Читать книгу Sarita, the Carlist - Arthur W. Marchmont - Страница 5

CHAPTER V

THE EXPLANATION

Sarita did not speak for some time but sat with a very thoughtful look on her face which she turned now and again toward me, as though some point in her reverie had been reached which concerned me and made her doubtful.

"Yes, I am sorry, deeply sorry, and would undo it if I could!" she exclaimed at last, giving an impulsive utterance to her thoughts, and then jumping up and pacing the floor.

"Sorry for what?" I asked. "If it concerns me, as it seems to, pray do not trouble. I am not of much account."

"I am sorry that we used your name. Had I known what manner of man you were, nay, could I even have guessed you would ever come to Madrid, I would never have sanctioned it."

"Suppose you tell me what the thing means. I am not very quick, and I confess to being very much puzzled."

"It means that part of what you heard last night is quite true. Ferdinand Carbonnell is a Carlist leader—a secret leader, you understand—but held for one of the most dangerous, desperate, and capable of them all. And yet there is no Ferdinand Carbonnell in all Spain but yourself."

"I don't see that that need distress you or disturb me very seriously, whatever the puzzle may mean. A name is only a name, after all. But what is this puzzle?"

"Now that I see you I know that we have wronged you," she cried, vigorously.

"The weight of even that responsibility need not prevent your speaking plainly. Let me hear about it. It's very likely I shall enjoy it as much as you have, probably, up till now—I am not exactly like other men in all respects. I'm no stickler for conventionalities."

"Ferdinand Carbonnell, the Carlist leader, is really an embodiment of Ramon's and my Carlism. Let me tell you the truth. So long as I have known that your father, Lord Glisfoyle, was my uncle—and Aunt Mercedes told me some two years ago—I have bitterly resented his conduct in ignoring us, leaving us to bear the injustice of these Quesadas, our other relatives, and treating us, his brother's children, as though we were outcasts, pariahs, unworthy of his aristocratic recognition."

"You have wronged my father, cousin. I believe he has always held it his business to know that matters were well with you."

"Knowing you now, I can believe that. But I thought that some little trouble on his part, for a boy needs a man's hand, would have made my brother's life a far better one. We Spaniards, too, are quick to anger—and do not always stay to think. I grew to hate the names of Glisfoyle and Carbonnell; and when Ramon's great trouble came, when his wildness drove him to seek Sebastian Quesada's life and he failed, and was proscribed and had to take another name, he and I together chose yours—Ferdinand Carbonnell. It was Spanish enough to pass for the name of a Spaniard; and we took a delight—malicious, wrong-headed, unholy delight if you will—in building up for it a character which would at least shock the prudish sensibilities of a noble English family should they ever hear of it."

"I understand, partly; but still I don't see that it was such a very terrible matter," I added with a smile. "As I say, a name is no more than a name." I was anxious to lessen her very obvious concern; and did not in reality take the thing at all seriously.

"It came within very little of being terrible, last night," she replied.

"I don't know that. I had plenty of fight left in me even at the ugliest moment. And at any rate, the ending more than made amends for the whole suspense." She made a quick gesture of protest. "But what was meant by the suggestion that your Ferdinand Carbonnell had been guilty of treachery?"

"Wait, please. When we created the mythical Ferdinand Carbonnell, it was because there seemed no room for me, a girl, in the great work of Carlism; I therefore introduced a new element into the form of agitation. Instead of all the leaders knowing each other and interchanging views personally and openly, only a few of the leaders of the new movement were to know one another; there was to be as much secrecy as possible and Ferdinand Carbonnell was to be the mythical and yet terribly real centre of all. To establish that was our first stroke. Ramon did it under my guidance; going from place to place, now in one name now in another; but everywhere speaking of, and advocating the new departure, and everywhere preaching up the greatness of the new and secret leader, nameless to many, and to the chosen few known as Ferdinand Carbonnell."

"Very mysterious," said I, not quite seriously, despite her earnestness. "But these men spoke of interviews with people, of delegates to go with me to Paris, of lists of names given to me, and so on. As if Ferdinand Carbonnell were anything but an impersonal myth."

