The Car of Destiny Part 40

"I'm afraid you can," sighed the Cherub, "and that, though I shall do my best, I may be powerless to help you."

"What if it were known that he saved the King yesterday?" Pilar asked her father.

"The King is going away to-morrow. You know, he's off to England in a few days. Besides, the incident to-day will be hushed up. The King will know, of course, and a few others; but it will be kept out of the papers,-anyhow, until they've got their hands on both the men concerned."

"I've still got to-night," I said, "and it's not eleven yet. I hoped that in the confusion Monica had given her mother and Carmona the slip, and that if I waited here I might find her again. I thought she might try to get back to the chapel where we had our talk, trusting that I'd look for her there. But she didn't come, and I searched everywhere in vain before I tried watching the crowd pa.s.s through the Court of Oranges. Now, I'm certain that Carmona or Lady Vale-Avon must have pounced upon her while I was surrounded, and forced her away. No doubt they're at home long ago.

Why shouldn't I appeal to the English consul, and say that the Duke of Carmona's detaining an English girl in his house against her will?"

"No use," said the Cherub. "She's under age, and she's with her mother, who's visiting the d.u.c.h.ess."

"Then I'll go to Carmona's door and make such a row that they'll be obliged to let me in."

"You'd get into a police cell instead. A man's house is his castle, especially when it's a palace and he's a Duke."

I was silenced. I knew the Cherub was right; but it seemed monstrous that in this twentieth century such tyranny should divide a girl from her lover.

When I had thought for a moment I said, "Anyhow, I shall go to the house and try to bribe a servant. Once in, I'd not come out without Monica. I've done two satisfactory things to-day by bribery and corruption, and I don't see why I shouldn't bring it off the third time."

"The Duke's servants have been in the employ of the family for years, and their fathers and grandfathers before them. No money would bribe them to deceive their master and mistress," said the Cherub.

"I shouldn't have thought either the Duke or his mother capable of inspiring such devotion."

"It isn't devotion-it's fear. To an unfaithful servant in that house-well, almost anything might happen."

"Have you any advice to give me, then?" I asked, in despair.

The Cherub shook his head. "The prudent thing would be to go away to-night, and trust Lady Monica's loyalty. She can't be forced into marrying the Duke, you know; and if she breaks the engagement he'll have to let her alone, for dignity's sake."

"That might be prudent; but of course I won't do it."

"Of course you won't," returned the Cherub, as if it went without saying.

"Very well, then; matters are desperate, and desperate remedies must be tried; things can't be worse than they are. I shall hang about Carmona's house early in the morning, and when the first person comes out I'll go in. If I don't come out, you will know what's become of me; and I don't suppose in these days even a Duke can kill a man without getting into trouble?"

"He would merely have you arrested as a housebreaker," said the Cherub.

"Well, I should have seen Monica first, and perhaps have got her on the right side of the door."

"We'll have a go at the business together," said d.i.c.k. "It would be more sociable."

"All right, thank you," said I. "Then something's settled; and these best of friends can go home and sleep."

"Sleep!" echoed Pilar scornfully. "Oh, if I were a man, and could do _something_ to punish the Duke!"

"I wish you could set your bull at him," said d.i.c.k. "Only, now I think of it, it's _his_ bull still."

Try as we might, it was impossible to persuade either Colonel O'Donnel or Pilar that they ought to return quietly to bed, if not to sleep. No, they would do nothing of the kind. Besides, no properly disposed person within ten miles of Seville would lie in bed that night. Processions would go on till early morning. Many people would watch them, or spend the hours till early ma.s.s in prayer in the cathedral, which would be open all night. Why should not the O'Donnel family do as others did?

There was no answer to this; and it was finally arranged that, if they wished to rest at all, it should be at the hotel in the Plaza de San Fernando, where we had dined. That was to be the rendezvous; and the Cherub would engage the verger we knew to watch the Duke's house in the morning, bringing news of our fate to the hotel-if we did not bring it ourselves.

Never-if I live beyond the allotted threescore years and ten-shall I forget that strange night of Holy Thursday in Seville.

d.i.c.k and I wandered through the streets, and in the Plaza de la Const.i.tucion, where electric lamps and moonlight mingled bleakly, while never-ending _cofradas_ pa.s.sed.

A sky of violet was like a veil of silky gauze, and as the moon slid down the steeps of heaven the vast dome paled. One by one the stars went out like spent matches; dawn was on its way. Electric lights flared and died, leaving a pearly dusk more mysterious than any twilight which falls with night.

The crowds had thinned; but silent brotherhoods moved through streets where there was no other sound than the rustling of their feet, the tap of their leaders' silver batons. So faint was the dawn-dusk, that they were droves of shadows on their way back into night, their candle-lights lost stars. Now and then the clink of a baton brought to some half-shuttered window a face, to be presently joined by other faces, peering down at the dark processions of men and black-robed, penitent women.

