Romantic Spain Volume II Part 4

"Hum!" (to myself mentally) "if the august Muley cannot brook an English saddle, what must he think of an English wife? Or do these Moslems, like some Christians I know, strain at a gnat and swallow a camel? Mayhap it is even so. The pigeon-prompted camel-driver, who built up his creed with plentiful blood-cement, saw fit to add a new chapter to the Koran, when he fell in love with the Coptic maiden, Mary."

The Shereefa told me that her father and mother had come out to see her.

They were averse to the alliance at first, but were satisfied that she had done the right thing when she told them how content she was, and with what high-bred consideration for her wishes in the matter of religion her husband had behaved. Their intention was to stop for four days, but they extended their visit to fourteen. "And now," she continued, "I can use to my lord the words of Ruth to Naomi, 'Whither thou goest I will go; and where thou lodgest I will lodge; thy people shall be my people'"--a pause--"yes, and 'thy G.o.d my G.o.d,' for there is but one"--archly--"the matter of the Prophet we shall leave aside."

I admired the lady's pluck, and if I were that Moorish squire I have tried to sketch, I should esteem it an honour to have her on my visiting list. But I am a theological oddity, and my wallet of prejudices, it is to be feared, is sadly unfurnished. I never could rise to that sublimated self-sufficiency of intellect that I could consign any fellow-creature to everlasting pains for the audacity of differing in dogma with myself. I have met good and bad of every creed, Mahometans I could respect--whose word was their bond--and so-called Christians and Christian ministers with a most uncharitable spiritual pride, whom I could not respect. The liver of the persecutor was denied me. Were the fires of Smithfield to be rekindled, my prayers would be sent up for the floods of Heaven to quench them, and for the lightnings of Heaven to annihilate the fiends who had piled the f.a.ggots.

"By-the-bye," said the Shereefa, "do you know any of those people who write for the papers in London?"

I admitted that I had that misfortune.

"Some of them are fools as well as cowards," she went on. "They have written articles about me full of ignorance and malice. Have they no consideration for the feelings of others?"

"I am afraid, your Highness, some of them are more brilliant than conscientious; they would rather point an epigram than sacrifice style to truth or good-nature."

"One of them in particular," she said, and there was an irritated ring in her voice, "has singled me out for attack, and given me in derision a name which he believes to be Mahometan, but which is really Jewish."

And with her cutting-whip she viciously snapped off the heads of some poppies. The episode of Tarquin's answer to the emissary of s.e.xtus occurred to me, and I felt that if my colleague, Horace St. J----, were there, he would have pa.s.sed a very bad quarter of an hour.

The females of our party joined us, and I formally presented them, taking a malicious pleasure in emphasizing the "your Highness." The Shereefa received them right graciously, but it was easy to notice that a chill came over the conversation. They were careful never to use the t.i.tle to their English sister. In fact, it was a tacit ladies' battle.

It was time to leave, and the Shereefa presented her visitors with two nosegays, gathered by her own hands. The act had in it something very royal, with the smallest trace of sly condescension. The Shereef accompanied us to the outer gate. On the way I motioned to Captain No. 1 to offer him a cigar. He did; his Highness accepted it, bowed, and gravely put it in his pocket. As we stood on the road at parting, a peasant was pa.s.sing with a load of twigs on his shoulders. He cast them off, threw himself on his knees, kissed the hem of the holy man's garments, and the back of his proffered hand.

We were descending the hill when a rustle in the bushes attracted me, and a white face peeped out and a voice besought me in English to stop.

It was the Shereefa's London lady's-maid. She could not resist the temptation of enjoying a few sentences with one of her own race. From her I learned that there were twenty-seven Moorish women in her master's household; that there was a tank at Wazan large enough to float a ship; that her master had been married before, and had two sons and a lovely Mahometan child, a daughter, to whom the Shereefa was teaching English and the piano; "but remember, please," and here she grew important, and had all the dignity of a retainer, with a great sense of what was due to her caste and the proprieties, "that my mistress's children, if she have any, will be Europeans!"

As we got back to our hotel the muezzins were summoning the faithful to their vesper orisons, and Albert was moaning ruefully under the sideboard. Mrs. Captain had out her sweetly pretty pet at once, and covered him with caresses and endearments.

"Somebody has given him something that has disagreed with him. Was it you?" she said to me, and there was that in her tone which made me quake in my shoes.

