
The Prioress considered a while, and after many dubious shakings of the head, finally agreed.
"It is indeed gravely irregular," she said, "but in these untoward circ.u.mstances the King"s service overrides all. I will receive Dolores Garcia."
"And if it be your will I will arrange the details with the Senorita Concha," said Rollo, promptly. "I need not, in that case, further detain the n.o.ble and reverend Prioress!"
The Lady Superior bent a quick sharp look upon the pair, but Rollo was grave and high of demeanour as became the envoy of a King, while Concha sat at her embroidery as demure as a mouse. She had gone back to her frame and was engaged in elaborating the wings of a cherub of exceedingly celestial aspect, in whom all the parts below the shoulder-blades had been suppressed by order of the Lady Superior of the Convent of the Holy Innocents.
"You will do your best, Concha," she said gravely, admonishing that maiden with her forefinger, "to further the objects of this young man.
And, above all, be sure to show him the deference due to his rank and mission!"
"Yes, my Lady Superior!" said little Concha Cabezos, "I will treat him as if he were the King"s own high majesty in person!"
"A very proper spirit!" said the Prioress, nodding and going out; "cultivate it, my young friend!"