The Car of Destiny Part 42

The King's companion was already down on one knee by the side of the chauffeur, pouring _aguardiente_ from a flask into the man's half-open mouth. As for the fellow I had hit, I was sure that he would presently come round, but little the worse for wear; and I suggested that d.i.c.k and I find a rope in the car, which would bind him and the two other half-disabled ones. But the King would not let us work alone. He did as much as we, and more, before we were joined by the young officer who was his friend.

Discouraged and weak from loss of blood, as well as the loss of their carbines and their comrades, the wounded brigands made no further fight.

But they were silent, save for a muttered oath or two, and I made up my mind that the true secret of this morning's work would never be torn from them.

For there was, of course, a secret. The King, who had not the clue which I held, saw that, and wondered why the brigands had not wished at first to shoot us. Plainly, their plan had been to make captives.

The obvious idea was that they would have conveyed their prisoners to some brigands' nest in the mountains, in the hope of obtaining a rich ransom.

But they had evidently expected an automobile, or they would not have raised a barricade, just round a sharp corner on a particularly lonely piece of road.

Could they have been lying in wait for the King? This seemed impossible, as he had told no one that he was going out, and the expedition had indeed been made on the impulse, in the company of but one companion beside the chauffeur. He had intended to have a spin, and discover the state of the roads as far as practicable on the way to Jerez before turning back for the procession in the afternoon. And that evening he must return to Madrid. No, it was not the King for whom the seven men had prepared.

Who, then, was to have been their prey?

I believed that I could have answered this question, but I kept silent; and there was no reason why the King should guess that I had a suspicion.

"At all events," he said, "we have you and your friend to thank that the affair was not more serious. I hope we should have been able to give a good account of ourselves; but seven against two are long odds. And there seems a fate in it that you should have come to me in the nick of time to-day as well as at Biarritz. I should like to know your names."

I had dreaded this. Foolishly, perhaps, I felt that I could not bear to see the cordial light in his eyes fade to proud coldness, as it must when he knew me for a son of the man who had tried to place another on his throne. Besides, that I should at such a moment announce myself a Casa Triana would seem like bidding for pardon as a reward for what I had done.

The confession stuck in my throat; and while I hesitated, d.i.c.k spoke.

"My friend didn't mean you to know, sir," said he, gabbling so fast that I could not stop him; "but this isn't the _second_ time he's happened to be around when there was a little thing to be done for your Majesty,-it's the third. Yesterday it was he who s.n.a.t.c.hed that bomb away from the man under the _paso_, collared the other fellow, and stuck the bomb in a smashed water-jar, although he gave the credit to the chauffeur-who, by the way, is 'shover' to this car. My friend here is travelling, as you might say, incog. for important private reasons, which he'll want you to know some day, sir, if he doesn't now; and that's why, when Ropes the chauffeur happened along, he made him a present of all the praise."

The King flushed, looking me straight in the eyes with an expression so n.o.ble and at the same time so kind that, had we lived a century or two ago, when men were not ashamed to show their true feelings, I should have thrown myself at his feet.

"I thank you again," he said, "for _everything_. I'm glad to know you are Spanish, even if I am to know no more. But am I to know no more?"

"Will your Majesty pardon me," I asked, "if I beg to remain nameless for the present?"

"I could pardon you far graver crimes," the King said smiling; "and I'm sure your reason, whatever it is, reflects nothing but honour on yourself.

I owe you a debt. Claim it's payment in my grat.i.tude whenever you will; the sooner the better. And if you want a friend, you'll know where to find one."

He held out his hand, and when I took it, shook mine warmly in English fas.h.i.+on. Something else he was about to say on a second thought, when his friend-who had now restored the chauffeur to dazed consciousness-drew his attention. "Sir," he said, "the guardia civile are coming back without prisoners."

A minute or two later the two men had galloped up to us, one wounded in the cheek. They had chased the brigands, exchanging shots, until suddenly, having pa.s.sed beyond a clump of trees and a few lumpy hummocks of sand, the band had vanished as if by magic. The civil guards had explored the spot for some cleverly concealed hiding-place, which they knew must exist within the s.p.a.ce of two hundred metres, but they had found nothing. And as they had had no time to ascertain the condition of the men left for us to deal with, they had thought it best to return lest the wounded enemy prove not to be _hors de combat_ after all.

Fortunately the distance from this lonely spot to Jerez was not more than thirty kilometres, and within three miles there was a farm. Here a cart could be got to take the wounded brigands into the town; and from Jerez a posse of men would be immediately sent out to scour the country for the escaped brigands.

