The Firebrand Part 57

Checking her steed before the standard, Concha first saluted the surprised group. Then giving a hand to the nearest (and best-looking) officer, she dismounted with a spring light as the falling of a leaf from a tree. With great solemnity she advanced to the staff from which the heavy standard hung low, and taking the embroidered fringe between finger and thumb, touched it with her lips.

Yet if you had called our little Concha a humbug--which in certain aspects of her character would have been a perfectly proper description--she would have replied in the utmost simplicity, and with a completely disarming smile, "But I only did it for Rollo's sake!"

Which was true in its way, but (strangely enough) the thought of an audience always stirred Mistress Concha to do her best--"for Rollo's sake!"

"Take me to the General," she said, with a glance round the circle; "I have ridden from the camp of the enemy to bring him tidings of the utmost importance. Every moment is precious!"

"But the General is asleep," a staff-officer objected; "he gave orders that he was not to be called on any account."

"Tell him that upon his hearing my news depend the lives of the Queen-Regent and her daughter, the young Queen. The Cause itself hangs in the balance!"

And to hear Concha p.r.o.nounce the last words was enough to have made a convert of Don Carlos himself. Who could have supposed that till within a few hours she had been heart and soul with the enemies of "The Cause"?

Certainly not the smart Madrid officers who stood round, wishing that they had shaved more recently, and that their "other" uniforms had not been hanging, camphor-scented on account of the moths, in the close-shuttered lodgings about the Puerta del Sol.

The Commander-in-Chief solved the difficulty, however, at that very moment, by appearing opportunely at the door of his tent.

General Espartero at this time was a man of forty-five. His services in South America had touched his hair with grey. In figure he was heavily built, but, in spite of fever-swamps and battle-wounds, still erect and soldierly.

"What news does the _Senorita_ bring?" he asked with a pleasant smile.

"That I can only tell to yourself, General," the girl answered; "my name is Concha Cabezos of Seville. My father had the honour to serve with you in the War of the Independence!"

"And a good soldier he was, _Senorita_," said Espartero, courteously. "I remember him well at Salamanca. He fought by my side like a brother!"

Now since Concha was well aware that her father had not even been present at that crowning mercy, she smiled, and was comforted to know that even the great General Baldomero Espartero was an Andalucian--and a humbug.

For which the Commander-in-Chief had the less excuse, since _he_ could not urge that it was done "for Rollo's sake!"

Concha knew better than to blurt out her news concerning the presence of the Queen and her daughter so near the camp. That wise little woman had her terms to make, and for so much was prepared to give so much.

Therefore from the first word she kept Rollo in the foreground of her narrative. He it was who, single-handed, had saved the little Queen. He it was who had defended La Granja against the gipsies. It was, indeed, somewhat unfortunate that the Queen-Regent should have conceived a certain prejudice against him, but then (here Concha smiled) the General knew well what these great ladies were--on mountain-heights one day, in deep sea-abysses the next. Rollo had compelled the party to leave the infected district of La Granja for the healthy one of the Sierra de Moncayo. What else, indeed, could he do? The road to Madrid was in the hands of roving _partidas_ of the malignant, as his Excellency knew, and it was only in this direction that there was any chance of safety. That was Master Rollo's whole offence.

Most unfortunately, however, when on the very threshold of safety, his party had been ambushed and taken by Cabrera. But the captor's force was a small one, and with boldness and caution the whole band of the malignants, together with their prisoners, might be secured. The Carlist General had threatened to murder the two Queens and the Duke of Rianzares at sunrise, as was his butcherly wont. And if Espartero would deliver the royal party, not only was his own future a.s.sured, but the fortunes of all who had taken any part in the affair.

The General listened carefully, looking all the while, not at Concha, but down at the little folding table of iron which held a map of Northern Spain. He continued to draw figures of eight upon it with his forefinger till Concha's eyes wearied of watching him, as she nervously waited his decision.

"How came you here?" he asked at last.

"I borrowed a mare and a Carlist _boina_, and rode hither as fast as horseflesh could carry me. I heard from a friend of the Cause that your command was in the neighbourhood!"

"And from whom did you receive that intelligence? I thought the fact was pretty well concealed? Indeed, we only arrived an hour ago!"