"There is something in that I have not probed; but it was false—a tissue of falsehoods. Why, it would make Ramon and me traitors," she cried in a tone of splendid repudiation. I thought a moment.

"But it was this same treachery which set these men first to snare and then threaten me. And I am much mistaken if there was not a personal motive of hate at the back of this Colonel Juan Livenza's conduct. Can your brother have used this name anywhere or at any time, and can he and these men have fallen foul of each other?"

To my surprise the question loosed a full rich flood of crimson colour, and the flush spread up to the brow until the whole face glowed like a brilliant damask rose.

"You will have to know these matters," she said, with a touch of embarrassment. "No, Ramon has used the name once or twice, but never in that way. These two have never met; or he would have known last night, of course, you were not Ramon. No, it is this. Ramon and I meet very seldom—though we love one another dearly—and as I am afraid on his account to let people know that he is my brother, our meetings have to be secret, and—might be mistaken for those of a different character."

"I see."

"I have to-day found out that herein our own house there has been a spy; spies here are as plentiful as fools," she cried, contemptuously. "This was a woman whom I trusted somewhat, and she carried news of my concerns to Juan Livenza. She may have told him of my meetings with Ramon; it is likely, for she did not know Ramon was my brother. She has very possibly jumbled up some connection between him and Ferdinand Carbonnell; for Ramon has written to me often in that name, and I to him, sometimes. Then she probably saw here a reference to your arrival here last night, or she may have heard Aunt Mercedes and myself discussing it; and she has carried the news to her employer. It is easy for men in some moods to see facts in either fears or hopes."

"And his mood was?" At my question and glance her colour began to mount again.

"He loves me." She met my look half-defiantly, her eyes fixed on mine as if daring me to utter a word of protest. But the next instant the light died out, her glance fell to the ground, and she added: "I could win him to the cause in no other way."

I had to put a curb of steel strength on myself to prevent my feelings speaking from my eyes, or in my gestures; and in a tone as cold and formal as I could make it, I replied—

"You are not afraid to use sharp weapons. And yourself? Do you care? I had better know everything."

She raised her head, flashed her eyes upon me, drew herself up, and said with great earnestness—

"I have no heart for anything but the cause." A very stalwart champion she looked for any cause, and very lovely.

"I begin already to take your aunt's side in the matter, and to think you will get into too deep waters, cousin Sarita." She laughed, easily.

"The deeper the water the greater the buoyancy for those who know how to swim. I am not yet enough of a man to count dangers in advance."

"It is not difficult to despise dangers one doesn't see or credit."

"Nor to take a map and write 'pitfall,' 'abyss,' 'precipice,' 'dangerous,' in blood colour at every inch of a road you mean to travel. Nor with us Spaniards does that kind of timorous dread pass for high and prudent valour." She uttered the retort quickly, almost angrily.

"I am not a map-maker nor colourer by profession," I answered, slowly, with a smile. "But if I were, I confess I should like to have something more about a particular route than the bald statement that, 'This road leads to—blank' or 'That to blazes.' A knowledge of the country is never amiss, and a tip at the crossroads—and there are plenty of them—can come in mighty handy." I spoke coolly and almost lazily, in deliberate contrast to her fire and vehemence, and when I finished she looked at me as if in surprise.

"And you are the same man as last night?" she cried, wrinkling her forehead.

"Oh, that was different. There are moments when you have a stiff bit of country to negotiate, and you have to jam your hat down over your eyes, shove your heels into your nag's side, and take it as it comes, hot foot and all hazards in, and get there. But the pace that wears for everyday work is the jog trot, with a wary eye even for a rabbit hole or a rolling stone."

"Give me the reckless gallop. I am angry with you when you play at being the man with the microscope. I don't want such a man on my side—cold, phlegmatic, calculating, iceful. I would have a cousin, not a lawyer. I am not a microscopic object, to be analysed, probed, peered at, and stuck on a pin for the curious to wonder at. I am a woman, warm flesh and blood, a thing of life and hopes and aspirations, and I want a friend, a sympathiser, a cousin. But a man with a microscope, ah!" and her eyes were radiant with disdain.

