The Lighted Match Part 19

Blanco's expressive face mirrored a shade of resentment. He had come on summons from the King and found himself listening to the familiar, even disrespectful, chatter of some underling who laughed at his Monarch and lightly appraised the value of his life while he smoked cigarettes in the Royal apartments. The Spaniard bowed stiffly.

"I observe you are in the confidence of the King," he said, in a tone not untouched with disapproval.

The other man's lips curled in amus.e.m.e.nt. After a moment he replied with simple gravity.

"I am the King."

Blanco stood gazing in astonishment. "You--the King!" Then, recognizing that the shaving of a mustache and the change into civilian clothes had made the difference in a face and figure he had seen only on the streets and through s.h.i.+fting crowds, he bowed with belated deference.

Karyl once more held out his case. "Now perhaps you will have a cigarette?"

The _toreador_ took one and lighted it slowly. The King went on.

"My sole pleasure is pretending that I am not a Monarch. Between ourselves, I should prefer other employment. You, for example, I am told have won fame in the bull ring--and it was fame you earned for yourself."

Blanco flushed, then, bethinking himself of the fact that he had been brought here presumably with a purpose, he ventured to suggest: "Your Majesty wished to see me about some matter?"

The other shook his head.

"No," he said slowly, "it was not really I who sent for you. It was Her Majesty, the Queen."

Before he had time for response the _toreador_ caught the sound of a shaken curtain behind him, but since he stood facing the King he did not turn.

Karyl, however, looked up, and then swiftly crossed the room. As he pa.s.sed, Blanco wheeled to face him and was in time to see him holding back the portieres of a door for the Queen to enter.

She was gowned in black with the sparkle of pa.s.s.e.m.e.nterie and jet, and at her breast she wore a single red rose. As she stood for a moment on the threshold, despite the majesty of her slender poise it appeared to Blanco that her grace was rather that of something wild and free and that the Palace seemed to cage her. But that may have been because, as she paused, her hands went to her breast and a furrow came between her brows, while the corners of her lips drooped wistfully like a child's.

The King stooped to kiss her hand, and she turned toward him with a smile which was pallid and which did not dissipate the unhappiness of her face. Then Karyl straightened and said to Blanco, who felt himself suddenly grow awkward as a muleteer: "The Queen."

Manuel dropped on one knee. At a gesture from Cara he rose and waited for her to speak. Karyl himself halted at the door for a moment, then came slowly back into the room. He picked up from a tabouret a decoration of the Star of Galavia, and, crossing over, pinned it to the Spaniard's lapel.

"There!" he said, with a good-humored laugh. "You made me a somewhat valueless present a few days back. You will find that equally useless, Sir Manuel. You may tell Mr. Benton that I envy him such an ally."

With a bow to the Queen, the King left the apartment.

For a moment the girl stood at the door, with the same expression and the same silence, unbroken by her since her entrance, then she turned to the Spaniard and spoke directly. Her voice held a tremor.

"How is he?"

"I have not seen him since the day on the mountain," returned Manuel.

"He has, in you, a very true friend."

"Your Majesty, I am his servant," deprecated the toreador.

"If I had friends like you," she smiled, "it would matter little what they called themselves. And yet, if there is but one like you, I had rather that that one be with him. I want you to go to him now and remain with him."

"Your Majesty, _Senor_ Benton left me here to watch for recurring dangers. I am now satisfied that nothing threatens, at least for the present. I might, as Your Majesty suggests, better be with him."

"Yes--yes--with him!" she eagerly agreed; then her voice took on the timbre of anxiety. "I am afraid. Sometimes I am afraid for him. He is not a coward, but there are times when we all become weak. I appoint you, Sir Manuel--" the girl smiled wanly--"I appoint you my Amba.s.sador to be with him and watch after him--and, Sir Manuel--" her voice shook a little with very deep feeling--"I am giving you the office I had rather have than all the thrones in Christendom! Will you accept it?"

She held out her hand, and taking it reverently in his own, the Andalusian bowed low over it. He did not kneel, for now he was the Amba.s.sador in the presence of his Sovereign. "With all the Saints for my witnesses," he declared fervently, "I swear it to Your Majesty."

There was grat.i.tude in her eyes as they met the whole-heartedness of the pledge in his. For a moment she seemed unable to speak, though there was no dimness of tear-mist in her pupils. She stood very upright and silent, and her breathing was deep. Then slowly her hands came up and loosened the flower at her breast.

"The King has decorated you, Sir Manuel," she said. "I don't think Mr.

Benton would care for knighthood--and I could not confer it--but sometime--not now--some day after you have both departed from Galavia, give him this. Tell him it may have a message which I may not put in words. If he can read the heart of a rose deeply enough, perhaps he can find it there."

When Blanco had carefully folded the emblem of his emba.s.sy in paper and deposited it in his breast pocket, she gave him her hand again, and, turning, went out through the same door that she had entered.

