The Firebrand

  CHAPTER XLVI

  THE SERGENT'S LAST SALUTE

  It was almost time for starting. The two sentries lay on their faces,trussed and helpless, with gags in their mouths. El Sarria and Rollo haddropped down upon them as if from the clouds a few minutes after theofficer had made his two-hourly visitation. The Sergeant was ready withthe horses in the hollow, keeping them quiet with cunning gipsy caressesand making soft whistling _chalan_ noises in their ears.

  So far all had gone well, and Rollo, standing with his knife insuggestive proximity to the tied-up sentries, silently congratulatedhimself. The dawn was doubtless coming up behind the hills to the east,but the darkness was still absolute as ever about the camp, save indeedfor the lambent brilliancies of the stars.

  They were now waiting only for the royal party, and the time seemed longto impatient Rollo. Were all his plans, so carefully laid, to be madenaught because, forsooth, a queen in danger of her life must still keepup the punctilios of a court and cherish the pettishnesses and capricesof a spoilt child? Was his reputation to go down to posterity as that ofa man who, being trusted with the lives of a woman and a child, hadbrought them straight to the shambles?

  At last--there! They were coming. But why, for God's sake, could notthey make less noise?

  With a motion of his hand which directed El Sarria to keep an eye uponthe gagged sentries, Rollo went forward to receive the Queen and conducther to her horse. Munoz, however, came out first, carrying in his armsthe little Princess, who, so soon as she heard Rollo's voice, whisperedher desire to be transferred to him. But Rollo had already offered theQueen his arm, and whispering her to tread carefully, led the way to thelittle hollow where Sergeant Cardono kept the three bridles in his hand,cursing meanwhile the slow movements of crowned heads and ennobled_estanco_-keepers in Romany of the deepest and blackest.

  He had cause to curse another peculiarity of monarchs and spoiltchildren before many minutes had gone by. Till now the success of theplot had been complete. There remained indeed only to mount and ride. ElSarria brought up the rear, assuring himself for the hundredth time thathis weapons were in good order and ready to his hand. No great general,Ramon Garcia was a matchless legionary.

  But the Queen-Regent would by no means submit to be assisted to her seat(it was a man's saddle) by Rollo. She called to her husband in a voiceclearly audible all about.

  "Fernando--my love! Come to me--I want you!"

  As Rollo said afterwards--no queen born under the lilies of Bourbon everran a nearer chance of having the rude hand of a commoner set over heraugust mouth than did Maria Cristina of Naples on this occasion.

  Nor was the appeal without effect.

  Senor Munoz instantly put the little Princess down upon the ground andhastened to his wife. What happened _after_ that is not very clear, evenwhen the subject has been repeatedly and exhaustively threshed out bythe persons most immediately concerned.

  Perhaps the little Princess, deposited thus suddenly upon the ground,caught instinctively at one of the long tails of the horses which (incommon with those of almost all Spanish horses) almost swept the ground.Perhaps the animals themselves grew suddenly panic-stricken. At allevents one of the three lashed out suddenly. The Sergeant bent sidewaysto snatch Isabel from among their hoofs. In so doing he dropped a rein,and in another moment one of the steeds went clattering up the dry_arroyo_, scattering the gravel every way with a wild flourishing ofheels, and making, as the Sergeant growled, "enough noise to arousetwenty camps."

  For a hundred heart-beats all the party held their breath. Then Rollowhispered to Senor Munoz to mount and take the little Princess beforehim.

  "As for you, you must run for it, Ramon!" he said to El Sarria. "The fatis in the fire now, and all we can do is to hold them back as long as wecan. Make straight for the gorge towards Vera. You know the way. May Godhelp you to reach it before they can turn our flank!"

  Then it was that the Sergeant received a definite shock of surprise.That queens would be foolish, arbitrary, even absolutely idiotic, was nomarvel to him. That they should choose their favourites from_estanco_-keepers and guardsmen, and elevate them at a day's notice tograndeeships, dukedoms of Spain, and privileges even higher, did not inthe least astonish him. But that the person so elevated should afterall, in his less corporeal attributes, prove to be a man, was afirst-rate surprise to Jose Maria.

  Munoz was now to furnish the Sergeant with an absolutely new sensation.

  "_Senor_," he said, quietly addressing El Sarria, "be good enough tomount and conduct the Queen to a place of safety. I intend to remainhere with these gentlemen!"

  Then he went up to Maria Cristina and spoke a few sentences to her in atone so low that only the last words were audible.

  "If not, by the Immaculate Virgin, I swear that you shall never see myface again!"