"You think I would not—or could not—serve you?" I think my voice must have said more than my words, for she turned upon me swiftly, her face glowing with a different light and softened with a rarely seductive smile.

"Are you trying to dupe me? To hide your real character? Are you posing as a mere piece of investigating diplomatic machinery? Oh, how I wish you were. Do you know you tempt me sorely to tell you what I meant to keep secret? My eyes are not easily blinded, cousin Ferdinand; have a care," and she shook her finger laughingly at me, and then sat down near me, and in a position which, when I looked at her, caused me to face the full light. Not a little embarrassing, considering all things; but I controlled my features carefully. "Are you really cold and calculating and fireless, with just flashes of energy and light; or is the fire always there, and do you know it and fear its effects, and stamp it down with that resolution that now sits on your brow and sets your face like a steel mask?" and she leaned forward and looked closely at me.

"I am full of desire to help you!" I said, controlling my voice.

"Full of desire to help me," she echoed, setting her head on one side whimsically, and pausing. Then she asked, seriously, "What would you do to help me?"

"Surely that must depend upon the case that calls for my help!"

"What an Englishman you are! If only we Spaniards were like you, what a nation we should be!" This with a flash of enthusiasm that was all sincere. "How long have you known of my existence, cousin?" she cried, harking back to her growing purpose.

"A few days."

"And were you told I was in deep trouble? None of your great, lordly house have yet concerned yourselves with us!"

"A proper rebuke perhaps, if you have been in trouble."

"If? Is it not so?"

"You don't wear the trappings of trouble; this house——"

"How English again!" she burst in. "What sort of a coat does he wear? How does she dress? And when you know that, you judge the character!"

"Not all of us."

"You wish me to think you an exception?"

"At least my sympathies with you should guide me right."

"That is pretty and not unpromising; but what was my trouble as described to you? Did it stir your sympathies?"

"I have not yet a clear knowledge of all your trouble. I wish to know."

"That you may help me?"

"That I may help you, if you will let me."

"I believe you would," she exclaimed. "I almost believe it, that is. Why is it that while we Spaniards hate you English, we can't help believing your word?"

"Hate is a strong word," said I, with a glance.

"It is a strong feeling, cousin."

"Fortunately our relation is not international."

She laughed, softly, musically, and ravishingly.

"No, not international in that respect."

"So that we are able to make a treaty of alliance," I said.

"Offensive and defensive?" she cried, quickly, and seemed to wait somewhat anxiously for my answer.

"Defensive certainly," I replied. She gave an impatient shrug of her shoulders and half turned away. "And offensive—with limitations," I added. "There are limitation clauses in every treaty of alliance." She turned to me again, and looked at me long and steadfastly; then sighed and rose.

"I have never been so tempted in my life, cousin Ferdinand. But I will not. No—no;" another deep sigh. "I dare not. But while I am in the mood—for I am a creature of moods and a slave of them—let me tell you what you ought to know. I have lately been desperate, and in my desperation I planned to draw you into the snare. I needed you. I wished to make use of you. No, no, don't smile as if the thing were nothing, or as if you were too strong, too cautious, too level-headed, too English, to be caught even in a Spanish snare. Let me finish. We need someone in the British Embassy here; some friend to our cause, who will help us with information, will form a link between us here and our friends in London; and when I heard you were coming, I intended you to fill that role. It was wicked, horribly wicked, and cowardly, too; but for the cause I would do any crime and call it virtue," she exclaimed vehemently.

"And now that you have seen me, you don't think I'm worth the trouble?" I asked, looking at her.

"I should prize your help more than ever," she cried, with equal vehemence; adding slowly, "but I will not take it."

"You would never have had it in the way you planned, cousin. But for anything short of that it is yours at any moment for the mere asking—aye, without the seeking, if the chance comes. It is, however, Sarita my cousin, not Sarita Castelar the Carlist, that I wish to help."