Outside the great east door of the cathedral halted a _paso_, like a huge golden car. Christ was nailed to a cross not yet lifted into place. A Roman soldier, of exaggerated height and sardonic features, stood reading the parchment with the mocking inscription about to be nailed above the thorn-crowned head. His evil mouth was curled in a satirical smile. Two centurions in armour sat their impatient horses, and gave directions for raising the cross. The effect was startling; for in this pale beginning of light, and the atmosphere of tingling exaltation which steeped the town, it was difficult not to believe that the terrible carved figures of wood had life, and that with the eyes of one's flesh one beheld the world's great tragedy.

Somehow the impression of horror was but deepened by the fact that the bearers had come out from under the curtains of the _paso_, to take off the large pads they wore on their heads, to drink water, and smoke cigarettes with the penitents who had rolled up the masks from their pale, damp faces. They might have been comrades of the Roman soldiers, in their obliviousness of that tortured form on the cross.

It was not yet five o'clock when d.i.c.k and I plunged into the cool gloom of the cathedral, pa.s.sing the spot where Carmona had struck at me, and the chapel where I had taken Monica. The stones were slippery as the floor of a ballroom, with wax dropped from innumerable candles, and the air was heavy with the smoke of stale incense.

The searchlight of dawn could scarcely penetrate the black curtains which throughout Holy Week had draped the cathedral; therefore a solitary beam, like a bar of gold, slanted in through one superb window.

The amethysts, emeralds, and rubies of incomparable painted gla.s.s transformed the yellow bar into a rainbow which streamed down the length of the majestic aisle and struck full upon a golden altar. Then slowly the jewelled band moved from the gold carvings, the flames dying as it pa.s.sed.

Travelling, still like a searchlight, it found the prostrate forms of sleeping men exhausted by their vigils, s.n.a.t.c.hed out of veiling darkness kneeling women clad in black, and at last rested on the Holy Week monument itself, paled its myriad candles, and made pools of liquid gold on the vestments of priests who had knelt all night in adoration of the Host.

"Say," said d.i.c.k, half whispering, "I don't gush as a rule; but doesn't it look like the light of salvation coming to save lost souls?"

Not a hotel in Seville had shut its doors that night of Holy Thursday; not a _concierge_ had done more than nod and wake out of a broken dream, for there had been an excited coming and going through all the dark hours.

At six o'clock d.i.c.k and I were at the _fonda_, inquiring for Colonel O'Donnel and his daughter. They had come in at two, and were now asleep, it seemed; but had left a note for the senores. In this note we were a.s.sured that the friendly verger of last night's adventure would be lurking in the neighbourhood of Carmona's house as early as six o'clock, and should we want him we would know where he was to be found.

We took bedrooms, bathed, dressed again, and after hot coffee and rolls decided that is was time to go on guard. To be sure, it was absurdly early; but by this time the Duke's household might be astir, and we must not risk letting Monica be carried away before we had had a chance to practise the gentle art of housebreaking.

The clocks of Seville were spasmodically telling the hour of seven when we entered the narrow and dusky lane of the Calle de las Duenas. So fast asleep were the shuttered windows that our mission seemed a fool's errand; but as we came in sight of the Duke's closed door the Cherub's messenger loomed out of the shadows.

Unshaven and haggard, his eyes glittered like black beads in the daylight; and he greeted us excitedly. "Senores," he began, "I was going to look for you at the hotel. A thing has happened. The Senor Colonel told me I must watch the house of His Grace the Duke, and let you know when you came if anyone had been out or in. Who would think of people starting upon a journey before the day is awake? But so it is. The Duke, whom I have seen in other years, has gone away in an automobile with his honourable mother and two other ladies."

"You are sure it was he?" I asked, completely taken aback.

"Sure, my senorito. The car was a large grey car. And"-his face grew sly as a squirrel's-"I can tell you where it is going, if you would like to know."

"I want to know all you can tell," I said.

"Well, the grey car arrived a little before half-past six, I should think.

In it there was only the young man who drives, dressed in leather. 'What is going to happen?' I asked myself. It seemed better to wait and see than run to the hotel to say, 'there's an automobile at the door for the Duke,'

and perhaps find it gone, no one could tell where, when I got back. But I do not sleep on my feet. There are always ideas running in my head. I pretended to be strolling past, and stopping for a look at such a fine machine. Perhaps I had matches in my pocket, perhaps not; in any case I asked the young man in leather to give me a light for my cigarette. He did, and it was a natural thing to fall into talk. 'You make an early start,' I said. He nodded. 'Going far?' 'To Cadiz to-day, by Jerez.' That is all, honoured senores; but I tell it for what it is worth. A few minutes later the grand people came out, and the automobile shot away."

"Did they put on luggage?" I asked.

"All the automobile would hold."

"By Jove!" exclaimed d.i.c.k. "Carmona's thrown sand in our eyes this time.

Who'd have supposed he'd turn tail and run away like a coward in the midst of the Holy Week show, with the King still in town?"