CHAPTER XVIII
A FLUTTER OF RED AND WHITE
"At your ambassadorial service!" said the Senorita Concha, bowing stilllower and holding out her skirts at either side with a prettyishexaggeration of deference; "what commands has your Scottish Excellencyfor poor little Concha?"
"Ahem!" said Rollo, more than a little puzzled, "they were not so muchcommands as--as--I thought you might be able to help me."
"Now we are getting at it," said Concha Cabezos, nodding with a wiseair.
("I must be on my guard with this girl," thought Rollo, "I can almostbring myself to believe that--yet it seems impossible--that--the girl ischaffing me--me!")
"I wished to see you," he went on.
The girl curtsied again, bringing her hands together in a little appealalmost childish. It looked natural, yet Rollo was not sure. But at anyrate the sensation was a new one. He began to think of what he had heardin the venta. But no, the girl looked so sweet and demure, such babyishsmiles flickered and dimpled about the mouth--all scented of fresh youthlike a June hayfield. No, she--she must have been traduced. Not that itmattered in the least to him. He was cased in triple steel. His heartwas adamant. Or at least as much of it as he had not left in thepossession of Peggy Ramsay, and, when he came to think of it, of severalothers.
"You were wishful to see me, sir?" murmured little Concha, "a greatgentleman wanting to see me--wonderful--impossible."
"Neither one nor yet the other," said Rollo, a trifle sharply, lookingat the girl with a glance intended to suppress any lurking tendency tolevity; "if I desired to see you, it was not on my own account, but uponthe King's service." He raised his voice at the last words.
"That explains it," said the girl, with her eyes cast down. She raisedthe lids sharply once and then dropped them again. Penitence and acertain fear could not have been better expressed. Rollo was moresatisfied.
("After all," he thought, "the little thing does not mean any harm. Itis only her simplicity!")
And he twirled his moustachios self-confidently.
"It is not often," he said to himself, "that she has the opportunity oftalking to a man like me--here in this village! I suppose it isnatural." It was--to Concha.
But the girl's expression altered so soon as she heard the service thatwas required of her, and she followed with rapt attention the tale ofthe garrisoning of the mill-house of Sarria, and the dire need of herformer mistress and friend, Dolores Garcia.
Little Concha's coquetry, her trick of experimenting upon all and sundrywho came near her, her moods and whimsies, transient as the flaws thatruffle and ripple, breathe upon and again set sparkling the surface of amountain tarn--all these dropped from the Andalucian maiden at thethought of another's need. A moment before, this young foreign soldier,with the handsome face and the excellent opinion of himself, had beenbut fair game to Concha; a prey marked down, not from any fell intent,but for the due humbling of pride. For Concha was interested in bringingyoung men to a sense of their position, and mostly, it may be confessed,it did them a vast deal of good.
But in that moment she became, instead, the eager listener, the readyself-sacrificing comrade, the friend as faithful and reliable as anybrother. It was enough for her that El Sarria was there in danger of hislife, that Dona Dolores must be delivered and brought into the safeshelter of the sisterhood, and--this with a glistening of little savageteeth, small and white as mother-of-pearl--that Luis Fernandez should behumbled.
"Let me see--let me see," she murmured, thoughtfully. "Wait, I will comewith you." She took a glance at the young cavalier, armed _cap-a-pie_,and thought doubtless of the horse chafing and shaking its accoutrementsin the shade of the porter's lodge. "No, I will not come with you. Iwill follow immediately, and do you, sir, return as swiftly as possibleto the mill-house of Sarria."
And without the slightest attempt at coquetry Concha showed Rollo to thedoor, and that arrogant youth, slightly bewildered and uncertain of themarch of events, found himself presently riding away from the white gateof the monastery with Etienne's ring upon his finger, and a beliefcrystallising in his heart that of all the maligned and misrepresentedbeings on the earth, the most maligned and the most innocent was littleConcha Cabezos.
And instinctively his fingers itched to clasp his sword-hilt, and provethis thesis upon Pedro Morales or any venta rascal who might in futuredisparage her good name.
Indeed, it was only by checking of his horse in time that he kepthimself in the right line for the mill-house. His instinct was to rideto the venta straightway and have it out with all the blind mouths ofthe village in parliament assembled.
But luckily Rollo remembered the giant Ramon Garcia, reckless and simpleof heart, Dolores his wife and her instant needs, and the imprisonedFernandez family in the strong-room of the mill-house. It was clear evento his warped judgment that these constituted a first charge upon hisendeavours, and that the good name of Mistress Concha, despite thedimples on her chin, must be considered so far a side issue.
The mill-house remained as he had left it when he rode away. Thesunshine fell broad and strong on its whitewashed walls and greenshutters, most of them closed hermetically along the front as was thecustom of Sarria, till the power of the sun was on the wane. A workmanor two busy down among the vents, and feeding the mouths of the grindingstones, looked up curiously at this unwonted visitor. But these had beentoo frequent of late, and their master's behaviour too strange for themto suspect anything amiss.