  "Fernando! Fernando! Fernando! You are cruel!" was the answer utteredthrough choking sobs.

  But El Sarria was by this time in the saddle. The little Princess wasset in her place in front of him.

  "Off with you!" whispered Rollo.

  And in this manner the cavalcade began its momentous march.

  The Sergeant stood gazing at Munoz, who rubbed the backs of his handsalternately as if there had been a chill in the night air. Munoz on hispart turned to Rollo.

  "Let me have the use of that gentleman's piece," he said; "I do not likethis silence. I think we shall have a hot time of it within the nextfive minutes."

  At that moment the escaped charger came cantering back, neighing andalarming all the picketed horses for miles, which snorted back ananswer. Sentries meditating in quiet corners became upon a suddenexceedingly awake. One of the two whom Rollo and El Sarria had lefttriced up at the door of the royal prison at last got the extemporisedgag out of his mouth, and found his breath in a lusty shout of warning.

  The ex-guardsman was right. Within less than five minutes the entirecamp was awake. The escape of the prisoners had been discovered. Therecovered sentry pointed out the direction of the _barranco_ as that inwhich the fugitives had taken their departure.

  Whereupon there ensued a hurried rush thither. Indeed, scarcely had thedark forms of the two horses with their riders ceased to break theskyline upon one verge of the ravine, before Cabrera's men wereclambering and shouting along the other. Luckily the precipice was sheerimmediately opposite, and the pursuers had to try a furlong or twofarther down, at a place where a landslide had enabled them on theprevious evening to lead their horses to and from the few stagnant poolswhich now represented those full-fed torrents the spring rains send downfrom the Sierra de Moncayo.

  "Let them have it!" whispered Rollo, as the first straggling groupsstood up dark between them and the stars.

  Accordingly, out of the darkness of the _barranco_, a volley flamedirregularly enough, the rattle of musketry running down the whole frontof the line. Six pieces in all spoke out their message to Cabrera's mento halt. For La Giralda, having taken possession of Concha's armament,drew a bead upon her man with probably as much success as any of theothers. It was still too dark for accurate shooting, and the worst shotwas not much inferior to the best.

  But these six bullets sent across the valley from unseen foes,spattering the stones about their feet, checked that first fierce rushof angry men. Some enemy was in force on their front--so much wasevident. It would be well to discover of what sort.

  "We are holding them," said Rollo, triumphantly, "that is all we canhope for. Pass down the word to fire only when they advance. Time iswhat El Sarria and his party need. And so far as I can see, unlessConcha hurries, a dead Carlist or so more or less will not make muchdifference to us!"

  But Rollo soon found that the men who were opposed to him knew all therewas to know about _guerrilla_ warfare. They pushed forward steadily fromrock to rock, and as they came on in overwhelming numbers the dauntlesssix were compelled to retire upwards till they gained the rugged brinkof the _barranco_, from which the uplands swell away in broad unclotheddowns in th
e direction of the gorge of Vera.

  Here they took up their several posts in a position of great naturalstrength, if only they had had a sufficiency of men to defend it.

  Already the morning was growing manifestly lighter. The red peaks ofMoncayo above their heads began to emerge out of the grey uncolourednight. They could see each other now, and Rollo looked down his linewith some pride.

  There they were, each behind his shelter, loading and firing accordingto his liking and the bowels that were in him. The Sergeant was sternlywinging each shot with intent to slay, Munoz firing as if he had beenpractising at a target for sport and feeling bored for the want of acigarette, Etienne with swift and contagious gaiety of mood, while JohnMortimer did his work with a plain and businesslike devotion to thematter in hand that argued well for his father's spinning mills atChorley if ever he should return thither--a chance which at presentseemed somewhat remote.

  La Giralda, like the Sergeant, fired to kill her man, and as for Rollohimself, he did not fire at all unless he could plant a bullet where itwould induce a Carlist to alter his mind about advancing further.

  The end, however, was clearly only a matter of time. The light camefaster up out of the east. Rollo stood on his feet, and heedless of thebullets that buzzed like bees about him looked eagerly towards the gorgeof Vera. He could see nothing of Ramon Garcia or of the Queen, and hisheart gave a bound of thankful joy.

  But there were ups and downs on the rolling moorland country thatstretched away to the right. El Sarria and his companions might only betemporarily hidden in the trough of one of these waves.

  "We can hold on a while yet, lads!" he cried, and dropped down behindhis rock, shaking his rifle into its nook beside his ear to be ready forthe next spot of red or white crawling towards them through the dusty_arroyo_.

