The Firebrand Part 56

A little spark kindles a great fire in a Spanish heart, and the young man, counting the cost, rapidly decided that the risk was worth running.

The horses of the Estella regiment were picketed in a little hollow a few hundred yards behind the main camp. It was his duty to watch these two strangers, of whom one had already gone back to the camp, while as to the other--well, Adrian Zumaya of the province of Alava felt at that moment that he could cheerfully devote the rest of his life to watching that other.

In a moment more he had laid down his musket at Concha's feet, and set off as fast as he could in the direction of the horses, keeping well out of sight in the trough of a long roller of foot-hill until he was close to the cavalry lines, and could smell the honest stable-smell which in the open air mingled curiously with those of aromatic thyme and resinous juniper.

In five minutes he was back, riding his best and sitting like a Centaur.

Concha's eyes glistened with pleasure, and she ran impulsively forward to pat the cream-coloured mare, a clean-built, well-gathered, workmanlike steed.

Now the young man was very proud of the interest this pretty Andalucian girl was showing in his equipment and belongings to the exclusion of those of his comrades. Perhaps he might have been less pleased had he known that the young lady's interest extended even to the gun he had left behind him, the charge of which she had already managed to extract with deft and competent fingers.

"La Perla she is called," he cried with enthusiasm, "and sure none other ever better deserved the name! I wish we of the camp possessed a side-saddle that the _Senorita_ might try her paces. She has the easiest motion in the world. It is like riding in a great lady's coach with springs or being carried in a Sedan-chair. But she is of a delicate mouth. Ah, yes--if the _Senorita_ mounted, it would be necessary to remember that she must not bear hard upon the reins. Then would La Perla of a certainty take the bit between her teeth and run like the devil when Father Mateo is after him with a holy water syringe!"

Concha smiled as the young fellow dismounted, flinging himself off with the lithe grace of youth and constant practice.

"You forget," she said, "I also am of the Province of Flowers. Do not be afraid. La Perla and I will not fall out. A side-saddle--any saddle!

What needs Concha Cabezos with side-saddle when she hath ridden unbroken Andalucian jennets wild over the meadows of Mairena, with no better bridle than their manes of silk and no other saddle than their glossy hides, brown as toasted bread!"

As she made this boast Concha patted La Perla's pretty head, who, recognising a lover of her kind, muzzled an affectionate nose under the girl's arm.

"Oh, how I wish I could try you," she cried, "were it but for a moment--darling among steeds, Pearl of Andalucia!"

"La Perla is very gentle," suggested the young cavalier of Alava, as he thought most subtly. "With me at the mare's head the _Senorita_ might safely enough ride. But for fear of interruption let us first proceed a little way out of sight of the camp."

They descended behind the long ridge till the camp was entirely hidden, and as they did so the heart of the young Vitorian beat fast. They think plentifully well of themselves, these young men of Alava and Navarre.

And this one felt that he would not disgrace the name of his parent city.

"Only for a moment, _Senorita_, permit me--there! The _Senorita_ goes up like a bird! Now wait till I take her head, and beware of jerking the rein hastily on account of the delicacy of the little lady's mouth. So, La Perla,--gently and daintily! Consider, jewel of mares, what a precious burden is now on thy back!"

"A moment, only a moment!" cried Concha, her hands apparently busy about her hair, "this rebozo is no headgear to ride in. What shall I do? A handkerchief is not large enough. Ah, _Cavallero_, add to your kindness by lending me your _boina_! I thank you a thousand times! There! Is that so greatly amiss?"

And she set the red _boina_ daintily upon her hair, pulling the brim sideways to shade her eyes from the level evening sun, and smiled down at the young man who stood at her side.

"Perfect! Beautiful!" cried the young Vitorian, clasping his hands. "The sight would set on fire the heart of Don Carlos himself. Ah, take care!

Bear easily on that rein. Stop, La Perla! Stop! I beseech you!"

And he started running with all his might. Alas, in vain! For the wicked Concha, the moment that he had stepped back to take in the effect of the red _boina_, dropped a heel (into which she had privately inserted half an inch of pin, taken from her own headgear), upon the flank of La Perla. The mare sprang forward, with nostrils distended and a fierce jerk of the head. Concha pulled hard as if in terror, and presently was flying over the plain towards the cleft on the shoulder of Moncayo beyond which lay the camp of General Elio.

The young Carlist stood a moment aghast. Then slowly he realised the situation. Whereupon, crying aloud the national oath, he ground his heel into the gra.s.s, s.n.a.t.c.hed at his gun, kneeled upon one knee, took careful aim, and clicked down the trigger. No report followed, however, and a slight inspection satisfied him that he had been tricked, duped, made a fool of by a slip of a girl, a girl with eyes--yes, and eye-lashes. He leaped in the air and shouted aloud great words in Basque which have no direct equivalents in any polite European language, but which were well enough understood in the stone age.

However, he wasted no time foolishly. Well he knew that for such mistakes there was in Cabrera's code neither forgiveness nor, indeed, any penalty save one. Adrian Zumaya of the province of Alava was young.

He desired much to live, if only that he might meet that girl again at whose retreating figure he had a moment before pointed an empty gun barrel. Ah, he would be even with her yet! So, wasting no time on leave-taking, he bent low behind the ridge, and keeping well in the shelter of boulder and underbrush, made a bee-line for the cliffs of Moncayo, where presently, in one of the caves of which El Sarria had spoken, he counted his cartridges and reloaded his rifle, with little regret, except when he wished that the incident had happened after, instead of before supper.