Meekly and truthfully I protested that I had not; I had fed him in the morning in her own presence; the darling was in his usual health and spirits when we left, but--intercede for me, Puck, and you aerial imps of mischief, for no other spirit will--I could not help murmuring in audible soliloquy, "The carcase of that mongoose, which was on the square outside this morning, is no longer there."

The scene that followed, to borrow the hackneyed phrase, beggars description. The house was turned upside down; to my mental vision arose sal volatile and burnt feathers, swoons and hysterics. Mahomet's dove alone can tell how all might have ended had not the Frenchman suggested a bolus. Captain No. 1 and I were commissioned to inquire into the mystery of the disappearance of that baleful mongoose. When we got out of earshot of the hotel there was the popping of a cork, and we emptied effervescing beakers to the speedy recovery of Albert the Beloved.

Certes, that bull-dog had a very bad fit of dyspepsia; but the bolus did him a world of good, and before we retired to rest we had the felicity to hear him crunching a bone. Peace spread its wings over our pillows.

The next day we took a trip to the lighthouse on Cape Spartel, the women labouring in the field making curious inspection of the cavalcade as it wended by, but quickly turning away their faces as we males tried to s.n.a.t.c.h a look at them. The road was no better than a rugged track on a stony plateau. There was a s.p.a.cious view from the Phare, which was an iron and stone building put up at the cost of three or four of the European Powers (I forget which now), the keepers being chosen from each of the contributory nations. The Sultan had given the site, but refused to hand over a blankeel towards the expenses, arguing that as he had no fleet, he had no personal object in making provision against wrecks. We were well mounted, but these Barbary cattle have a nasty trick of lashing out, so that it is prudent to give a wide range to their hind-hoofs. Mahomet, riding with very short stirrups, led the party. My saddle was an ancient, rude, and rotten contrivance, and as I loitered on the road home, giving myself up to idle fantasy, my friends got on far ahead. Waking from my day-dream I gave the nag the heel, and as it sprang forward at a canter the girth turned completely round, and I was pitched over in unpleasant nearness to a hedge of cactus. The ground was soft, and I was not much bruised; but when I rose the nag had disappeared round a corner, and I was left alone in the African twilight. Presently a sinewy fiery-eyed Moor came with panther-step in sight leading me back the nag. He had a basket of oranges on his back, and gave me one with a respectful salaam as I vaulted on my Arab steed and galloped Tangier-ward bareback.

Judging from the scanty rags upon him, this man was of the poorest, yet he asked for nothing; there were sympathy, innate politeness and independence withal in his bearing. To him I abandoned the saddle; it was the least he might have for his friendly act. Talking over this incident with the Frenchman at Bruzeaud's, who knew the country, he told me that the Moor was intelligent, honest, faithful to his engagements, and had a go in him that, under advantageous circ.u.mstances, would enable him to spring again to his former height of power and riches. But he struck me as happy, although some of his social customs recalled the feudal age, and he lived under the always-present contingency of decapitation. May it be long before speculation rears the horrid front of a joint-stock hotel in Tangier, or the prospectors go divining for copper, coal, iron, silver and gold. I could wish the Moorish women, however, would wash their children's heads occasionally, and not take them up by the ankles when they spank them. After a sojourn in every way pleasurable--pshaw! Albert's illness was a trifle, and we soon resigned ourselves to the miseries of the prisoners on the hill--we ate our last morsel of the Jewish pasch-bread of flour and juice of orange, cracked our last bottle of champagne, and took our leave of the Dark Continent with lightsome heart. The impression this little by-journey left upon me was so agreeable that I could not avoid the enticement to communicate it to the reader. If I have wandered from romantic Spain, it was only to take him to a land more romantic still.

CHAPTER VII.

Back to Gibraltar--The Parting with Albert--The Tongue of Scandal--Voyage to Malaga--"No Police, no Anything"--Federalism Triumphant--Madrid _in Statu Quo_--Orense--Progress of the Royalists--On the Road Home--In the Insurgent Country--Stopped by the Carlists--An Angry Pa.s.senger is Silenced.

"How like a boulder tossed by t.i.tans at play!" said the sentimental lady, as we approached Gibraltar on our return.

"More like a big-sized molar tooth," broke in Mrs. Captain.