"Do you think you can draw a distinction? No, no; a thousand noes. You cannot; for I can only strike at Sebastian Quesada through my Carlism. If you knew his power and influence, and my weakness, as a girl, you would know that: one individual, unnoticed girl, one puny leaf of millions rustling on the twig to oppose the tempest strong enough to strip the whole tree. What is my weakness to his power? and yet—I will beat him; face him, drag him down, aye, and triumph, and drag from him that which he holds in his thief's clutches, and execute on him the justice which the law is powerless to effect."

"You hate this man deeply?"

"Should a daughter love the man who killed her mother, or a sister him who ruined her brother?"

"You cannot fight against him. It is impossible. This time I am but a few hours in Madrid, but I have already learnt the facts of his immense influence and power."

"I don't ask your help," she said, wilfully.

"That is not generous. What I can do to help I am ready to do. But it is a mad chase." I shook my head, as if discouragingly; but, in fact, the very difficulties of the matter appealed to me and attracted me. I recalled Mayhew's caution against crossing swords with Quesada, and the danger of it was anything but displeasing. I did not speak of this to Sarita, however.

"You will not frighten me from my purpose," she said, with a smile of self-confidence; "and I will tell you what no one else dreams—I am certain to succeed. There will always be one door to success open to me if I have the courage to use it—and it will need courage—the courage of a foiled, desperate woman. When all else has failed, that will succeed."

I looked the question, which she answered in her next words.

"He has a secret which I alone possess. The world is full of his greatness, his influence, his power, his wealth, his judgment, his ambition, his fame, and his magnificent future—but only one soul on this dull earth knows his heart."

"You mean——" I asked, slowly.

"That to-morrow, if I would, I could be his wife. That door of revenge will never shut, for he is that rare thing among us Spaniards, a man of stable purpose. And why should I not?" she cried, with a swift turn, as though I had put her on her defence; and her eyes shone and her cheeks glowed. "Between him and me, as he himself has declared, it is a duel to the death. If I will not be his wife he will crush me: he has said it, and never has he failed to carry out a threat. It is true that I hate him: I feed my rage on the wrongs he has done to us. But what then? If we women may be sold for money, traded to swell the pride of a millionaire's triumph, may we not sell ourselves for a stronger motive? What think you of a marriage of hate? A marriage where the woman, with the cunning we all have, hides under the soft laughter of her voice, the caressing sweetness of her glances, the smooth witchery of her looks and simulated love, the intent to ruin, to drag down the man that has bought her, to sear his mind with the iron of her own callousness, to watch, wait, mask, win, lure, cheat and scheme, until the moment comes when the truth can be told and the hour of her revenge strikes."

"It is a duel in which even then you would be worsted; and if you ask my opinion of the scheme, I think it loathsome." There was no lack of energy in my tone now. I spoke hotly, for the idea of her marriage with Quesada was hateful. She changed in an instant, dropped the curt vehemence of manner and smiled at my quick protest.

"Yet the world would see in it a dramatically apt ending to a serious family feud."

"The world will see right in whatever he chooses to do at present. But while you hold that project in contemplation, I cannot help you," I said, and rose as if to go.

"As you will," she answered coldly, and turned away to look out of the window. For a full minute she remained silent, and then, turning back quickly, keeping my face to the light, she placed her hands upon my shoulders and searched my face with a look that seemed to kindle fire in the very recesses of my soul, as she asked in a tone that thrilled me: "And if to gain your help I abandon it, will you help me?"

"Yes, with every power I possess," I cried earnestly, gazing down into her eyes. "On my honour as an Englishman."

She did not take her hands away, and let her eyes linger on my face till I could feel the colour of delight creeping up to my cheeks, and could scarce hold myself steady under the magnetism of her touch and glance. It was not in human nature to bear unmoved such an ordeal; and I think she divined something of the struggle within me.

"You give me your word of honour voluntarily. I know what that means to an Englishman."