The King, whom the guardia civile recognized with respectful surprise, was now anxious to get back to Seville, where he was due in the royal box for the Good Friday procession, and must appear by five o'clock at latest. He delayed only long enough to be sure that his chauffeur was not hurt beyond a slight concussion of the brain, to speak a few kind words to the civil guard, and to say a significantly emphasized "_Au revoir_" to d.i.c.k and me.

Then, taking the wheel himself, whilst the half-dazed chauffeur lay in the tonneau, he backed the big, reddish-brown car off the barricade, and darted away in a cloud of dust at a good forty miles an hour.

It was left for us to do what we could to advance the civil guard with their task; and though we had already lost too much time for my peace of mind, it was our plain duty to help those who had helped us. When we had levelled the rough barricade we reluctantly bundled the wounded men into our tonneau, and going at a pace which enabled the civil guards to gallop close behind us, we steered for the farm of which they had spoken. There, in a buzz of excitement, the brigands were piled into a cart; and leaving them to follow, presided over by one mounted guard leading his comrade's horse, we took the other on to Jerez in our car, so that the search party might be organized the sooner.

Sometimes virtue brings its own reward, and mine came when I learned that our new companion had met an automobile going at a great pace towards Jerez. It had gone so fast that, in the dust, he was not sure of the colour or number of persons inside, but he thought that he had seen several ladies.

If he could he would have compelled us to stop in Jerez and give evidence of the attack by brigands; but laughingly we told him that, rather than be delayed again, we would spill him out by the roadside and vanish into s.p.a.ce before he could set the telegraph to work. As for the brigands, the leader with three others had escaped, and the faces of those captured were not known to the guard. But the fact that they had been seven was significant in his opinion; and he believed that they would prove to be men of Ecija, forming a band officially supposed to be defunct.

Should we give a hint of our suspicions, we knew well that every effort would be made to detain us at Jerez, and such a catastrophe I would have avoided at almost any price, unless there had been a hope of handicapping Carmona. But that there was no such hope I was as sure as that the abortive plan had been organized by him.

How he had communicated so quickly with his friends the Seven, I did not pretend to say, unless he had known where to find their leader, and visited him this morning in his car. Whatever he had done, however, he would not have been fool enough to jeopardize his reputation for the sake of laying me by the heels. The fact that he had claimed the aid of bandits proved that he wished to dispose of me without implicating himself, though why he had not adopted the far simpler plan of denouncing me as Casa Triana to the police, I could not conceive. Still, there was ingenuity in this idea. If a young man-or two young men-were captured in a lonely place known to be infected with brigands; if such young men were held for ransom, and kept out of the way for weeks or months, what was all that to a Duke of Carmona?

What if, when one of those young men appeared in the world again (minus an ear or a finger, perhaps), he told a fairy story about the enmity of the Duke, and reminded the public of an old nurse's tale concerning a bond between the house of Carmona and the leader of the seven famous brigands?

Who would believe him? Who would not think it a silly and spiteful attempt on the part of an embittered man to injure a grandee of Spain?

Carmona would not have taken the whole Seven into his confidence, that was certain. He would have appealed to the leader alone. That leader had escaped; and even if he were captured he would not betray the Duke. Why should he, since it would not help himself; whereas, if he were loyal, Carmona would secretly use influence to lighten his lot?

d.i.c.k and I discussed these matters in English, under the nose of the civil guard, as I drove on to Jerez; and shrewd Yankee as he was, for once he accepted the Spanish point of view. If we were to "get even with Carmona and pay him out for this," it must be in some less clumsy way, d.i.c.k agreed.

x.x.xIV

THE RACE

It was lucky for us that the guard had met an automobile between the brigands' barricade and Jerez, otherwise we should have been at sea. The road-mender near Utrera had seen but one car, and that might have been the King's; but now we had something to hope for still; and d.i.c.k and I resolved to get out of Jerez as soon as possible, provided we could learn that the car we followed had gone on. If we lingered, the civil guard might, after all, think it his duty to have us detained, and we did not wish to give him time to change his mind.

"It's a pity, though," said d.i.c.k, with a thirsty sigh. "I've always had a sneaking fancy that if I ever came to Spain I'd stop at Jerez-'the place where the sherry comes from'-and potter about in huge, cool bodegas, sampling golden wine from giant casks with queer names on them. Only think what it would feel like to-day to have a stream of mellow 'Methusalem'

trickling over our dusty lips and down our dry throats? Great Scott! I daren't dwell on it, since it can't be. But it's a grand chance missed."

Almost as he spoke we flashed into a neat white town, with green glimpses of _patios_; and groaning, d.i.c.k shut his eyes upon a great bodega where the famous names of Gonzalez and Bya.s.s loomed black on white.