And, indeed, this latter simile, if less poetic, gave a better idea of the conformation of the fortified hill, with the gum-coloured outline of all that was left of a Moorish wall skirting its side. The tooth is hollow, but the hollow is plugged with the best Woolwich stuffing, and potentially it can bite and grind and macerate, for all the peaceful gardens and frescades of the Alameda that circle its base like a belt of faded embroidery. At Gibraltar our party separated, the Yorkshire Captain and his friends taking the P. and O. boat to Southampton, my countryman going back to Tangier after having made some purchases, and I electing to voyage to Malaga by one of Hall's packets, which was lying at the mercantile Mole discharging the two hundred tons of Government material which it is obliged to carry by contract on each fortnightly voyage. When Albert and I parted no tears were shed; we resigned ourselves to the decree of destiny with equanimity. But I humbly submit that Mrs. Captain, when thanking me for my good intentions towards him, might have spared me the ironical advice not to volunteer for duties in future which I was not qualified to fulfil. "Volunteer," ye G.o.ds! when she had absolutely entreated me to take him in charge.

Before leaving the Club-House, I was pressed to relate our adventures in Africa. I had no pig-sticking exploits to make boast over; but I turned the deaf side of my head to certain whispers about holy men who imported wine in casks labelled "Petroleum," who affected to be delivering the incoherent messages of inspiration when they were merely trying to p.r.o.nounce "The scenery is truly rural" in choice Arabic, and who accounted for the black eye contracted by collision with the kerb by a highly-coloured narrative of an engagement in mid-air with an emissary of Sheitan. Neither did I accord any pleased attention to anecdotes of a "lella," or Arab lady, who tempted the Scorpions to charge ten times its value for everything she bought by telling them to send them to a personage whose t.i.tle was exalted. Gib is a very small place, and, like most diminutive communities, is a veritable school for scandal. I took my last walk over the Rock, past the "Esmeralda Confectionery," which still had up the notice that hot-cross buns were to be had from seven to ten a.m. on Good Friday, and paced to the light-house on the nose of the promontory, where the meteor flag, ringed by a bracelet of cannon, flies in the breeze. And then I meandered back, and began to ask myself, had Marryat aught to do with the sponsorship of this outpost of the British Empire? Shingle Point, Blackstrap Bay, the Devil's Tower, O'Hara's Folly, Bayside Barrier, and Jumper's Bastion--the names were all redolent of the Portsmouth Hard; and I almost antic.i.p.ated a familiar hail at every moment from the open door of "The Nut," and an inquiry as to what cheer from the fog-Babylon.

The trip to Malaga on one of the Hall steamers which trade regularly between London and that port, calling at Cadiz and Gibraltar, was very agreeable, and the change to such dietary as liver and bacon was a treat. We were but three pa.s.sengers--a steeple-chasing sub of the 71st, Senor Heredia, of Malaga, and myself. And now I have to make an open confession. I am unable to decipher the log of that pa.s.sage. I have a distinct recollection of the liver and bacon, but more important events have worn away from my mind. There are the traces of pencil-marks before me; I dare say they were full of meaning when I scrawled them down, but now I have lost the key. "Jolly captain--left his wife--forty years--electric light deceives on a low beach--fourteen children--El Cano--break in the head of wine-casks": there is a literal copy of the contents of a page, which may mean nothing or anything, frivolity or a thesaurus of serious information. Memory, what a treacherous jade thou art! It may be said, why did I not take copious notes in short-hand? I would have done so were I a stenographer; but I am not. I tried to acquire the accomplishment once, and ign.o.bly failed. I could write short-hand slightly quicker than long-hand, but when written, I could not transcribe my jottings.

Flanking a beautiful coast, mostly hill-fringed--with hills, too, of such metallic richness that lead and iron were positively to be quarried out of their bosoms--we steamed into the harbour of Malaga, and landed at the Custom-House quay. But there were no Customs' officers to trouble us with inquiry. A red-bearded, flat-capped, dirty fellow in bare feet, holding a bayoneted rifle with a jaunty clumsiness, accosted Senor Heredia with a laughing voice. He was a sentinel of the provisional government established in Malaga. The nature of that government may be judged from his frank avowal: "We've no police--no anything." There were French and German war-vessels at anchor, which was some guarantee of protection for strangers. A novel tricolour of red, white, and a washed-out purple had replaced the national flag. The Federal Republic existed there, and yet the city was quiet; and official bulletins were extant, recommending the citizens to preserve order. But this quietude was not to be relied on over-much. One of the magnificoes under the new _regime_ was a dancing-house keeper, and his princ.i.p.al claim to administrative ability lay in the ownership of a Phrygian cap. Another, who styled himself President of the Republic of Alhaurin de la Torre, a territory more limited than the kingdom of Kippen, had stabbed a lady at a masked ball a few months previously, for a consideration of sixty-five duros. Still, it would be unfair to infer from that example that every Malagueno was a mercenary ruffian, Senor Heredia related to me an anecdote of a poor man who had found a purse with value in it to the amount of thirty thousand reals, and had given it up without mention of recompense. But a city where the wine-shops had nine doors, and potato-gin was dispensed at a peseta the bottle, and there were "no police--no anything," was not a desirable residence; and, as I had no call there, and weeks might elapse before another revolution might be sprung, I gladly took train to the capital.

