The Firebrand Part 55

"The miller's son is craning his neck to look," she whispered: "do not point. Turn about slowly, and the third stone you throw, let it be in the direction of Vera!"

El Sarria did as he was bid, and after the third he continued to project stones Vera-wards, explaining as he did so--"Up yonder reddish cleft the road goes, a hound's path, a mere goat's slide, but it is the directest road. There is open ground to the very foot of the ascent. Many is the time I have ridden thither, G.o.d forgive me, on another man's beast! Then cast him loose and left him to find his way home as best he could. There are good hiding-places on the Sierra de Moncayo, up among the red sandstone where the caves are deep and dry, and with mouths so narrow and secret that they may be held by one man against fifty."

Concha did not appear to be greatly interested in El Sarria's reminiscences. Even guileless Ramon could not but notice her wandering glances. Her eyes, surveying the landscape, lighted continually upon the handsome young Vitorian in the red _boina_, lifted again sharply, and sought the ground.

At this El Sarria sighed, and decided mentally that, with the exception of his Dolores, no woman was to be trusted. If not at heart a rake, she was by nature a flirt. And so he was about to leave Concha to her own devices and seek Rollo, when Concha suddenly spoke.

"Don Ramon," she said, "shall we walk a few hundred yards up the mountain away from the camp and see if we are really being watched?"

El Sarria smiled grimly to himself and rose. The stratagem was really, he thought, too transparent, and his impression was strengthened when Concha presently added, "I will not ask you to remain if you would rather go back. Then we will see whom they are most suspicious of, you or I. A girl may often steal a horse when a man dares not look over the wall."

In the abstract this was incontestable, but El Sarria only smiled the more grimly. After all Dolores was the only woman upon whose fidelity one would be justified in wagering the last whiff of a good _cigarillo_.

And as if reminded of a duty El Sarria rolled a beauty as he dragged one huge foot after another slowly up the hill in the rear of Concha, who, her love-locks straying on the breeze, her _basquina_ held coquettishly in one hand, and the prettiest toss of the head for the benefit of any whom it might concern, went leaping upwards like a young roe.

All the while Rollo was sitting below quite unconscious of this treachery. His head was sunk on his hand. Deep melancholy brooded in his heart. He rocked to and fro as if in pain. Looking down from the mountain-side Ramon Garcia pitied him.

"Ah, poor innocent young man," he thought, "doubtless he believes that the heart of this girl is all his own. But all men are fools--a b.u.t.terfly is always a b.u.t.terfly and an Andaluse an Andaluse to the day of her death!"

Then turning his thoughts backward, he remembered the many who had taken their turn with mandolin and guitar at the _rejas_ of Concha's window when he and Dolores lived outside the village of Sarria; and he (ah, thrice fool!) had taken it into his thick head to be jealous.

Well, after all this was none of his business, he thanked the saints. He was not responsible for the vagaries of pretty young women. He wondered vaguely whether he ought to tell Rollo. But after turning the matter this way and that, he decided against it, remembering the dire consequences of jealousy in his own case, and concluding with the sage reflection that there were plenty of mosquitoes in the world already without beating the bushes for more.

But with the corner of an eye more accustomed to the sun glinting on rifle barrels than to the flashing eyes of beauty, El Sarria could make out that the Vitorian in the red _boina_ was following them, his gun over his shoulder, trying, not with conspicuous success to a.s.sume the sauntering air of a man who, having nothing better to do, goes for a stroll in the summer evening.

"'Tis the first time that ever I saw a soldier off duty take his musket for a walk!" growled El Sarria, "and why on the Sierra de Moncayo does the fellow stop to trick himself out as for a _festa_?"

Concha looked over her shoulder, presumably at El Sarria, though why the maiden's glances were so sprightly and her lips so provokingly pouted is a question hard enough to be propounded for the doctorial thesis at Salamanca. For Ramon Garcia was stolid as an ox of his native Aragon, and arch glances and pretty gestures were as much wasted on him as if he chewed the cud. Still he was not even in these matters so dull and un.o.bservant as he looked, that is, when he had any reason for observing.

"Here comes that young a.s.s of Alava," he murmured. "Well, he is at least getting his money's worth. By the saints favourable to my native parish, the holy Narcissus and Justus, but the _burro_ is tightening his girths!"

And El Sarria laughed out suddenly and sardonically. For he could see the lad pulling his leathern belt a few holes tighter, in order that he might present his most symmetrical figure to the eyes of this dazzling Andalucian witch who had dropped so suddenly into the Carlist camp from the place whence all witches come.

CHAPTER XLIII

THE RED BOINAS OF NAVARRE

Concha and El Sarria sat down on an outcrop of red sandstone rock, and gazed back at the prospect. There below them lay the camp and the house in which was imprisoned the reigning branch of the royal family of Spain. A couple of sentries paced to and fro in front. A picket had established itself for the night in the back courtyard. Beyond that again stood the tent in which the General was at present engaged in drinking himself from his usual sullen ferocity into unconsciousness.