It was now the hottest time of the forenoon, and the heat made Rollolong for some of Don Luis's red wine, which he would drain in theCatalonian manner by holding the vessel well out and pouring a narrowstream in a graceful arch into his mouth. But for this he must wait. Acaptive quail on the balcony said _check-check_, and rattled on the barsof his cage to indicate that his water was finished, and that ifsomebody did not attend to him speedily he would die.
As Rollo went down the little slope, past the corner of the garden whereRamon had spoken first with La Giralda, it seemed to him that over thebroiling roofs of the mill-house he caught the glimmer of something cooland white. He halted his horse and stood momentarily up in his stirrups,whereupon the glimmer upon the roof seemed to change suddenly to red andthen as swiftly vanished.
Certainly there was something wrong. Rollo hurried on, giving the threeknocks which had been agreed upon at the closed outer door of the house.It was opened by La Giralda.
"Who is signalling from the roof?" he asked hurriedly.
The old gipsy stared at him, and then glanced apprehensively at hisface. It had grown white with sudden anxiety.
"A touch of sun--you are not accustomed--you are not of the country toride about at this time of day. No one has been signalling. Don Ramon iswith his wife, waiting for you; and, as I think, not finding the timelong. I will bring you a drink of wine and water with a _tisane_ in it,very judicious in cases of sun-touch!"
The latter was much in the line of the young man's desires, yet beingstill unsatisfied, he could not help saying, "But, La Giralda, I saw thething plainly, a signal, first of white and then of red, waved from theroof, as it seemed, over the mill-wheel."
La Giralda shook her head.
"Eyes," she said, "only eyes and the touch of the sun. But tell me,what of Concha, and how you sped with the Lady Superior?"
But Rollo was not to be appeased till he had summoned El Sarria, andwith him examined the strong-room where the prisoners were kept; asbefore, Don Luis sat listlessly by the table, his brow upon his hand. Hedid not look up or speak when they entered. But his brother moaned onabout his wounded head, and complained that La Tia had drunk all thewater. This being replenished, Don Tomas wandered off into mutteredconfidences concerning his early travels, how he had made love to theAlcalde's daughter of Granada, how he had fought with a _contrabandista_at Ronda fair--with other things too intimate to be here set down, everreturning, however, to his plea that the Tia Elvira had defrauded him ofhis fair share of the water-jug.
"Nay, not so," said the Tia, soothingly; "every drop of the water youhave drunk, Don Tomas. But it is your head, your poor head. I turned thepoultice, and with the water he speaks of moistened the leaves afresh.And how, worthy Senors, is the dear lady? I trust, well. Ah! had shebeen left in my care, all had gone right with her!"
"In _your_ care! In _your_ care, hell-hag!" cried El Sarria, fiercely,taking a step threateningly towards her, "aye, the kind of safety mychild would have experienced had that gentleman, your brother there,been allowed to finish his grave-digging business. Let me not hearanother word out of your mouth, lest I do the world a service by cuttingshort a long life so ill-spent!"
The Tia took the hint and said nothing. But her eyes, cast up to theroof, and her hands spread abroad palm outwards, expressed herconviction that ever thus do the truly good and charitable suffer fortheir good deeds, their best acts being mistaken and misinterpreted, andtheir very lives brought into danger by the benevolence of theirintentions.
Had Rollo but followed the direction of her gaze he might have had hisdoubts of La Giralda's theory of sunstroke to explain the signallingfrom the roof. For there, clearly to be seen out of the half-opentrap-door, was a little scarlet strip of cloth stirred by the wind, anddoubtless conspicuous from all the neighbouring hills about the villageof Sarria.
But Rollo, eager to get to his task of arranging the transport for theevening, so that Dolores might be taken in safety and comfort to theConvent of the Holy Innocents, was already turning to be gone, whileRamon Garcia, afraid to trust himself long in the same apartment withthe traitor, stood outside fingering the key.
"Bring wine and water!" cried Rollo to La Giralda, "and, Don Luis, in anhour I will trouble you to take a little tour of the premises with me,just to show your men that all is right."
Luis Fernandez bowed slightly but said nothing, while the invalid fromhis couch whined feebly that all the water was for him. The others mighthave the wine or at least some of it, but he must have all the water.
So Rollo Blair and his companion withdrew into the cool guest-chamber ofthe mill-house without having seen the little waving strip of red uponthe roof. As soon as they were gone, however, Don Luis leaped up, andwith a long fishing-pole he flaunted a strip of white beside the red,waving it this way and that for a long time, till in the closeatmosphere of the strong-room the sweat rained from him in great drops.
Then he leaped down at last, muttering, "If the General is within twentymiles, as I think he is, that ought to bring him to Sarria. The angelsgrant that he arrive in time" (here he paused a moment, and then addedwith a bitter smile), "or the devils either. I am not particular, so bethat he come!"