"You have a plan, I can see that," said the Sergeant, shrewdly, polishing upon a piece of wash-leather the silver spoon which he habitually carried.
"You will aid me in carrying it out if I have?" Thus with equal swiftness came Rollo"s cross-question.
A curious smile slowly overspread the gipsy"s leathern visage.
"I think," he said slowly, "that all of us here have most to gain by keeping the two queens alive. But I confess I would not be sorry to make the General a present of my gentleman of the dressing-gown!"
Then Rollo, rea.s.sured by the Sergeant"s words, went on to develop his plans.
"We must obtain sufficient horses to mount the royal party, and one of us must guide the Queen and the others on their way to General Elio"s camp. For the horses we will look to you, Sergeant."
"I have done as much under the eyes of an army in broad daylight, let alone at night and on a mountain-side," replied the man of Ronda, calmly, lighting another of his eternal cigarettes.
"Then," continued the young leader, "next we must secure some means of communicating with the prisoners within the house. La Giralda will afford us that. The sentries must first be drawn off, then secured, and with one of us to accompany and guide the party, we must start off the great folk for the camp of General Elio at Vera, where, at least, their persons will be safe, and they will be treated honourably as prisoners of war."
"And who is to accompany them?" inquired the Sergeant, his face like a mask. For he hated the thought that Munoz should escape a half-dozen Carlist bullets. Jose Maria the brigand, El Sarria the outlaw--even Cabrera the butcher of Tortosa were in the scheme of things, but this Munoz--pah!
"This is what I propose," said Rollo. "Let no more than three horses be brought. So many can easily be hidden in the side gullies of the barranco. That will allow one for the Queen, one for Munoz, and whichever of us is chosen to accompany them can carry the little Princess before him as a guarantee for the good behaviour of the other two."
"But which may that be?" persisted the Sergeant, with his usual determination to have his question answered.
Rollo made a little sign with his hand as if he would say, "All in good time, my friend!"
"Those of us who stay behind," he went on, "will take up such a position that we may stay the pursuit till the fugitives are out of reach. One thing is in our favour. You have heard the silly cackle of the camp about the escape of Concha. If I know her, she is on her way to warn Elio of the disgrace to the cause intended by Cabrera. In that case, we may, if we can hold out so long, hope to be rescued by an expeditionary party. Moreover, Elio will come himself, knowing full well that nothing but his presence as representative of Don Carlos will have power to move Cabrera from his purpose--that, or the menace of a superior force."
"And who is to go with the Queen?" asked the Sergeant, for the third time.
Rollo waited a moment, his glance slowly travelling round the group about the little camp-fire.
"Let us see first who cannot go--that is the logical method," he answered, weighing his words with unaccustomed gravity. "For myself obviously I cannot. The post of danger is here, and I alone am responsible. Don Juan there and the Count are also barred. Etienne does not know the way, nor Mortimer the language. La Giralda is an old woman and weak. Sergeant Cardono and El Sarria--you two alone remain. What say you? It lies between you."
"Go or stay--it is the same to me," said the Sergeant. "Only let me know."
"I say the same!" echoed El Sarria.
"Then we will settle it this way," said the young man. "Sergeant, whom have you in the world depending solely on you for love or daily bread?"
A gleam, like lightning seaming a black cloud irregularly, for a moment transfigured the face of the ex-brigand of Ronda.
"Thank G.o.d," he said, "there is now no one!"
"Then," said Rollo, with a mightily relieved brow, "it is yours to go, El Sarria! For not one alone, but two, await you--two who depend upon you for very life."
Ramon Garcia did not reply, but an expression, grim and sardonic, overspread the features of the Sergeant.
"For other reasons also it is perhaps as well," he said; "for had I been chosen, an accident might have happened to a grandee of Spain!"
CHAPTER XLVI
THE SERGENT"S LAST SALUTE
It was almost time for starting. The two sentries lay on their faces, trussed and helpless, with gags in their mouths. El Sarria and Rollo had dropped down upon them as if from the clouds a few minutes after the officer had made his two-hourly visitation. The Sergeant was ready with the horses in the hollow, keeping them quiet with cunning gipsy caresses and making soft whistling _chalan_ noises in their ears.