  But at that moment there came from far away the sound of cheering. Amounted man dashed at full gallop up to the edge of the ravine oppositeto them.

  "Do not fire," said the Sergeant; "that is Cabrera--he is a brave man!"

  But John Mortimer, not caring or not understanding the language, firedpromptly, and his rifle bullet threw up a cloud of dust between thehorse's feet. The animal reared and almost threw his rider. But in amoment he was erect as ever in the saddle, and Rollo could see himshouting furious commands to his men--apparently ordering them to bearround to the left so as to take the defending party on their leastprotected side.

  For the next few minutes, as Munoz had foretold, it was hot work enough,and Rollo had no time to look behind him, or he might have seen a sightthat would have astonished him--a single horsewoman, riding swiftlytowards the _barranco_, followed at the distance of half a mile by acloud of mounted men.

  Suddenly the General on the opposite bank, who all the while had beendarting about hither and thither like a gad-fly, held up his arm, andwith astonishing pride of horsemanship (and faith in the soundness ofhis girths) rode his charger straight down the shelving sides of theravine, the slaty fragments crumbling and slipping under the iron-shodhoofs.

  With a cheer the red _boinas_ of the Estella regiment followed, and thenstraight up the opposite slopes of shale they dashed towards Rollo andhis poor defences.

  "Hold your fire!" he cried, first in English, and then in Spanish. "Waittill you are sure of them. We are only half a dozen, and we must wing aman apiece!"

  It chanced, however, just as the horseman (who, as the Sergeant hadsupposed, was Cabrera himself, almost out of his mind with disappointedfury) surmounted the ridge a little to the right of Rollo's position,but close to where the Sergeant lay behind his rock, that Concha threwherself off her charger (or rather one of General Espartero's), and witha joyous shout informed them that the Queen was safe and that twelvehundred Cristino regulars were following close behind her!

  Thus these two, the disappointed murderer and the triumphant deliverer,met almost face to face. Cabrera heard Concha's glad proclamation. Hesaw the plumes of Espartero's troopers already topping the rise, strongwell-knit men of the best farming stock in Old Castile mounted onGallegan horses.

  Quite breathless with her headlong course, Concha stood panting, herhand pressed on her breast. Her eyes were wandering every way in searchof Rollo, and in her haste and happiness she had left her weapons behindin the camp of Espartero.

  "At any rate I will make sure of you!" cried the Butcher of Tortosa,bitterly, and drawing a pistol he covered Concha at point-blankdistance. But from behind his rock (as it were out of the ground) arosethe tall gaunt form and leathern visage of Sergeant Cardono.

  With a sweep of the arm he set Concha behind him, and as the General'spistol went off he received the shot in his own bosom.

  The next moment the Castilian horsemen crashed full on the front ofCabrera's advance and hurled it down the side of the ravine, the Generalhimself being borne away in the thickest of the surge.

  Meantime another part of Espartero's command had bent round to the eastand was by this time taking the Carlists on the flank. In thirty secondsthe ridge of the _barranco_, which the six had defended so well, wasdeserted; even slow-going John Mortimer had been swept into the tide ofpursuit.

  But the Sergeant lay still, with the breast of his jacket opened, andhis head on Concha's shoulder. She dropped warm tears over his face.Rollo, too, was there, and held the dying man's hand. He beckoned LaGiralda to him and whispered a word in Romany. She nodded, and presentlyreturned with the same great bulk of a man, brown as a Moor of Barbary,whom Rollo had encountered on the night of the plunder of San Ildefonso.

  "Ezquerra," the Sergeant whispered, "I am spent. There is a spike in theneck-band this time. All that is honestly come by, I want you to give tothis young lady. You will find it by itself under the hearthstone in myhouse at Ronda. The rest you will take no objections to, I know, on theground of morals. Keep it for yourself!"

  Concha glanced once up at Rollo and then, receiving his nod of approval,bent down and kissed the Sergeant.

  The Andalucian looked up with that wondrous flavour of gay humour whichdistinguishes those born in the joyous province. His saturnine visagebrightened into the sweetest smile. Very feebly he raised his hand tohis brow in a last salute in acknowledgment of Concha's favour. His headfell back on her breast.

  "A thousand grateful thanks, _Senorita_!" he said. And then noting theexecutioner he added, "Ah, Ezquerra, this is better than dying on thePlaza Mayor of Salamanca with the iron collar about one's neck!"

  They were his last words. And so passed Jose Maria of Ronda, whom tothis day every Spanish peasant holds to have been the greatest man Spainhas seen since the dead Cid rode forth on Babieca for the last time tooutface the Moors.