"I give you my word of honour, cousin Sarita," I answered firmly and earnestly, feeling at the moment I could have laid down my life for her. But the next moment with a slight push she seemed as if to thrust me and my offer away from her. She moved back and shook her head.

"No. I will not take your word," she cried. "You would go away and would grow cool and reflect, and say—'I am sorry. I was rash. My English prudence was smothered. I am sorry.' I do not want this. I would have your help—Heaven knows how sadly and how sorely I need help; true, sincere, honest, manly, and unselfish, such as I know yours would be; and how I would cherish it. But no, no, no, a hundred noes. There shall be one man at least able to say—'Sarita has always been candid to me.' If you came to me, I should whelm you surely in the flood of my Carlism; and I should drag you down and ruin you. I meant to do it—I told you so; and to you I will be candid. I needed you, not for yourself—I did not know you then; I had not seen you, and it was for the cause that to me is the breath of life. But I release you. Go now. I have seen you—I know you. You are true—aye, cousin, as true a man, I believe, as a friendless, often desperate woman might long to have for a comrade; but no, no, I cannot, I cannot!" she cried wildly and half incoherently, her arms moving with gestures of uncertainty. She covered her face and as quickly uncovered it and smiled.

"You will think me a strange rhapsodist. But when you offered to help me—ah, you can't think how tempted I was. I have resisted it, however;" and she smiled again and almost instantly sighed deeply. "You have come too soon—or too late."

"Too soon or too late? I would do anything in the world for you, Sarita," I exclaimed, scarcely less deeply moved than she herself.

"You are too soon for me to be callous enough to make use of you; I am not yet desperate enough. And too late to save me from myself. But I shall see you again when the hour of temptation is not so sweetly near;" and with that, showing many signs of feeling, she hurried from the room.

CHAPTER VI

"COUNTING ALL RENEGADES LOVERS OF SATAN"

The interview with Sarita excited me greatly, and I was too much engrossed by the thoughts of it to be able to bear with equanimity a second edition of Madame Chansette; so that when that dear and most amiable of women came to me, I pleaded an engagement and left the house.

As I passed through the hall there was a trifling incident, to which at the moment I paid very little heed. A couple of men were standing in whispered conference by the door and did not notice my approach until the servant made them aware of it. Then they drew aside, one with the deference of a superior servant, the other with a quite different air. He looked at me very keenly and apparently with profound interest, then drew aside with a very elaborate bow and exclaimed:

"Senor, it is an honour."

This drew my attention to him, and I set him down for an eccentric and gave him a salute as well as a pretty sharp look. He was a long-visaged, sharp-eyed, high-strung individual, moderately well-dressed, the most noticeable feature in my eyes being the exaggerated courtesy, not to say obsequiousness, of his manner toward me. I dismissed the matter with a smile, however, and went back to my thoughts of Sarita and her affairs.

I walked back slowly to my hotel revolving them, and while I was standing in the hall a few moments, was surprised to see the man I had noticed at Madame Chansette's house walk past the hotel on the opposite side of the street. For a moment this annoyed me. It looked uncommonly as if he had followed me, and although I tried to laugh at the incident as a mere absurdity, or coincidence, or at worst a result of the fellow's eccentricity, I was not entirely successful; and now and again during the rest of the day it recurred to me, to start always an unpleasant series of conjectures.

The truth was, Sarita's involvement with these confounded Carlists, the extraordinary connection between her and the man who had prepared that welcome for me to Madrid, and the conviction fast settling down upon me that she was rushing full steam and all sails set on the rocks, had got on my nerves; and I was quite disposed to believe the fellow had followed me intentionally, and that the episode was a part of that spyism she had declared so prevalent.

In the evening Mayhew dined with me, and after dinner I took possession of some rooms he had found for me in the Calle Mayor; and the bustle of getting my things in order and the chatter with him served to relieve the strain of my thoughts. But he was quick enough to see something was amiss with me and would have questioned me had I given him the slightest encouragement.

The next morning brought another disquieting incident. I walked to the Embassy, and Mayhew joined me on the Plaza Mutor and we went on together. As we stood in the doorway the spy—as in my thoughts I had begun to term him—passed the end of the building, paused a moment to look in my direction, and then went on.

