The Velvet Glove Part 14

"The king lands at Carthagena to-day--lands with his life in his hand. He carries it in his hand wherever he goes, day and night, in Spain, he and his wife. Without Prim he cannot hope to stand. But he will try. We must do what we can."

The carriage was making its careful way across the Puerta del Sol, which had been cleared by grape-shot more than once in Sarrion's recollection.

It looked now as if only artillery could set order there.

"Viva el Rey! viva Don Carlos!" a loafer shouted, and waved his hat in Sarrion's grim and smiling face.

"I do not understand," he said to Marcos, as they pa.s.sed on, "why the good G.o.d gives the Bourbons so many chances."

"I cannot understand why the Bourbons never take them," answered Marcos.

For he was not a pushing man, but one of those patient waiters on opportunity who appear at length quietly at the top, and look down with thoughtful eyes at those who struggle below. The sweat and strife of some careers must tarnish the brightest l.u.s.tre.

Father and son drove together to the apartment in a street high above the town, near the church of San Jose where the Sarrions lived when in Madrid, and there Sarrion gave Marcos further details of that strange adventure which Amedeo of Spain was about to begin.

In return Marcos vouchsafed a brief account of affairs in the valley of the Wolf. He never had much to say and even in these stirring times told of a fine harvest; of that brilliant weather which marked the year of the Napoleonic downfall.

"And Juanita?" inquired Sarrion at length.

"Is at Pampeluna. They cannot get her away from there without my knowing it. She is well ... and happy."

"You have not written to her?"

"No," answered Marcos.

"We must remember," said Sarrion, with a nod of approval, "that we are dealing with the cleverest men in the world, and the greediest----"

"And the hardest pressed," added Marcos.

"But you have not written to her?"

"No."

"Nor heard from her?"

"I had a note from her at Saragossa, before they moved her to Pampeluna,"

answered Marcos with a smile. "It was rather badly spelt."

"And...?" asked Sarrion.

Marcos did not reply to this comprehensive interrogation.

"You have come to some decision?" Sarrion suggested.

"I have come to the usual decision that you are quite right in your suspicions. They want that money, and they intend to get it by forcing her into religion and inducing her to sign the usual testament made by nuns, conferring all their earthly goods upon the order into which they are admitted."

Then Sarrion went back to his original question.

"And...?"

"As soon as we see signs of their being likely to succeed I propose to see Juanita again."

"You can do it despite them?"

"Yes, I can do it."

"And...?"

"I shall explain the position to her--that her bad fortune has given her choice of two evils."

"That is one way of putting it."

"It is the only honest way."

Sarrion shrugged his shoulders.

"My friend," he said, "I do not think that love and honesty are much in sympathy."

CHAPTER XII

IN A STRONG CITY Amedeo, as the world knows, landed at Carthagena to be met by the news that Prim was dead. The man who had summoned him hither to a.s.sume the crown, he who alone in all Spain had the power and the will to maintain order in the riven kingdom, had himself been summoned to appear before a higher throne. "There will be no republic in Spain while I live," Prim had often said. And Prim was dead.

"Every dog has his day," a deputy sneeringly observed to the Marshall himself a few hours before he was shot, in response to Prim's plain-spoken intention of striking with a heavy hand all those who should manifest opposition to the Duke of Aosta.

So Amedeo of Spain rode into his capital one snowy day in January, 1871, carrying high his head and looking down with courageous, intelligent eyes upon the faces of the people who refused to cheer him, as upon a sea of hidden rocks through which he must needs steer his hazardous way without a pilot.

Before receiving the living he visited the dead man who may be a.s.sumed to have been honest in his intention, as he undoubtedly proved himself to be brave in action; the best man that Spain produced in her time of trouble.

Among the first to bow before the King were the two Sarrions, and as they returned into an anteroom they came face to face with Evasio Mon, waiting his turn there.

"Ah!" said Sarrion, who did not seem to see the hand that Mon had half extended, "I did not know that you were a courtier."

"I am not," replied Mon; "but I am here to see whether I am too old to learn."

He turned towards Marcos with his pleasant smile, but did not attempt the extended hand here.

"I shall take a lesson from Marcos," he said.

Marcos made no reply, but pa.s.sed on. And Mon, turning on his heel, looked after him with a sudden misgiving, like one who hears the sound of a distant drum.

"Judging from the persons in his immediate vicinity, our friend has money in his pocket," said Sarrion, as they descended those palace stairs which had streamed with blood a few years earlier.

"Or promises in his mouth. Was that General Pacheco who turned away as we came?"

"Yes," answered Sarrion. "Why do you ask?"

"I have heard that he is to receive a command in the army of the North."