‘who knows? the man is proven by the hour.’
after the great storm came a calm almost as startling. it seemed indeed as if nature stood abashed and silent before the results of her sudden rage. day after day the sun glared down from a cloudless sky, and all castile was burnt brown as a desert. in the streets of madrid there arose a hot dust and the subtle odour of warm earth that rarely meets the nostrils in england. it savoured of india and other sun-steeped lands where water is too precious to throw upon the roads.
those who could, remained indoors or in their shady patios until the heat of the day was past; and such as worked in the open lay unchallenged in the shade from midday till three o’clock. during those days military operations were almost suspended, although the heads of departments were busy enough in their offices. the confusion of war, it seemed, was past, and the sore-needed peace was immediately turned to good account. the army of the queen regent was indeed in an almost wrecked condition, and among the field officers jealousy and backbiting, which had smouldered through the war-time, broke out openly. general vincente was rarely at home, and estella passed this time in quiet seclusion. coming as she did from andalusia, she was accustomed to an even greater heat, and knew how to avoid the discomfort of it.
she was sitting one afternoon, with open windows and closed jalousies, during the time of the siesta, when the servant announced father concha.
the old priest came into the room wiping his brow with simple ill manners.
‘you have been hurrying and have no regard for the sun,’ said estella.
‘you need not find shelter for an old ox,’ replied concha, seating himself. ‘it is the young ones that expose themselves unnecessarily.’
estella glanced at him sharply but said nothing. he sat, handkerchief in hand, and stared at a shaft of sunlight that lay across the floor from a gap in the jalousies. from the street under the windows came the distant sounds of traffic and the cries of the vendors of water, fruit, and newspapers.
father concha looked puzzled, and seemed to be seeking his way out of a difficulty. estella sat back in her chair, half hidden by her slow-waving, black fan. there is no pride so difficult as that which is unconscious of its own existence, no heart so hard to touch as that which has thrown its stake and asks neither sympathy nor admiration from the outside world. concha glanced at estella and wondered if he had been mistaken. there was in the old man’s heart, as indeed there is in nearly all human hearts, a thwarted instinct. how many are there with maternal instincts who have no children; how many a poet has been lost by the crying need of hungry mouths! it was a thwarted instinct that made the old priest busy himself with the affairs of other people, and always of young people.
‘i came hoping to see your father,’ he said at length, blandly untruthful. ‘i have just seen conyngham, in whom we are all interested, i think. his lack of caution is singular. i have been trying to persuade him not to do something most rash and imprudent. you remember the incident in your garden at ronda—a letter which he gave to julia?’
‘yes,’ answered estella quietly, ‘i remember.’
‘for some reason which he did not explain i understand that he is desirous of regaining possession of that letter, and now julia, writing from toledo, tells him that she will give it to him if he will go there and fetch it. the toledo road, as you will remember, is hardly to be recommended to mr. conyngham.’
‘but julia wishes him no harm,’ said estella.
‘my child, rarely trust a political man and never a political woman. if julia wished him to have the letter she could have sent it to him by post. but conyngham, who is all eagerness, must needs refuse to listen to any argument, and starts this afternoon for toledo—alone. he has not even his servant concep?ion vara, who has suddenly disappeared, and a woman who claims to be the scoundrel’s wife from algeciras has been making inquiries at conyngham’s lodging. a hen’s eyes are where her eggs lie. i offered to go to toledo with conyngham, but he laughed at me for a useless old priest, and said that the saddle would gall me.’
he paused, looking at her beneath his shaggy brows, knowing, as he had always known, that this was a woman beyond his reach—cleverer, braver, of a higher mind than her sisters—one to whom he might perchance tender some small assistance, but nothing better. for women are wiser in their generation than men, and usually know better what is for their own happiness. estella returned his glance with steady eyes.
‘he has gone,’ said concha. ‘i have not been sent to tell you that he is going.’
‘i did not think that you had,’ she answered.