"What is it, Carbonnell?" asked Mayhew, seeing me start.

"Nothing, old man; at least nothing yet; if it turns into something, I'll speak to you about it," and not wishing him to have any clue I wheeled about and went in.

Then I found something else to think about. There was a letter from my father with very grave news about his health. After a preamble on general matters, he wrote:—

"And now, my dear son, there is something you must know. I have for some time past had serious apprehensions about my health, and some months ago consulted the great heart specialist, Dr. Calvert, about it. He put me off with vague assurances at the time, saying he must study the case; but I have succeeded to-day in getting him to tell me the truth. As I explained to him, a man in my position is not like ordinary folk; he must know things and be prepared. The great responsibility of a peerage requires that its affairs should not be jeopardised or involved by any surprise such as sudden death; and I should be a coward if I could be so untrue to my order as to leave matters unsettled out of a paltry fear of facing the truth. I hope none of us Carbonnells will ever be such poltroons. The truth is, it seems, that my death may happen at any moment. For myself I hope I should never share so vulgar a sentiment as the fear of death, and I let Dr. Calvert see I was really astonished that he should have thought a man of my order and position would be so untrue to the instincts of his breeding—to say nothing of religion.

"Well, that is the verdict; and now for its effect upon you. I am chiefly concerned for you and Mercy; because Lascelles must have every pound that can be spared to maintain the position which the title imposes. Mercy has from her mother about three hundred pounds a year, and this will maintain her should she be so unfortunate as not to marry. For her I can do no more, and for you can, unfortunately, do nothing. The utmost that I dare leave away from the title is one thousand pounds; and this I have left you in the fresh will I have made to-day. I have no doubt that Lascelles, if he marries well, as I hope he will, will always assist you; but you have now the chance of helping yourself—your foot is upon the ladder—and I am very glad that our recent exertions, though prompted by no thought of what we know now about my health, have resulted in your getting such a start. You have abilities of your own, and I urge you to use them to the best advantage in your present sphere, and I pray God to bless you. While I live of course your present allowance will continue.

"Then, lastly, as to the Castelars. Tell Madame Chansette what I have told you about my health, and say that I can do positively and absolutely nothing for them. But if you yourself can do anything, do it by all means. If you can spare me any particulars, however, do so. I do not shirk my duties as head of my house; I hope I never shall shirk them; but the fewer anxieties I have now the better—so, at least, says Dr. Calvert.

"Ours has been a life of many and long periods of separation, Ferdinand, but you have been a dear son to me, and one of my few sorrows is, that I cannot better provide for you."

The letter moved me considerably. My father and I had never been very closely associated, but there was a genuine affection between us; and the courage with which he faced the inevitable, though so characteristically expressed, appealed to me strongly. I did not resent my virtual disinheritance. The lot of the younger son had never galled me much, and I was enough of a Carbonnell to admit the reasoning and to recognise that such money as there was must go to keep up the peerage. But I did not delude myself with any sparkling visions of what Lascelles would do for me if he married well; and I perceived quite plainly that now, indeed, my future lay in my own hands only, and that it would be only and solely such as I could make it.

In one respect solely did this thought sting me. It was a barrier between Sarita and me. I must marry for money or not at all, for the plain bed rock reason that I had not, and probably never should have, money to support a wife.

More than that, the letter doomed me to a continuance of my present career. I should be dependent upon it always for mere existence money; and this meant that I must make it the serious purpose of life, and not merely a means for extracting as much pleasure as possible out of the place where I might chance to be posted. This made me grave enough for a time, for I knew of a dozen men with more brains than I possessed, as qualified for the work as I was ignorant, and as painstaking as I was the reverse, who had toiled hard and religiously for many years to acquire just enough income to enable them to know how many of the good things of life they had to do without.