Madrid was tranquil, but with no more confidence in the duration of tranquillity than when I left it. The army was still in a state akin to disruption, with this difference--the rascals who had rifled the pockets of the dead Ibarreta a few weeks before, would sell the bodies of their slain officers now, if there was any resurrectionist near to make a bid.

Worse; I was given to understand that there were suspicions that the gallant staff-colonel had been shot by his own men. The dismissed gunners were still wearily beating the pavements, and a subscription organized on their behalf among the officers of the other branches of the service by the _Correo Militar_ was open. What were these gentlemen to do? There was a rumour that they had been invited to enter the French service, to which they would have been an undoubted acquisition, bringing with them skill, scientific knowledge, and experience. But they were Spaniards, not soldiers of fortune, and would decline to transfer their allegiance, even if France were disposed to bid for it. Still, what were they to do? In Spain as in Austria--

"Le militaire n'est pas riche, Chacun salt ca."

But the _militaire_ must live. Oth.e.l.lo's occupation being gone, the artillery officers had no alternative but to do what Oth.e.l.lo would have done had he been a Spaniard--conspire.

The usual manoeuvring and manipulations were going on as preparation for the election of the Const.i.tuent Cortes, and the extreme Republicans were full of faith in their approaching triumph all along the line. They were awaiting Senor Orense, but if he did not hasten it was thought events so important would eclipse his arrival that, when he did come, the Madrilenos would pay as small heed to him as the Parisians did to Hugo when he surveyed the boulevards anew after years of exile. They would honour him with a procession, and no more. The venerable Republican, by the way, is a n.o.bleman, Marquis of Albaida. But he is not equal to the democratic pride of Mirabeau, marquis, who took a shop and painted on the signboard, "_Mirabeau, marchand de draps._"

"If you are a true Republican, why don't you renounce your t.i.tle?"

somebody asked once of Orense.

"If it were only myself was concerned I would willingly," responded the Spaniard; "but I have a son!" Rousseau was a freethinker, but Rousseau had his daughters baptized all the same.

Meanwhile the Carlists were making headway. The Vascongadas, Navarre, and Logrono, with the exception of the larger towns and isolated fortified posts, were now in their power. Antonio Dorregaray, who was in supreme command, was reported to have 3,200 men regularly organized, well clad, and equipped with Remingtons. The Remington had been selected so that the Royalists might be able to use the ammunition they reckoned upon helping themselves with from the pouches of the Nationalists. In addition to this force of 3,200, which might be regarded as the regular army of Carlism, there were formidable guerrilla bands scattered over the provinces. Our old acquaintance, Santa Cruz, had 900 followers in Guipuzcoa. The other cabecillas in that region were Francisco, Macazaga, Garmendia, Iturbe, and Culetrina, all men with local popularity and intimate knowledge of the mountains. In Biscay, the commander was Valesco, and his lieutenants were Belaustegui, del Campo, and the Marquis de Valdespina, son of the chieftain who raised the standard of revolution at Vitoria in 1833. Their factions were estimated at 2,500.

After Dorregaray, the most dangerous opponent to the Government troops was Ollo, an old ex-army officer, who was licking the volunteers into shape; and after Santa Cruz, the most noted and dreaded chief of irregulars was Rada, who was also operating in "the kingdom," as their province is proudly called by the daring Navarrese. The elements in which the Royalists were wanting were cavalry and artillery; but they had some money, foreign friends were active, the French frontier was not too strictly watched nor the Cantabrian coast inaccessible, and Don Carlos--Pretender or King, as the reader chooses to call him--was biding his time in a villa not a hundred miles from Bayonne. When the hour was considered favourable, he was ready to cross the border and take the field, or rather the hills; and his presence, it was calculated, would be worth a _corps d'armee_ in the fillip it would give to the enthusiasm of his adherents.

