The Firebrand Part 49

So saying he set his hand to the face-cloth of the nearest figure and plucked it away. Then was revealed to his affrighted and revolted gaze the features swollen and bloated of one who had died of the Black Plague.

At the same moment, and before his followers could set their hands to their mouths or retreat a step, round both corners of the building there came a double swarm of gipsies, running at random through the tangle of the wood and streaming frantically along the paths.

The Executioner of Salamanca also turned and ran down the steps.

"Touch the thing who will!" he cried; "I have done with it!"

And the entire attacking party with their knives and sledge-hammers would in like manner have fled, but for a strange and unlooked-for event which happened at that moment.

As Rollo peered over the low parapet, he saw a slight form rush suddenly across the front of the fleeing gipsies, shouting at and striking the fugitives. And even at that distance he was sure that it must be the daughter of Munoz, whom he had left captive in La Granja. She had been safely enough locked in the castle--how then had she escaped? He remembered the Sergeant's last threat that he would have some conversation with Senor Munoz. He wondered if the girl's escape had anything to do with that. That it was not impossible to escape from the palace, the presence of Concha Cabezos upstairs informed him.

But all theorising of this kind was stopped at sight of the vehement anger of the girl, and of the evident power she had over these wild and savage men. She did not even hesitate to strike a fugitive with her clenched fist if he attempted to evade her. Nay, in her fury she drew a knife from Ezquerra's belt and struck at the throat of the Executioner of Salamanca.

So vehement was her anger and so potent her influence, that the girl actually succeeded in arresting more than half the fleeing gipsies.

Some, however, evaded her, and she would stay her headlong course a moment to send a fierce curse after them.

"She is crazed!" thought Rollo; "her wrongs have driven her mad!"

But the sight of that glimmering array of plague-stricken sentinels waiting for them still and silent in the red dawn, was more than the fort.i.tude of the rallied forces could stand. Upon approaching the Hermitage the gipsies again showed symptoms of renewed flight.

Whereupon the girl, shrilly screaming the vilest names at them and in especial designating Ezquerra as the craven-hearted sp.a.w.n of an obscene canine ancestry, mounted the steps herself with the utmost boldness and confidence.

"I will teach you," she screamed; "I, a girl and alone, will show you what sacks of straw ye are frighted of. Do ye not know that the great prize is here, within this very house, behind these defenceless windows and cardboard doors? The Queen of Spain, whose ransom is worth twice ten thousand _duros_, even if your coward hearts dared not shed her black Bourbon blood. Behold!"

It was only by craning far out over the parapet (so far indeed that he might easily have been discovered from below had there been any to look) that Rollo was able to see what followed. But every eye was fixed on the girl. No one among all that company had even a glance to waste upon the skyline of the Ermita de San Ildefonso.

This was the thing Rollo saw as he looked.

The girl spurned the fallen face-cloth with her bare foot, and catching the body of the dead man in her arms, she dragged it out of its niche and cast it down the steps upon which it lay all abroad, half revealed and hideous in the morning light. This done, rus.h.i.+ng back as swiftly and with the same volcanic energy to the occupant of the other niche, she hurled him by main force after his companion. Then, panting and wan, with her single tattered garment half rent from her flat ill-nourished body, she lifted one arm aloft in triumph and cried, "There, you dogs, that is what you were afraid of!"

But even as she stood thus revealed in the morning light, a low murmur of terror and astonishment ran round all who saw her. For in the struggle the girl had uncovered her shoulder and breast, and there, upon her young and girlish skin, appeared the dread irregular blotches which betrayed the worst and most deadly form of the disease.

"The Black Plague! The Black Plague!" shrieked the throng of besiegers, surging this way and that like a flock of sheep which strange dogs drive, as with wild and shrill cries they turned and fled headlong towards the mountains.

The girl, speechless with wrath, and perhaps also with the death-sickness far advanced within her, took a step forward as if to follow them. But forgetful of where she stood, she missed her footing, fell headlong, and lay across the dead sentinel whom she had first dragged from his post.

The Basque priest looked over Rollo's shoulder and pointed downwards with a certain dread solemnity.