But Nature had kindly left out the worry lobe from my brain, and I soon held lightly enough the news as it affected my own pecuniary prospects. I took more interest in my work that day than I should otherwise have taken, I think, and found it very irksome. I wrote to my father, and then went off to my rooms with a complete present irresponsibility and a feeling of thankfulness that I had always been a comparatively poor man, and that I should be a big fool if I were to add the wretchedness of worry to the sufficient burden of comparative poverty.

I was whistling vigorously as I opened my door and stopped, with the handle in my fingers, in sheer surprise, at seeing in possession of my rooms the man whom I believed to be a spy. He was sitting reading as he waited, and on seeing me he rose and made me one of his ceremonious bows.

"Who are you, and what do you want here?" I asked in none too gracious a tone, as I frowned at him.

"Senor Ferdinand Carbonnell—you are Ferdinand Carbonnell?"—he repeated the name with a kind of relish—"I could not resist coming. I could not resist the desire to speak to you, to stand face to face with you, to take your hand. I have done wrong, I know; but I shall throw myself on your mercy. I am leaving again to-night; but I could not go without seeing you."

My former impression of him seemed to be confirmed. The man was a lunatic, or at least an eccentric; and a word or two to humour him would do no harm.

"You have been following me; may I ask why?" I asked, in a less abrupt tone.

"I heard your name mentioned at the house where I saw you yesterday. The friend who mentioned it knew nothing; but I knew; and when I heard you were in the house, Senor, do you think I could leave without a sight of you? Ah, Mother of God!"

I was rolling myself a cigarette with a half smile of amusement at the man's eccentricity when a thought occurred to me. I stopped in the act, and looked at him sharply and questioningly. The thought had changed my point of view suddenly, and instead of amusement my feeling was now one of some uneasiness.

"Just be good enough to tell me exactly what you mean; and be very explicit, if you please," I said.

"I am from Saragossa, Senor Ferdinand Carbonnell, and my name is Vidal de Pelayo," he answered, in a tone and manner of intense significance. There was purpose, meaning, and pregnant earnestness in the answer, but no eccentricity.

"I don't care if you are from Timbuctoo and your name is the Archangel Gabriel. What do you mean?" I cried, testily.

The manner of his answer was a further surprise. He plunged his hand somewhere into the deepest recesses of his clothes and brought out a small, folded paper, from which he took a slip of parchment, and handed it to me without a word.

"Vidal de Pelayo. No. 25. 1st Section. Saragossa.

"Counting all renegades lovers of Satan. By the grace of God.

(Signed) FERDINAND CARBONNELL."

The signature was written in a fine free hand utterly unlike my own, of course; but there it was confronting me, and signed to a couple of lines that read to me like so much gibberish. I turned it over and handed it back with a laugh; and my thoughts went back again to my first opinion of the man.

"Very interesting, no doubt; and very important, probably, but it does not enlighten me."

"You mean you do not wish to know me? As you will. Then I suppose I must not open my lips to you? But I have seen you; and it is a great day for me!"

"You are right; I wish you to say nothing," I replied, assuming a very grave look and speaking very severely. "You have done wrong to come here at all," I added, seeing the effect of my previous words. "You must not come again."

"You will wish to know that all is going well?" he said, in a tone of remonstrance and surprise.

"I have other means of learning everything," I answered, with a suggestion of mystery, and rose as a hint to him to go.

"You are at the British Embassy here. It is wonderful," he cried, lifting his hands as if in profound admiration.

"Where I am and what I do concerns no one," I returned, cryptically. "We all have our work. Return to yours."

"I have seen you. You will give me your hand—the hand that has put such life into the cause. God's blessing on you. 'Counting all renegades lovers of Satan. By the grace of God.'" He uttered the formula with all the air of a devout enthusiast; and I gazed at him, keeping a stern set expression on my face the while, and wondering what on earth he meant by the jargon. "And you are indeed Ferdinand Carbonnell?" he said again, fixing his glowing eyes on me as he held my hand.

"I am Ferdinand Carbonnell," I assented, nodding my head and wishing he would go.

"I have made the arrangements required of me. When the little guest arrives he will be in safe and absolutely secret keeping."

"What little guest?" I asked.