‘conyngham has enemies in this country,’ continued the priest, ‘and despises them—a mistake to which his countrymen are singularly liable. he has gone off on this foolish quest without preparation or precaution. toledo is, as you know, a hotbed of intrigue and dissatisfaction. all the malcontents in spain congregate there, and conyngham would do well to avoid their company. who lies down with dogs gets up with fleas.’
he paused, tapping his snuffbox, and at that moment the door opened to admit general vincente.
‘oh! the padre!’ cried the cheerful soldier. ‘but what a sun, eh? it is cool here, however, and estella’s room is always a quiet one.’
he touched her cheek affectionately, and drew forward a low chair wherein he sat, carefully disposing of the sword that always seemed too large for him.
‘and what news has the padre?’ he asked, daintily touching his brow with his pocket-handkerchief.
‘bad,’ growled concha, and then told his tale over again in a briefer, blunter manner. ‘it all arises,’ he concluded, ‘from my pestilential habit of interfering in the affairs of other people.’
‘no,’ said general vincente; ‘it arises from conyngham’s pestilential habit of acquiring friends wherever he goes.’
the door was opened again, and a servant entered.
‘excellency,’ he said, ‘a man called concep?ion vara, who desires a moment.’
‘what did i tell you?’ said the general to concha. ‘another of conyngham’s friends. spain is full of them. let concep?ion vara come to this room.’
the servant looked slightly surprised, and retired. if, however, this manner of reception was unusual, concep?ion was too finished a man of the world to betray either surprise or embarrassment. by good fortune he happened to be wearing a coat. his flowing unstarched shirt was as usual spotless, he wore a flower in the ribbon of the hat carried jauntily in his hand, and about his person in the form of handkerchief and faja were those touches of bright colour by means of which he so irresistibly attracted the eye of the fair.
‘excellency,’ he murmured, bowing on the threshold; ‘reverendo,’ with one step forward and a respectful semi-religious inclination of the head towards concha; ‘se?orita!’ the ceremony here concluded with a profound obeisance to estella full of gallantry and grave admiration. then he stood upright, and indicated by a pleasant smile that no one need feel embarrassed, that in fact this meeting was most opportune.
‘a matter of urgency, excellency,’ he said confidentially to vincente. ‘i have reason to suspect that one of my friends—in fact, the se?or conyngham, with whom i am at the moment in service—happens to be in danger.’
‘ah! what makes you suspect that, my friend?’
concep?ion waved his hand lightly, as if indicating that the news had been brought to him by the birds of the air.
‘when one goes into the café,’ he said, ‘one is not always so particular—one associates with those who happen to be there—muleteers, diligencia-drivers, bull-fighters, all and sundry, even contrabandistas.’
he made this last admission with a face full of pious toleration, and father concha laughed grimly.
‘that is true, my friend,’ said the general, hastening to cover the priest’s little lapse of good manners, ‘and from these gentlemen—honest enough in their way, no doubt—you have learnt—?’
‘that the se?or conyngham has enemies in spain.’
‘so i understand; but he has also friends?’
‘he has one,’ said vara, taking up a fine, picturesque attitude, with his right hand at his waist where the deadly knife was concealed in the rolls of his faja.
‘then he is fortunate,’ said the general, with his most winning smile; ‘why do you come to me, my friend.’
‘i require two men,’ answered concep?ion airily, ‘that is all.’
‘ah! what sort of men. guardias civiles?’
‘the holy saints forbid! honest soldiers, if it please your excellency. the guardia civil! see you, excellency.’
he paused, shaking his outspread hand from side to side, palm downwards, fingers apart, as if describing a low level of humanity.
‘a brutal set of men,’ he continued; ‘with the finger ever on the trigger and the rifle ever loaded. pam! and a life is taken—many of my friends—at least, many persons i have met—in the café!’
‘it is better to give him his two men,’ put in father concha, in his atrocious english, speaking to the general. ‘the man is honest in his love of conyngham, if in nothing else.’
‘and if i accord you these two men, my friend,’ said the general, from whose face estella’s eyes had never moved, ‘will you undertake that mr. conyngham comes to no harm?’
