In Kedar's Tents Part 8

From England an army of ten thousand mercenaries landed in Spain, prepared to fight for the cause of Queen Christina, and very modestly estimating the worth of their services at the sum of thirteenpence per diem. After all, the value of a man's life is but the price of his daily hire.

'We did not pay them much,' said General Vincente with a deprecating little smile, 'but they did not fight much. Their pay was generally in arrear, and they were usually in the rear as well. What will you, my dear Conyngham? You are a commercial people--you keep good soldiers in the shop window, and when a buyer comes you serve him with second-cla.s.s goods from behind the counter.'

He beamed on Conyngham with a pleasant air of benign connivance in a very legitimate commercial transaction.

This is no time or place to go into the history of the English Legion in Spain, which, indeed, had quitted that country before Conyngham landed there, horrified by the barbarities of a cruel war where prisoners received no quarter and the soldiers on either side were left without pay or rations. In a half-hearted manner England went to the a.s.sistance of the Queen Regent of Spain, and one error in statesmanship led to many. It is always a mistake to strike gently.

'This country,' said General Vincente in his suavest manner, 'owes much to yours, my dear Conyngham; but it would have been better for us both had we owed you a little more.'

During the five years prior to Conyngham's arrival at Ronda the war had raged with unabated fury, swaying from the west to the east coast as fortune smiled or frowned on the Carlist cause. At one time it almost appeared certain that the Christino forces were unable to stem the rising tide which bade fair to spread over all Spain--so unfortunate were their generals, so futile the best endeavours of the bravest and most patient soldiers. General Vincente was not alone in his conviction that had the gallant Carlist leader Zumalacarreguy lived he might have carried all before him. But this great leader at the height of his fame--beloved of all his soldiers, worshipped by his subordinate officers--died suddenly, by poison, as it was whispered, the victim of jealousy and ambition. Almost at once there arose in the East of Spain one, obscure in birth and unknown to fame, who flashed suddenly to the zenith of military glory--the ruthless, the wonderful Cabrera. The name is to this day a household word in Catalonia, while the eyes of a few old men still living, who fought with or against him, flash in the light of other days at the mere mention of it.

Among the many leaders who had attempted in vain to overcome by skill and patriotism the thousand difficulties placed in their way by successive unstable, insincere Ministers of War, General Vincente occupied an honoured place. This mild-mannered tactician enjoyed the enviable reputation of being alike unconquerable and incorruptible. His smiling presence on the battlefield was in itself worth half a dozen battalions, while at Madrid the dishonest politicians, who through those years of Spain's great trial systematically bartered their honour for immediate gain, dreaded and respected him.

During the days that followed his arrival at Ronda and release from the prison there, Frederick Conyngham learnt much from his host and little of the man himself, for General Vincente had that in him with which no great leader in any walk of life can well dispense--an unsoundable depth.

Conyngham learnt also that the human heart is capable of rising at one bound above differences of race or custom, creed and spoken language. He walked with Estella in that quiet garden between high walls on the trim Moorish paths, and often the murmur of the running water which ever graced the Moslem palaces was the only sound that broke the silence. For this thing had come into the Englishman's life suddenly, leaving him dazed and uncertain. Estella, on the other hand, had a quiet savoir-faire that sat strangely on her young face. She was only nineteen, and yet had a certain air of authority, handed down to her from two great races of n.o.ble men and women.

'Do all your countrymen take life thus gaily?' she asked Conyngham one day; 'surely it is a more serious affair than you think it.'

'I have never found it very serious, senorita,' he answered. 'There is usually a smile in human affairs if one takes the trouble to look for it.'

'Have you always found it so?'

He did not answer at once, pausing to lift the branch of a mimosa tree that hung in yellow profusion across the pathway.

'Yes, senorita, I think so,' he answered at length, slowly. There was a sense of eternal restfulness in this old Moorish garden which acted as a brake on the thoughts, and made conversation halt and drag in an Oriental way that Europeans rarely understand.

'And yet you say you remember your father's death?'

'He made a joke to the doctor, senorita, and was not afraid.'

Estella smiled in a queer way, and then looked grave again.

'And you have always been poor, you say, sometimes almost starving?'

'Yes--always poor, deadly poor, senorita,' answered Conyngham with a gay laugh; 'and since I have been on my own resources frequently-- well, very hungry. The appet.i.te has been large and the resources have been small. But when I get into the Spanish army they will no doubt make me a general, and all will be well.'

He laughed again, and slipped his hand into his jacket pocket.

'See here,' he said, 'your father's recommendation to General Espartero in a confidential letter.'

But the envelope he produced was that pink one which the man called Larralde had given him at Algeciras.

'No--it is not that,' he said, searching in another pocket. 'Ah!

here it is--addressed to General Espartero, Duke of Vittoria.'