"Yes, indeed, what little guest? For what is he now but a guest and a usurper, like a pilfering cuckoo in the eagle's eyrie? Why has it never been done before? Why left to you to propose? But it will change everything—a magnificent stroke," and his voice trembled with earnestness and, as it struck me now, with deep sincerity.

Was he after all no more than a madman? In a moment I ran rapidly over the facts as I knew them, and a suspicion darted into my mind. I resolved to probe further.

"Sit down again, senor. I have thought of something," I said, and placed wine and tobacco before him. We rolled our cigarettes and lighted them; and all the time I was casting about for the best method of pumping him without betraying myself. "It may, after all, be more convenient for you to tell me how matters stand. What precisely have you done in that matter? Assume that I know nothing," I said, with a wave of the hand.

He was seemingly flattered by the request, and answered readily.

"I have done my utmost to organise my district. Of the lists of names given me there is not one I have not sounded, and about whom I cannot say precisely, 'He is for us,' or, 'He is against us.' I know to a peseta what funds would be forthcoming on demand, and what reserve there would be for emergencies. There is not a rifle, sword, or revolver that is not scheduled and listed carefully."

"Good. These things are in your reports," I said, making a shot.

"So far as desired of me," he answered. "The totals."

"Exactly! Well?"

"When the great coup was devised, I was sounded only as to whether there was in my district a place so safe and secret that a little guest, a boy, could be hidden there indefinitely; and I know of just such a spot in the mountains to the north of Huesca, where a guest, little or big, boy or man, can be hidden in absolute secrecy. And so I reported. I know no more; but I have guessed."

"It is dangerous to guess, Senor Pelayo," I said, with an air of mystery.

"If I am wrong, so much the worse for Spain. But if the guest were indeed the usurper"—and here he paused and searched my face as if for confirmation of his hazard, but he might as well have counted the stones in a wall—"if, I say, then the mountain spot I mean would hold him as fast as his officers would hold us in his strongest prison had they wind of this scheme. Do you wonder that my blood burns with excitement for the day to dawn?"

"You have done your task thoroughly," I said, with the same air of reserve; and his face flushed with pleasure at the praise. Then I added with great sternness, "But now I have a word for you. You have done wrong, very wrong, to breathe a word of this even to me. You have been untrue to your duty. For all you could tell I might be a traitor worming this knowledge out of you for evil purposes. You heard my name by chance, you followed me and found me out, and with scarce a word of question from me you have tumbled pell-mell into my lap secrets that should have been kept with the closeness of the charnel house. Shame upon your gossiping tongue and your falseness to your oath. You would have shown yourself worthier of the trust we place in you had you set me at defiance, and, when I questioned, refused even at the dagger's point to breathe a word of answer. From now I shall watch you. I will give you another chance. Go back to your work, breathe no syllable of what has happened here: that you have even seen or spoken to me: look on the very walls of your house and the very stones of the street as listeners, watchers, spies, ready to catch your words and bring them to me; and if you value your life, pluck out your tongue rather than let it ever again betray you."

I have seldom seen a man more thunderstruck and bewildered. He turned white to the lips and trembled violently, and his hands clasped the arms of his chair for support, while his eyes, terror-wide, appealed to me with the prayer for forgiveness his quivering lips refused to utter.

I feared I had overstrung the bow indeed, and filling a tumbler of wine, I handed it to him and said, relaxing the sternness of my looks:

"Do as I bid you, and I will at no distant date send you a sign that you have regained my confidence;" and with this hope to counterbalance his abject fear, I dismissed him.

Then—shall I confess it?—I did a very boyish thing. Full of a curiosity to know how I had looked when frightening the Carlist so successfully, I postured and mouthed and frowned at and rated myself before a mirror much as I had with Pelayo, and laughed with much satisfaction at what I considered an excellent impersonation.

"By Gad, old chap," I exclaimed, with a nod to myself in the mirror, "if diplomacy fails, you'll do something on the stage, and what's more, I'll be hanged if I didn't feel that I meant it all the while I was giving it him."

And then I became serious again.