‘i will arrange it,’ replied concep?ion, with an easy shrug of the shoulders. ‘i will arrange it, never fear.’
‘you shall have two men,’ said general vincente, drawing a writing-case towards himself and proceeding to write the necessary order. ‘men who are known to me personally. you can rely upon them at all times.’
‘since they are friends of his excellency’s,’ interrupted concep?ion with much condescension, ‘that suffices.’
‘he will require money,’ said estella in english—her eyes bright and her cheeks flushed. for she came of a fighting race, and her repose of manner, the dignity which sat rather strangely on her slim young shoulders, were only signs of that self-control which had been handed down to her through the ages.
the general nodded as he wrote.
‘take that to headquarters,’ he said, handing the papers to concep?ion, ‘and in less than half an hour your men will be ready. mr. conyngham is a friend of mine, as you know, and any expenses incurred on his behalf will be defrayed by myself—’
concep?ion held up his hand.
‘it is unnecessary, excellency,’ he said. ‘at present mr. conyngham has funds. only yesterday he gave me money. he liquidated my little account. it has always been a jest between us—that little account.’
he laughed pleasantly, and moved towards the door.
‘vara,’ said father concha.
‘yes, reverendo.’
‘if i meet your wife in madrid, what shall i say to her?’
concep?ion turned and looked into the smiling face of the old priest.
‘in madrid, reverendo? how can you think of such a thing? my wife lives in algeciras, and at times, see you—’ he stopped, casting his eyes up to the ceiling and fetching an exaggerated sigh, ‘at times my heart aches. but now i must get to the saddle. what a thing is duty, reverendo! duty! god be with your excellencies.’
and he hurried out of the room.
‘if you would make a thief honest, trust him,’ said concha, when the door was closed.
in less than an hour concep?ion was on the road accompanied by two troopers, who were ready enough to travel in company with a man of his reputation. for in spain, if one cannot be a bull-fighter it is good to be a smuggler. at sunset the great heat culminated in a thunderstorm, which drew a veil of heavy cloud across the sky, and night fell before its time.
the horsemen had covered two-thirds of their journey when he whom they followed came in sight of the lights of toledo, set upon a rock like the jewels in a lady’s ring, and almost surrounded by the swift tagus. conyngham’s horse was tired, and stumbled more than once on the hill by which the traveller descends to the great bridge and the gate that wamba built thirteen hundred years ago.
through this gate he passed into the city, which was a city of the dead, with its hundred ruined churches, its empty palaces and silent streets. ichabod is written large over all these tokens of a bygone glory; where the jews flying from jerusalem first set foot; where the moor reigned unmolested for nearly four hundred years; where the goth and the roman and the great spaniard of the middle ages have trod on each other’s heels. truly these worn stones have seen the greatness of the greatest nations of the world.
a single lamp hung slowly swinging in the arch of wamba’s gate, and the streets were but ill lighted with an oil lantern at an occasional corner. conyngham had been in toledo before, and knew his way to the inn under the shadow of the great alcazar, now burnt and ruined. here he left his horse; for the streets of toledo are so narrow and tortuous, so ill-paved and steep, that wheel traffic is almost unknown, while a horse can with difficulty keep his feet on the rounded cobble stones. in this city men go about their business on foot, which makes the streets as silent as the deserted houses.
julia had selected a spot which was easy enough to find, and conyngham, having supped, made his way thither without asking for directions.
‘it is at all events worth trying,’ he said to himself, ‘and she can scarcely have forgotten that i saved her life on the garonne as well as at ronda.’
but there is often in a woman’s life one man who can make her forget all. the streets were deserted, for it was a cold night, and the cafés were carefully closed against the damp air. no one stirred in the calle pedro martir, and conyngham peered into the shadow of the high wall of the church of san tome in vain. then he heard the soft tread of muffled feet, and turning on his heel realised julia’s treachery in a flash of thought. he charged to meet the charge of his assailants. two of them went down like felled trees, but there were others—four others—who fell on him silently like hounds upon a fox, and in a few moments all was quiet again in the calle pedro martir.