"What did I tell you?" he said. "The finger of G.o.d! The finger of G.o.d hath touched her! Let us go down. The sun will be above the horizon in twenty minutes."

"Had we not better wait?" urged Rollo. "They may return. Think of our responsibility, of our feeble defences, of----"

"Of Concha," he was about to say, but checked himself, and added quietly, "of the little Queen!"

The monk crossed himself with infinite calm.

"They will not return," he said; "it is our duty to lay these in the quiet earth ere the sun rises. There is no infection to be feared till an hour after sunrise."

"But the girl, the daughter of Munoz?" said Rollo, "did not she take the disease from the dead?"

"Nay," said the Basque. "I have often beheld the smitten of the plague like that. It works so upon very many. For a time they are as it were possessed with seven devils, and the strength of man is vain against them. They snap strong cords even as Samson did the Philistine withes.

Then--puff! Comes a breath of morning air chill from the Sierra, and they are gone. They were--and they are not. The finger of G.o.d hath touched them. So it was with this girl."

"I will follow you!" said Rollo, awe-stricken in spite of himself. "Tell me what I am to do!"

The monk pressed his hand again to his brow a little wearily. "I fear,"

he said, "that it will fall to you to perform the greater part of the work. For Brother Domingo, our good almoner, he of the merry countenance, died of his fatigues early this morning, and the other two, my brethren, are once more in the town bringing G.o.d to the dying!"

Instinctively Rollo removed his hat from his head.

"But," added the monk, "they dug the graves in holy ground before they went!"

In silence Rollo permitted himself to be covered with an armour of freshly tarred cloth, which was considered in Spain at that time to be a complete protection against plague infection. The monk Teodoro was proceeding to array himself in like manner, when Concha appeared beside them and held out her hands for the gauntlets.

"The little Princess is asleep," she said eagerly; "I am strong. I have as good a right to serve G.o.d as either of you--and as great is my need!"

The Basque gazed at her curiously. Her hair was still wholly covered by the sailor's red cap. To the eye she appeared a mere boy in her page's dress, but there was at all times something irresistibly attractive about Concha's face. Now her lips quivered sensitively, but her eyes were steady. She continued to hold out her hands.

"I demand that you permit me to serve G.o.d!" she cried to Brother Teodoro.

The monk shrugged his shoulders with a pitying gesture and looked from one to the other.

"I am an old dragoon," he said, "and under the guidons of _El Gran'

Lor'_ I have seen the like. It is none of my business, of course, but all the same it is a pity. I should be happier to leave you watching the slumbers of the Princess!"

"Ah!" cried Concha, earnestly, "if you are indeed an old soldier, and a good one under guidon or holy cross--for this time let me be one also!"

"You are young--I pray you, think!" urged the Basque. "There is great danger! Look at that maid yonder, and what she hath brought on herself."

"Ah," said Concha, softly--so softly indeed as to be almost inaudible, "but the difference is that she did this thing for hate--while--I--I----"

She did not finish her sentence, but raising her eyes, wet with seldom-coming tears, to those of the stern-faced brother, she said instead, "Give me the dress and let us be gone. The sun is rising!"

"If you are indeed determined, you shall have that of Brother Domingo,"

said Teodoro; "he was of little more than your height, and died, not of the plague, but simply from doing his duty."

"Then let me die in no other way!" said Concha, putting it on as happily as another maiden might dress for a ball.

These three went out to their terrible task, and as they were harnessing the bullock cart once more and spreading a clean cloth over it, Rollo, moved in his heart of hearts, came near. Never did two such lovers as they meet more strangely arrayed. Yet he laid his black gauntlet across her arm and whispered a word which Brother Teodoro did not hear, being, as he took good care to be, much busied about the straps and harnessings.

"I do not think that Love will let us die--yet!" he said.

"That is a prayer. Amen!" said Concha, in a whisper, lifting her eyes to his.

It was a strange betrothing, and little said. But when at last he put the ox-goad in her hands, Concha knew that the night had indeed pa.s.sed away and that the morning was come.