CHAPTER XXVIII
LE GANT DE VELOURS They accomplished the rest of the journey without accident. The old spirit of adventure which had led them to these mountains while they were yet children seemed to awaken again, and they were as comrades. But Juanita was absent-minded. She was not climbing skilfully. At one place far above trees or other vegetation she made a false step and sent a great rock rolling down the slope.
"You must be careful," said Marcos, almost sharply. "You are not thinking what you are doing."
And Juanita suffered the reproof with an unwonted meekness. She was more careful while they pa.s.sed over a dangerous slope where the snow had softened in the morning sun, and came to the topmost valley--an oval basin of rocks and snow with no visible outlet. Immediately below them, at the foot of a slope, which looked quite feasible, lay huddled the body of a man.
"It is a Carlist," explained Marcos. "We heard some time ago that they had been trying to find another way over to Torre Garda. That valley is a trap. That is not the way to Torre Garda at all; and that slope is solid ice. See, his knife lies beside him. He tried to cut steps before he died. This is our way."
And he led Juanita rather hastily away. At nine o"clock they pa.s.sed the last shoulder and stood above Torre Garda, and the valley of the Wolf lying in the sunlight below them. The road down the valley lay like a yellow ribbon stretched across the broad breast of Nature.
Half an hour later they reached the pine woods, and heard Perro barking on the terrace. The dog soon came panting to meet them, and not far behind him Sarrion, whose face betrayed no surprise at perceiving Juanita.
"You would have been safer at Pampeluna," he said with a keen glance into her face.
"I am quite safe enough here, thank you," she answered, meeting his eyes with a steady smile.
He asked Marcos whether he had felt his wounded shoulder or suffered from so much exertion. And Juanita answered more fully than Marcos, giving details which she had certainly not learnt from himself. A man having once been nursed in sickness by a woman parts with some portion of his personal liberty which she never relinquishes.
"It is the result of good nursing," said Sarrion, slipping his hand inside Juanita"s arm and walking by her side.
"It is the result of his great strength," she answered, with a glance towards Marcos, which he did not perceive, for he was looking straight in front of him.
"Uncle Ramon," said Juanita, an hour later when they were sitting on the terrace together. She turned towards him suddenly with her shrewd little smile. "Uncle Ramon--do you ever play Pelota?"
"Every Basque plays Pelota," he replied.
Juanita nodded and lapsed into reflective silence. She seemed to be arranging something in her mind. Towards Sarrion, as towards Marcos, she a.s.sumed at times an att.i.tude of protection, and almost of patronage, as if she knew much that was hidden from them and had access to some chamber of life of which the door was closed to all men.
"Does it ever strike you," she said at length, "that in a game of Pelota--supposing the ball to be endowed with a ... well a certain lower form of intelligence, the intelligence of a mere woman, for instance--it would be rather natural for it to wonder what on earth the game was about? It might even think that it had a certain right to know what was happening to it."
"Yes," admitted Sarrion, who having a quick and eager mind, understood that Juanita was preparing to speak plainly. And at such times women always speak more plainly than men. He lighted a cigarette, threw away the match with a little gesture which seemed to indicate that he was ready for her--would meet her on her own ground.
"Why did Evasio Mon want me to go into religion?" she asked bluntly.
"My child--you have three million pesetas."
"And if I had gone into religion--and I nearly did--the Church would have had them?"
"Pardon me," said Sarrion. "The Jesuits--not the Church. It is not the same thing--though the world does not yet understand that. The Jesuits would have had the money and they would have spent it in throwing Spain into another civil war which would have been a worse war than we have seen. The Church--our Church--has enemies. It has Bismarck, and the English; but it has no worse enemy than the Jesuits. For they play their own game."
"At Pelota! and you and Marcos?"
"We were on the other side," said Sarrion, with a shrug of the shoulders.
"And I have been the ball."
Sarrion glanced at her sideways. This was the moment that Marcos had always antic.i.p.ated. Sarrion wondered why he should have to meet it and not Marcos. Juanita sat motionless with steady eyes fixed on the distant mountains. He looked at her lips and saw there a faint smile not devoid of pity--as if she knew something of which he was ignorant. He pulled himself together; for he was a bold man who faced his fences with a smile.
"Well," he said, "... since we have won."
"Have you won?"
Sarrion glanced at her again. Why did she not speak plainly, he was wondering. In the subtler matters of life, women have a clearer comprehension and a plainer speech than men. When they are tongue-tied--the reason is a strong one.
"At all events Senor Mon does not know when he is beaten," said Juanita, and the silence that followed was broken by the distant sound of firing.
They were fighting at the mouth of the valley.
"That is true," admitted Sarrion.
"They say he is trapped in the valley--as we are."
"So I believe."
"Will he come to Torre Garda?"
"As likely as not," answered Sarrion. "He has never lacked audacity."
"If he comes I should like to speak to him," said Juanita.
Sarrion wondered whether she intended to make Evasio Mon understand that he was beaten. It was Mon himself who had said that the woman always holds the casting vote.
"At all events," said Juanita, who seemed to have returned in her thoughts to the question of winning or losing. "At all events, you played a bold game."
"That is why we won," said Sarrion, stoutly.
"And you did not heed the risks."
"What risks?"
Juanita turned and looked at him with a little laugh of scorn.
"Oh, you do not understand. Neither does Marcos. I suppose men don"t. You might have ruined several lives."
"So might Evasio Mon," returned Sarrion sharply. And Juanita rather drew back as a fencer may flinch who has been touched.
Sarrion leant back in his chair and threw away the cigarette which he had not smoked. Juanita had chosen her own ground and he had met her on it.
He had answered the question which she was too proud to ask.
And as he had antic.i.p.ated, Evasio Mon came to Torre Garda. It was almost dusk when he arrived. Whether he knew that Marcos was not in his room, remained an open question. He did not ask after him. He was brought by the servant to the terrace where he found Cousin Peligros and Juanita.
Sarrion was in his study and came out when Mon pa.s.sed the open window.
"So we are all besieged," said the visitor, with his tolerant smile as he took a chair offered to him in the grand manner by Cousin Peligros, who belonged to the school of etiquette that holds it wrong for any lady to be natural in the presence of men other than of her own family.
Cousin Peligros smiled in rather a pinched way, and with a gesture of her outspread hands morally wiped the besiegers out. No female Sarrion, she seemed to imply, need ever fear inconvenience from a person in uniform.
"You and I, Senorita," said Mon, with his bland and easy sympathy of manner, "have no business here. We are persons of peace."
Cousin Peligros made a condescending and yet decisive gesture, patting the empty air.