And yet the "only court" held its tertulias, and the donas talked millinery, and bald politicians sighed for a snug post in the Philippines, and the gambling-tables and the bull-ring retained their spell upon the community. It was the old story: Rome was on the verge of ruin, and the senate of Tiberius discussed a new sauce for turbot.

As I saw no immediate prospect of the outburst of those important events, which were cloud-gathering over Madrid, and nearly all my colleagues had departed, I resolved to pursue my journey to London. I had _carte blanche_ to return when I deemed there was no further scope for my pen; but there was an obstacle in the way. Miranda was the terminus of the rail to the north; the track thence to the Bida.s.soa had been closed by order of the lieutenants of his Majesty _in nubibus_, King Charles VII. In other words, 179 kilometres of the main iron line, the great artery of communication with France, were held by the insurgents. Obstacles are made to be met, and, if steadily met, to be overcome. Surely, I reasoned, there must be some intercourse carried on in these districts. I pa.s.sed through territory occupied by Carlists before. Why not again? Besides, I had nothing to fear from the Carlists, the tramp carols in the presence of the footpad (which, I submit, is a neat paraphrase of a cla.s.sic saw); and if I did chance to meet them, there would be that dear touch of romance for which the lady-reader has been looking out so long in vain.

I started. The journey to Miranda I pa.s.s by. One is not qualified to write an essay on a country from inspection through the windows of a railway-carriage in motion, more particularly at night. As well attempt to describe a veiled panorama, unrolling itself at a hand-gallop. At Miranda, which was crowded with soldiers, there was a diligence that plied to San Sebastian by tacit arrangement with the knights of the road--that is, the adherents of Don Carlos. As the fares were very expensive, I suspect the speculator who ran the coach was heavily taxed for the privilege, and recouped himself by shifting the imposition to the shoulders of pa.s.sengers. The day was fine, the roads were good, the vehicle was well-horsed, and we got away from the boundary of republican civilization at a rattling pace. My fellow-voyagers were mostly French, some of them of the gentle s.e.x, and chattered like pies until they fell asleep. I believe it is admitted by those who know me best that I can do my own share of sleep. On the slightest provocation--yea, on what might be condemned as no reasonable provocation--I can drop my head upon my breast and go off into oblivion. Nor am I particular where I sit or if I sit at all. Any ordinary person can fall asleep on a sofa or at a sermon, but it requires a pract.i.tioner with an inborn faculty for the art to achieve the triumphs of somnolence which stand to my credit. I have taken a nap on horseback; I have marched for miles, a musket on my shoulder, in complete slumberous unconsciousness; I have nodded while Phelps was acting, snoozed while Mario was singing, and played the marmot while Remenyi was fiddling; awful confession, I have dozed through an important debate in the House of Commons! I am yawning at present. It is to be hoped the reader is not. And so I burned daylight the while we drove through a country reputed to be pregnant with surprises of scenery until, at long last, the diligence drew up in the straggling street of Tolosa. We halted here for dinner, and resumed our journey with a fresh team at an enlivening speed, until about two miles outside the town we came to an abrupt stop.

"An accident, driver?"

"No, senor, but the Carlists."

Some of my fellow-pa.s.sengers turned pale, the ladies did not know whether to scream or consult their smelling-bottles; and before they could decide, a tall, slight, gentlemanly-looking man of some four-and-twenty years, with a sword by his side, a revolver in his belt, an opera-gla.s.s slung across his shoulder, and a silver ta.s.sel depending from a scarlet boina, the cap of the country, appeared at the hinder door of the diligence, bowed, and asked for our papers. He glanced at them much as a railway-guard would at a set of tickets, inquired if we were carrying any arms or contraband despatches, and being answered in the negative, gave us a polite "Go you with G.o.d," and motioned to the driver that he might pa.s.s on. As we galloped off, all eyes were turned in the direction of the stranger; he leisurely walked over a field towards a hill, two peasants equipped with rifles and side-arms following at his heels. They were young and strong, and wore no nearer approach to uniform than their officer.

"This is abominable," cried a French commercial traveller (so I took him to be), as soon as we had got out of hearing of the trio. "The notion of these three miscreants stopping a whole coachful of travellers in broad daylight is atrocious!"

"They did not detain us long," said I.

"They did us no harm," said another.

"And that officer, I am sure, was very polite, and looked quite a D'Artagnan--so chivalrous and handsome," added one of the ladies.

"They are no better than bandits," said the commercial traveller.

"Driver, why did you not resist?"