So far all had gone well, and Rollo, standing with his knife in suggestive proximity to the tied-up sentries, silently congratulated himself. The dawn was doubtless coming up behind the hills to the east, but the darkness was still absolute as ever about the camp, save indeed for the lambent brilliancies of the stars.
They were now waiting only for the royal party, and the time seemed long to impatient Rollo. Were all his plans, so carefully laid, to be made naught because, forsooth, a queen in danger of her life must still keep up the punctilios of a court and cherish the pettishnesses and caprices of a spoilt child? Was his reputation to go down to posterity as that of a man who, being trusted with the lives of a woman and a child, had brought them straight to the shambles?
At last--there! They were coming. But why, for G.o.d"s sake, could not they make less noise?
With a motion of his hand which directed El Sarria to keep an eye upon the gagged sentries, Rollo went forward to receive the Queen and conduct her to her horse. Munoz, however, came out first, carrying in his arms the little Princess, who, so soon as she heard Rollo"s voice, whispered her desire to be transferred to him. But Rollo had already offered the Queen his arm, and whispering her to tread carefully, led the way to the little hollow where Sergeant Cardono kept the three bridles in his hand, cursing meanwhile the slow movements of crowned heads and enn.o.bled _estanco_-keepers in Romany of the deepest and blackest.
He had cause to curse another peculiarity of monarchs and spoilt children before many minutes had gone by. Till now the success of the plot had been complete. There remained indeed only to mount and ride. El Sarria brought up the rear, a.s.suring himself for the hundredth time that his weapons were in good order and ready to his hand. No great general, Ramon Garcia was a matchless legionary.
But the Queen-Regent would by no means submit to be a.s.sisted to her seat (it was a man"s saddle) by Rollo. She called to her husband in a voice clearly audible all about.
"Fernando--my love! Come to me--I want you!"
As Rollo said afterwards--no queen born under the lilies of Bourbon ever ran a nearer chance of having the rude hand of a commoner set over her august mouth than did Maria Cristina of Naples on this occasion.
Nor was the appeal without effect.
Senor Munoz instantly put the little Princess down upon the ground and hastened to his wife. What happened _after_ that is not very clear, even when the subject has been repeatedly and exhaustively threshed out by the persons most immediately concerned.
Perhaps the little Princess, deposited thus suddenly upon the ground, caught instinctively at one of the long tails of the horses which (in common with those of almost all Spanish horses) almost swept the ground.
Perhaps the animals themselves grew suddenly panic-stricken. At all events one of the three lashed out suddenly. The Sergeant bent sideways to s.n.a.t.c.h Isabel from among their hoofs. In so doing he dropped a rein, and in another moment one of the steeds went clattering up the dry _arroyo_, scattering the gravel every way with a wild flourishing of heels, and making, as the Sergeant growled, "enough noise to arouse twenty camps."
For a hundred heart-beats all the party held their breath. Then Rollo whispered to Senor Munoz to mount and take the little Princess before him.
"As for you, you must run for it, Ramon!" he said to El Sarria. "The fat is in the fire now, and all we can do is to hold them back as long as we can. Make straight for the gorge towards Vera. You know the way. May G.o.d help you to reach it before they can turn our flank!"
Then it was that the Sergeant received a definite shock of surprise.
That queens would be foolish, arbitrary, even absolutely idiotic, was no marvel to him. That they should choose their favourites from _estanco_-keepers and guardsmen, and elevate them at a day"s notice to grandeeships, dukedoms of Spain, and privileges even higher, did not in the least astonish him. But that the person so elevated should after all, in his less corporeal attributes, prove to be a man, was a first-rate surprise to Jose Maria.
Munoz was now to furnish the Sergeant with an absolutely new sensation.
"_Senor_," he said, quietly addressing El Sarria, "be good enough to mount and conduct the Queen to a place of safety. I intend to remain here with these gentlemen!"
Then he went up to Maria Cristina and spoke a few sentences to her in a tone so low that only the last words were audible.
"If not, by the Immaculate Virgin, I swear that you shall never see my face again!"
"Fernando! Fernando! Fernando! You are cruel!" was the answer uttered through choking sobs.
But El Sarria was by this time in the saddle. The little Princess was set in her place in front of him.