He showed her the superscription, which she read with a little inclination of the head, as if in salutation of the great name written there. The greatest names are those that men have made for themselves. Conyngham replaced the two letters in his pocket and almost immediately asked:

'Do you know anyone called Barenna in Ronda, senorita?' thereby proving that General Espartero would do ill to give him an appointment requiring even the earliest rudiments of diplomacy.

'Julia Barenna is my cousin. Her mother was my mother's sister. Do you know them, Senor Conyngham?'

'Oh no,' answered Conyngham, truthfully enough. 'I met a man who knows them. Do they live in Ronda?'

'No; their house is on the Cordova road, about half a league from the Customs station.'

Estella was not by nature curious, and asked no questions. Some who knew the Barennas would have been glad to claim acquaintance with General Vincente and his daughter, but could not do so. For the Captain-General moved in a circle not far removed from the Queen Regent herself, and mixed but little in the society of Ronda, where, for the time being, he held a command.

Conyngham required no further information, and in a few moments dismissed the letter from his mind. Events seemed for him to have moved rapidly within the last few days, and the world of roadside inns and casual acquaintance into which he had stepped on his arrival in Spain was quite another from that in which Estella moved at Ronda.

'I must set out for Madrid in a few days at the latest,' he said a few moments afterwards; 'but I shall go against my will, because you tell me that you and your father will not be coming North until the spring.'

Estella shook her head with a little laugh. This man was different from the punctilious aides-de-camp and others who had hitherto begged most respectfully to notify their admiration.

'And three days ago you did not know of our existence,' she said.

'In three days a man may be dead of an illness of which he ignored the existence, senorita. In three days a man's life may be made miserable or happy--perhaps in three minutes.'

And she looked straight in front of her in order to avoid his eyes.

'Yours will always be happy, I think,' she said, 'because you never seem to go below the surface, and on the surface life is happy enough.'

He made some light answer, and they walked on beneath the orange trees, talking of these and other matters--indulging in those dangerous generalities which sound so safe, and in reality narrow down to a little world of two.

They were thus engaged when the servant came to announce that the horse which the General had placed at Conyngham's disposal was at the door in accordance with the Englishman's own order. He went away sorrowfully enough, only half consoled by the information that Estella was about to attend a service at the Church of Santa Maria, and could not have stayed longer in the garden.

The hour of the siesta was scarce over, and as Conyngham rode through the cleanly streets of the ancient town more than one idler roused himself from the shadow of a doorway to see him pa.s.s. There are few older towns in Andalusia than Ronda, and scarce anywhere the habits of the Moors are so closely followed. The streets are clean, the houses whitewashed within and without. The trappings of the mules and much of the costume of the people are Oriental in texture and brilliancy.

Conyngham asked a pa.s.ser-by to indicate the way to the Cordova road, and the polite Spaniard turned and walked by his stirrup until a mistake was no longer possible.

'It is not the most beautiful approach to Ronda,' said this garrulous person, 'but well enough in the summer, when the flowers are in bloom and the vineyards green. The road is straight and dusty until one arrives at the possession of the Senora Barenna--a narrow road to the right leading up into the mountain. One can perceive the house--oh, yes--upon the hillside, once beautiful, but now old and decayed. Mistake is now impossible. It is a straight way. I wish you a good journey.'

Conyngham rode on, vaguely turning over in his mind a half-matured plan of effecting a seemingly accidental entry to the house of Senora Barenna, in the hope of meeting that lady's daughter in the garden or grounds. Once outside the walls of the town he found the country open and bare, consisting of brown hills, of which the lower slopes were dotted with evergreen oaks. The road soon traversed a village which seemed to be half deserted, for men and women alike were working in the fields. On the balcony of the best house a branch of palm bound against the ironwork bal.u.s.trade indicated the dwelling of the priest, and the form of that village despot was dimly discernible in the darkened room behind. Beyond the village Conyngham turned his horse's head towards the mountain, his mind preoccupied with a Macchiavellian scheme of losing his way in this neighbourhood. Through the evergreen oak and olive groves he could perceive the roof of an old grey house which had once been a mere hacienda or semi-fortified farm.

Conyngham did not propose to go direct to Senora Barenna's house, but described a semicircle, mounting from terrace to terrace on his sure-footed horse.

When at length he came in sight of the high gateway where the ten- foot oaken gates still swung, he perceived someone approaching the exit. On closer inspection he saw that this was a priest, and on nearing him recognised the Padre Concha, whose acquaintance he had made at the Hotel of the Marina at Algeciras.

The recognition was mutual, for the priest raised his shabby old hat with a tender care for the insecurity of its brim.

'A lucky meeting, Senor Englishman,' he said; 'who would have expected to see you here?'

'I have lost my way.'

'Ah!' And the grim face relaxed into a smile. 'Lost your way?'

'Yes.'

'Then it is lucky that I have met you. It is so easy to lose one's way--when one is young.'