However, he had in reserve a hand's-breadth of sausage in his pocket, together with a fragment of most ancient and rock-like cheese. These, since no better might be, he made the best of, and as the sun sank and the camp below him grew but a blur in the gloom, he washed them down with the water which percolated through the roof of the cave and fell in great drops, as regularly as a pendulum swings, upon the floor below.

These he caught in his palms and drank with much satisfaction. And in the intervals he execrated the Senorita Concha Cabezos, late of Andalucia, with polysyllabic vehemence.

But ere he curled himself up to sleep in the dryest corner of the cave, he burst into a laugh.

"In truth," he said, "she deserves La Perla. For a cleverer wench or a prettier saw I never one!"

The young man's last act before he laid himself down in his new quarters had been to take from his coat the circular disc with the letters "C.

V.," the badge of the only Catholic, absolute, and legitimate king.

Then, approaching the precipice as nearly as in the uncertain light he dared, he cast it from him in the direction of the Carlist lines.

"Shoot whom you will at sunrise, queen or camp-wench, king or knave," he muttered, "you shall not have Adrian Zumaya of Vitoria to put a bullet through!"

So easily was allegiance laid down or taken up in these civil wars of Spain. And that night it was noised abroad through all the camp that young Zumaya of the Estella regiment of cavalry had taken his horse and gone off with the pretty _Senorita_ whom he had been set to watch.

Upon which half his comrades envied him, and the other half hoped he would be captured, saying, "It will be bad for Adrian Zumaya of the Estella regiment if he comes again within the clutches of our excellent Don Ramon Cabrera."

And this was a fact of which the aforesaid Adrian himself was exceedingly well aware. But the most curious point about the whole matter is that when he awoke late next morning he found the sun shining brilliantly into the mouth of the cave. The camp had vanished. There was a haze of sulphur in the air which bit his nostrils, and lo! beneath him, on a little plot of coa.r.s.e green gra.s.s and hill-plants, a cream-coloured horse was quietly feeding.

"It is my own Perla!" he cried, as, careless of danger, he hastened down. There was a red object attached to the mare's bridle. He went round and detached a red _boina_, to which was pinned a sc.r.a.p of paper.

Upon it was written these words:

"_I hope you have not missed either of the objects herewith returned. They served me n.o.bly. I send my best thanks for the loan.--C. C._"

"That is very well," said the young man, smiling as he mounted his horse, "but all the same, had my heels not served me better than my head, your best thanks, pretty mistress, had come too late. They would not have kept me from biting the dust at sunrise with half a dozen bullets in my gizzard, instead of waking here comfortably on an empty stomach. Well, I suppose I must don the cap of liberty now and be a _chapelgorri_. It is a pity. 'Tis not one half so becoming as the _boina_ to one of my complexion."

Then Adrian Zumaya, late of the Estella regiment of Carlist horse, meditated a little longer upon the mutability of all earthly affairs.

"Yet perhaps that is just as well!" he added. "It is ever my hard fate to lose my head where a woman is concerned."

For he thought how the last admirer of his red _boina_ had served him.

So with a little sigh of regret he tossed it into the first juniper bush, and tying a kerchief about his head in the manner of the Cristinos, rode forth light-heartedly to seek his fate, like a true soldier of _fortune_.

CHAPTER XLIV

"FOR ROLLO'S SAKE"

Yet for all this brave adventure Concha was as far as ever from meeting with General Elio. She had not even reached Vera, where it sits proudly on the northern slopes of the Moncayo--not though El Sarria had quite correctly pointed out the path, and though La Perla had served her like the very pearl and pride of all Andalucian steeds.

For once more, as so often in this history and in all men's lives, the cup had slipped on its way to the lip, the expected unexpected had happened--and Concha found herself in the wrong camp.

She rode at full speed (as we have seen) out of sight--that is, the sight of La Perla's owner. And owing to the red _boina_--which Master Adrian considered to become her so well, she came very near to riding out of this history. For, through the higher _arroyo_ of Aranda de Moncayo, which (like a slice cut clean out of a bride's cake) divides the shoulder of the mountain, she rode directly into the camp of a field force operating against Cabrera under the personal command of General Espartero, the future dictator and present Commander-in-Chief of all the armies of the Queen-Regent.

At first she was nowise startled, thinking only that Vera and General Elio were nearer than had been represented. "Well," she thought, "so much the better!"

But as she came near she saw the measured tread of sentries to and fro.

She observed the spick-and-span tents, the uniforms and the shining barrels of the muskets, which in another moment would have arrested her headlong course.

Concha at once perceived, even without looking at the standard which drooped at the tent door of the officer in command, that this could be no mere headquarters of Carlist _partidas_.

As women are said by the Wise Man to be of their lover's religion if he have one, and if he have none, never to miss it; so Concha was quite ready to be of the politics which were most likely to deliver Rollo from his present difficulties. Therefore, taking the red _boina_ from her head, an act which disturbed still more the severe precision of her locks, she dashed at full speed into the camp, crying, "_Viva la Reina!

Viva Maria Cristina! Viva Isabel Segunda!_"