Back in the town, Blanco had certain investigations to make. He knew Von Ritz's men had been too late to capture the Duke, and that the Countess Astaride had sailed by the steamer leaving for French and Italian ports.

Wherever these two conspirators should meet would become the next point to watch.

Blanco felt sure that Louis would be willing to drop back into the routine of his life in Paris, freshly stocked with pessimistic memories of how a crown had slipped through his fingers. It would take driving to prevent him lagging into the inertia of sentimental brooding. On the other hand, he knew that the Countess Astaride, having gone so far, would never again relinquish her ambitions. He knew the temper of the Countess's mind from various bits of gossip he had heard and now also from what he had seen. He knew that, while she was entirely willing to partic.i.p.ate in a murder plot to further her designs, she was not fired solely by a l.u.s.t for power. More deeply she was actuated by her wish to make Louis Delgado a man of potentiality because she loved Louis Delgado.

That love might evidence itself in savagery toward men who obstructed the road which her lover must travel to a crown, but it was a ferocity born of love for the Pretender.

Since this was true it was not probable that she would allow the matter to end where it stood. Even if she were willing, it was more than certain that Jusseret had not entered into the undertaking without some sufficient end in view. Having entered it, he would not relinquish it because the first attempt had been bungled.

That same night Manuel sent a message to the _Isis_, saying that he was sailing the following morning by the Genoa steamer and asking that the yacht meet the s.h.i.+p and take him on board. Having done that much, he went to the hotel where the Countess had stopped and told the clerk that he had news of importance to communicate to Madame the Countess, and that he wished to learn her present address. The clerk, like all Puntal, was ignorant of what important matters had just missed happening, but he had instructions from this lady to a.s.sume ignorance as to her destination. Blanco, however, showed the seal ring which she had said would prove a pa.s.sport to her presence and which Benton had left with him. He was promptly informed that she had taken pa.s.sage for Villefranche, and had ordered her mail forwarded there in care of the steams.h.i.+p agency.

CHAPTER XVI

THE AMBa.s.sADOR BECOMES ADMIRAL

More suggestive of a stowaway than a millionaire, thought Blanco the following afternoon, when he had come over the side of the _Isis_ and sought out the owner of the yacht. Benton had turned hermit and withdrawn to the most isolated s.p.a.ce the vessel provided. It was really not a deck at all--only a s.p.a.ce between engine-room grating and tarpaulined lifeboats on what was properly the cabin roof. Here, removed from the burnished and s.h.i.+p-shape perfection of the yacht's appointment, he lay carelessly shaven and more carelessly dressed.

The lazily undulating Mediterranean stretched unbroken save for the yacht's stack, funnels and stanchions, in a sight-wide radius of blue.

Overhead the sky was serene. Here and there, in fitful humors, the sea flowed in rifts of a different hue.

The sun was mellow and the breeze which purred softly in the cables overhead came with the caressing breath that blows off the orange groves of Southern Spain. Ahead lay all the invitation of the south of France; of the Riviera's white cities and vivid countryside; of Monte Carlo's casinos and Italy's villas. Beyond further horizons, waited the charm of Greece, but the man lay on an old army blanket, clad in bagging flannels and a blue army s.h.i.+rt open at the throat. His arms were crossed above his eyes, and he was motionless, except that the fingers which gripped his elbows sometimes clenched themselves and the bare throat above the open collar occasionally worked spasmodically.

Blanco had come quietly, and his canvas shoes had made no sound. For a time he did not announce himself. He was not sure that Benton was awake, so he dropped noiselessly to the deck and sat with his hands clasped about his knees, his eyes moodily measuring the rise and fall of the glaringly white stanchions above and below the sky-line. At frequent intervals they swept back to the other man, who still lay motionless. It was late afternoon and the smoke-stack shadows pointed off in attenuated lines to the bow while the sky, off behind the wake, brightened into the colors of sunset. Finally Benton rose. The unexpected sight of Blanco brought a start and an immediate masking of his face, but in the first momentary glimpse the Andalusian caught a haggard distress which frightened him.

"I didn't know you had come," said Benton quietly. "How long have you been here?"

"I should say a half-hour, _Senor_," replied Manuel, casually rolling a cigarette.

"Why didn't you rouse me? I'm not very amusing, but even I could have relieved the dullness of sitting there like a marooned man on a derelict."

"Dullness?" inquired the _toreador_ with a lazy lift of the brows. "It is ease, _Senor_, and ease is desirable--at sea."

The American sat cross-legged on the deck and held out his hand for a cigarette. When he asked a question he spoke in matter-of-fact tones. He even laughed, and the Andalusian chatted on in kind, but secretly and narrowly he was watching the other, and when he had finished his scrutiny he told himself that Benton had been indulging in the dangerous pastime of brooding.

"Tell me--everything," urged the yacht-owner. "What are the revolutionists doing and how is--how are things?" Carefully he avoided directing any question to the point on which his eagerness for news was poignant hunger.