A little nearer, and not far from their own camp-fire, at which the Sergeant was busily preparing the evening meal, sat Rollo, sunk in misery, revolving a thousand plans and ready for any desperate venture so soon as night should fall. Concha gave a quick little sigh whenever her eye fell on him. Perhaps her conscience p.r.i.c.ked her--perhaps not!

With the heart of such a woman doth neither stranger nor friend intermeddle with any profit.

The sauntering Vitorian halted within speaking distance of the pair.

"A fine evening," he said affably. "Can you give me a light for my cigarette?"

It was on the tip of El Sarria's tongue to inquire whether there were not plenty of lights for his cigarette back at the camp-fires where he had rolled it. But that most excellent habit, which Don Ramon had used from boyhood, of never interfering in the business of another, kept him silent.

"Why should I," he thought, "burn my fingers with stirring this young foreigner's _olla_? Time was when I made a pretty mess enough of my own!"

So without speech he blew the end off his _cigarillo_ and handed it courteously to the Carlist soldier.

But Concha had no qualms about breaking the silence. The presence of a duenna was nowise necessary to the opening of her lips, which last had also sometimes been silenced without the intervention of a chaperon.

"A fine evening, indeed," she said, smiling down at the youth. "I presume that you are a foot soldier from the musket you carry. It must be a fine one from the care you take of it! But as for me, I like cavaliers best."

"The piece is as veritable a cross-eyed old shrew as ever threw a bullet ten yards wide of the mark," cried the Alavan, tossing his musket down upon the short elastic covering of hill-plants on which he stood, and taking his cigarette luxuriously from his lips. "Nor am I an infantry-man, as you suppose. Doubtless the _Senorita_ did not observe my spurs as I came. Of the best Potosi silver they are made. I am a horseman of the Estella regiment. Our good Carlos the Fifth (whom G.o.d bring to his own!) is not yet rich enough to provide us with much in the way of a uniform, but a pair of spurs and a _boina_ are within reach of every man's purse. Or if he has not the money to buy them, they are to be had at the first tailor's we may chance to pa.s.s!"

"And very becoming they are!" said Concha, glancing wickedly at the youth, who sat staring at her and letting his cigarette go out. "'Tis small wonder you are a conquering corps! I have often heard tell of the Red Boinas of Navarre!"

"I think I will betake me down to the camp--I smell supper!" broke in El Sarria, curtly. He began to think that Mistress Concha had no further use for him, and, being a.s.sured on this point, he set about finding other business for himself. For, with all his simplicity, Ramon Garcia was an exceedingly practical man.

"The air is sweet up here; I prefer it to supper," said Concha. "I will follow you down in a moment. Perhaps this gentleman desires to keep you company to the camp and canteen."

But it soon appeared that the Vitorian was also impressed by the marvellous sweetness of the mountain air, and equally desirous of observing the changeful lights and lengthening shadows which the sun of evening cast, sapphire and indigo, Venetian red and violet-grey, among the peaks of the Sierra de Moncayo. When two young people are thus simultaneously stricken with an admiration for scenery, their conversation is seldom worth repeating. But the Senorita Concha is so unusual a young lady that in this case an exception must be made.

Awhile she gazed pensively up at the highest summits of the mountain, now crimson against a saffron sky, for at eventide Spain flaunts her national colours in the very heavens. Then she heaved a deep sigh.

"You are doubtless a fine horseman?" she cried, clasping her hands--"oh, I adore all horses! I love to see a man ride as a man should!"

The young man coloured. This was, in truth, the most open joint in his armour. Above all things he prided himself upon his horsemanship. Concha had judged as much from his care of his spurs. And then to be mistaken for an infantry tramper!

"Ah," he said, "if the _Senorita_ could only see my mare La Perla! I got her three months ago from the stable of a black-blooded National whose house we burnt near Zaragoza. She has carried me ever since without a day's lameness. There is not the like of her in the regiment. Our mounts are for the most part mere _garrons_ of Cataluna or Aragonese ponies with legs like the pillars of a cellar, surmounted by barrels as round as the wine-tuns themselves."

At this Concha looked still more pensive. Presently she heaved another sigh and tapped her slender shoe with a chance spray of heath.

"Oh, I wish----" she began, and then stopped hastily as if ashamed.

"If it be anything that I can do for you," cried the young man, enthusiastically, "you shall not have to wish it long!"

As he spoke he forsook the stone on which he had been sitting for another nearer to the pretty cross-tied shoes of Andalucian pattern that showed beneath the skirts of Concha's _basquina_.

"Ah, how I love horses!" murmured Concha; "doubtless, too, yours is of my country--of the beautiful sunny Andalucia which I may never see again!"

"The mare is indeed believed by all who have knowledge to have Andalucian blood in her veins," answered the Alavan.

Concha rose to her feet impulsively.

"Then," she said, "I must see her. Also I am devoured with eagerness to see you ride."

She permitted her eyes to take in the trim figure of the Vitorian, who had also risen to his feet.

"Do go and bring her," she murmured; "I will take care of your musket.

You need not be a moment, and--I will wait for you!"