Concha cast about for a name. The necessary fiction was also, of course, "for Rollo's sake." A thought struck her. She would serve another comrade, as it were, _en pa.s.sant_.

"From a good friend in the Carlist ranks," she said, "one Sergeant Cardono!"

The General looked a little nonplussed, for, like many generals of all nationalities, he had no slight _penchant_ for omniscience.

"I never heard of him," he said sharply. "Who may he be?"

Concha leaned yet closer and laid a small, soft, brown hand gently upon the General's gold-embroidered cuff. The General, not being so simple as he looked, drew back his arm a little so that the hand rested a moment on his wrist ("for Rollo's sake") before it was gently withdrawn.

"You have heard of Jose Maria of Ronda?" she whispered.

The General's face lighted up, and as swiftly dulled down.

"Certainly; what Andalucian has not?" he said. "But Jose Maria is dead.

He was executed at Salamanca!"

"Ah," said Concha, "that tale was for the consumption of Don Carlos and his friends! In fact, he is the best spy we Nationals ever had--aye, or ever will have!"

"Ah!" said Espartero, lost in thought. There were some matters which seemed to need clearing up, but on the whole the thing looked probable.

Espartero had but recently been appointed to the district, and, being an Andalucian, he was naturally still imperfectly acquainted with much that had been done by his many incapable predecessors. Now, it is true that on this occasion our Concha was inventing or rather (for the word is a hard one to use of so charming a personality) restating as facts certain hints which had fallen from the lips of La Giralda. But she was also speaking from a profound knowledge of gipsy nature, which, as in the case of Ezquerra and La Giralda herself, never attaches itself permanently or from conviction to any cause, but uses all equally according to whim, liking, or self-interest.

Concha, in a whirlwind of excitement, would have liked the General to attack the Carlist camp immediately, but the more cautious Don Baldomero only shook his head.

"That is all very well when a small force is to be rushed at any cost,"

he said, "or a strong position taken along lines previously studied by daylight or opened up by artillery. But when our object is to preserve the lives of persons so important to the world as the royal family of Spain, lying at the mercy of ruffians who would not hesitate to murder every one of them in cold blood--it is best to wait for the attack till the morning. So I will push forward my forces on all sides, and, if all goes well, surprise Cabrera at the earliest glimmering of dawn."

"And my friends who have suffered so much to bring this about?" urged Concha, anxiously. "What of them?"

"I promise you, on my honour, that they shall be protected and rewarded!" said Espartero.

"And Don Rollo, the brave Scot--even if the Queen continues to dislike him?" persisted Concha.

"_Senorita_," smiled the General, "it will be a vastly greater peril to the young man, I fear, if _you_ like him! He will have so many jealous rivals on his hand!"

For Baldomero Espartero also was an Andalucian, and the men of that province, high and low, never permit themselves to get out of practice when there is opportunity for a compliment.

Concha looked the General full in the face with her deep, magnificent eyes, which were aquamarine, violet, or dark-grey, according to the light upon them. They were (as she would sometimes own) fallacious eyes, and upon occasion were wont to express far more than their owner meant to stand by. But, the latent love power behind them once fixed, these same eyes could convince the most sceptical of the unalterable nature of the affection which they professed. So it was in the present instance.

Concha merely looked at the General squarely for a moment, and said, without flinching, "_I love him!_"

Espartero stooped and touched her brow lightly with his lips, graciously and tenderly as a father might upon a solemn occasion. Then he gathered up her little brown hands in his. They were trembling now, not rock-steady as when they held the musket on the balcony at La Granja.

"My daughter," he said, "do not fear for your young Scot. Queens and consorts and premiers are not the most powerful folk in Spain--not, at least, so long as Baldomero Espartero, the Andalucian, commands those good lads out there!"

Then the future Dictator stepped to his tent door, summoned a staff officer, and ordered him to put a tent at the disposal of the young _Senorita_. "And request the commandants of the several columns to come immediately to me at headquarters, as also the gipsy-spy Ezquerra, our late headsman of Salamanca!"

Thus did Mistress Concha, "for Rollo's sake!"

CHAPTER XLV

FORLORNEST HOPES