We dumped our civil guard at the entrance to a side street which was, we hinted, rather narrow for automobiles, and, not waiting for his grateful adieux, we darted on, asking a bootblack the way to the best hotel. At the "Sign of the Swan" we paused just long enough to give the Gloria water, and to find out that a motor-car had stopped for a few moments about two hours ago. There were ladies inside, but they had not got out. A gentleman, covered with dust, had ordered sherry and biscuits, which he and the chauffeur had themselves carried to the other pa.s.sengers, appearing rather impatient with the waiters. This gentleman had spoken Spanish in the hotel, but had been heard conversing in English with his friends. They had remained about fifteen minutes, and had then gone on. A waiter remembered seeing the chauffeur and his master consulting a road-map, and had heard the word "Cadiz" spoken.

This gave us an apparently unbroken clue, and half expecting to be caught in a police-trap, we slipped stealthily out of Jerez, with a spurt of speed as streets were left behind.

Still we were watched by purple-robed, guardian mountains, sitting in conclave. A running fire of poppies swept the fields between which we travelled, while distant meadows were paved with gold, or with forget-me-not blue like squares of the sky's mosaic fallen out. The air grew luminous as the crystal bell which hangs over the lagoons of Venice; and with the subtle change of atmosphere we had in our nostrils the first tang of the sea.

Here and there a strip of lush green was belted with cactus, but we were driving through salt marshes, and round us spread a plain piled with strange, s.h.i.+ning pyramids of salt, white and bright as hills of diamond dust. Then, suddenly, a broken line of turrets and domes and spires was cut in gleaming pearl against the sky; and it was not the opal clearness of the air alone which took the memory to Venice. Here was the same ebb and flow of salt water in glittering lagoons, the same dark, waving lines of seaweed, the same wide stretch of sapphire beyond the alabaster domes.

For Spain, the road was good, and we glided smoothly through the pretty old town of Puerta de Santa Maria, with its big bodegas and Byronic a.s.sociations. Across the Guadalquivir, where it tumbles into the Atlantic, das.h.i.+ng through an aromatic forest of umbrella pines we came out at Queen Isabel's white, Moorish looking Puerto Real. Thence, distant Cadiz on its rock appeared to change position bewilderingly, like a group of fairy castles, as we swept round the rim of that semicircular bay where once the Phnicians traded in metals of England, and amber of the Baltic; where the s.h.i.+ps of the Great Armada lay; and where Ess.e.x wrought destruction.

At San Fernando, I was a.s.sailed by doubt. What if, after all, the car we sought had not gone to Cadiz, but had here taken the coast road to Algeciras? The great conference was only just over, there; tourists of all nations were flocking to the town, attracted by curiosity; and as the place boasts the most beautiful hotel in Spain, it seemed likely that in flying from Seville the Duke should choose Algeciras instead of Cadiz. But some fishermen, on that rope of sand which binds Cadiz to the mainland, had seen a car pa.s.s a few hours before. Yes, only one; and they thought it was grey. It had four or five pa.s.sengers, and was going to Cadiz.

Thither we spurted, d.i.c.k studying a plan of the city as we flew along the straight road embanked above the sand. By the time we arrived in silver Cadiz he was able to say in which direction I must drive to find the chief hotel; and in an open _place_ not far from the crowded port we stopped.

d.i.c.k stayed to guard the car from the crowd which quickly collected, while I went to question the landlord.

No travellers with an automobile were stopping with him at present; but one had arrived a couple of hours ago, perhaps, and its pa.s.sengers had wished to remain overnight. Unfortunately, however, as a big s.h.i.+p had just come in from America every room was taken.

There was no other hotel at which persons of taste could stop in comfort; and after some discussion, the owner of the car had decided to run on to Algeciras by way of Tarifa. The party, consisting of three ladies, one gentleman, and the chauffeur, had taken a hasty meal, and had got away about an hour and a half before our arrival.

"Those beastly _bandidos_!" I exclaimed to d.i.c.k in a rage of disappointment. "If it hadn't been for them we should have been on the heels of the grey car, and caught it up here at the hotel. I should have been able to s.n.a.t.c.h Monica away from under their noses-for I know she wouldn't have failed me."

"Those beastly _bandidos_ introduced you to the King,-don't forget that,"

said d.i.c.k consolingly. "And the day may come before long when you'll be glad of that introduction. You can never tell, in a life like yours. And once Carmona's at Algeciras, why, you've got him in a kind of _cul-de-sac_ from which he can't escape, any more than a mouse can jump out of a basin half full of water. If he takes rooms at the Reina Cristina, you'll come plump upon him. If he tries to return by road, he'll run into your arms; and one or the other must happen unless he puts his auto on a train or steamer, neither of which is likely."