CHAPTER IV
THE JADE--CHANCEThe same evening, by the light of his solitary lamp, in the smallroom--which had been a lady's boudoir in olden days--the Count de Sarrionsat down to write a letter to his son. He despatched it at once by arider to Torre Garda, far beyond Pampeluna, on the southern slope of thePyrenees.
"I am growing too old for this work," he said to himself as he sealed theletter. "It wants a younger man. Marcos will do it, though he hates thepavement. There is something of the chase in it, and Marcos is a hunter."
At his call a man came into the room, all dusty and sunburnt, a typicalman of Aragon, dry and wrinkled, burnt like a son of Sahara. Hisclothing, like his face, was dust-coloured. He wore knee-breeches ofhomespun, brown stockings, a handkerchief that had once been colouredbound round his head, with the knot over his left ear. He was startlinglyrough and wild in appearance, but his features, on examination, wererefined, and his eyes intelligent.
"I want you to go straight to Torre Garda with this letter, and give itinto the hand of my son with your own hand. It is important. You may bewatched and followed; you understand?"
The man nodded. They are a taciturn people in Aragon and Navarre--sotaciturn that in politely greeting the passer on the road they cut downthe curt good-day. "Buenas," they say, and that is all.
"Go with God," said the Count, and the messenger left the roomnoiselessly, for they wear no shoe-leather in this dry land.
There was a train in those days to Pampeluna and a daily post, but then,as now, a letter of any importance is better sent by hand, while therailway is still looked upon with suspicion by the authorities as a meansof circulating malcontents and spreading crime. Every train is stillinspected at each stopping place by two of the civil guards.
The Count was early astir the next morning. He knew that a man such asMarcos, possessing the instinct of the chase and that deep insight intothe thoughts and actions of others, even into the thoughts and actions ofanimals, which makes a great hunter or a great captain, would never havelet slip the feeble clue that he had of the incident in the Calle SanGregorio. The Count had been a politician in his youth, and his positionentailed a passive continuance of the policy he had actively advocated inearlier days. But as an old sailor, weary with the battle of many storms,learns at last to treat the thunder and the tempest with a certaintolerant contempt, so he, having passed through evil monarchies andcorrupt regencies, through the storm of anarchy and the humiliation of abrief and ridiculous republic, now stood aside and watched the waves gopast him with a semi-contemptuous indifference.
He was too well known in the streets of Saragossa to wander hither andthither in them, making inquiry as to whether any had seen his lifelongfriend Francisco de Mogente back in the city of his birth from which hehad been exiled in the uncertain days of Isabella. Francisco de Mogentehad been placed in one of those vague positions of Spanish political lifewhere exile had never been commuted, though friend and enemy would alikehave welcomed the return of a scapegoat on their own terms. But Mogentehad never been the man to make terms--any more than this grim Spanishnobleman who now sat wondering what his next move must be.
After his early coffee Sarrion went out into the Calle San Gregorio. Thesound of deep voices chanting the matins came to him through the opendoors of the Cathedral of the Seo. A priest hurried past, late, and yetin time to save his record of services attended. The beggars wereleisurely making their way to the cathedral doors, too lazy to make anearlier start, philosophically reflecting that the charitable are aslikely to give after matins as before.
The Count went over the ground of the scene that he had witnessed in thefitful moonlight. Here the man who might have been Francisco de Mogentehad turned on his heel. Here, at the never opened door of a desertedpalace, he had stood for a moment fighting with his back to the wall.Here he had fallen. From that corner had come aid in the person--Sarrionwas sure--of a friar. It was an odd coincidence, for the Church had neverbeen the friend of the exiled man, and it was in the days of apriest-ridden Queen that his foes had triumphed.
They had carried the stricken man back to the corner of the Calle SanGregorio and the Plazuela San Bruno, and from the movements of thebearers Sarrion had received the conviction that they had entered thehouse immediately beyond the angle of the high building opposite to theEpiscopal Palace.
Sarrion followed his memory step by step. He determined to go into thehouse--a huge building--divided into many small apartments. The door hadnever particularly attracted his attention. Like many of the doorways ofthese great houses, it was wide and high, giving access to a darkstairway of stone. The doors stood open night and day. For this stairwaywas a common one, as its dirtiness would testify.
There was some one coming down the stairs now. Sarrion, remembering thathis face was well known, and that he had no particular business in any ofthe apartments into which the house was divided, paused for a moment, andwaited on the threshold. He looked up the dark stairs, and slowlydistinguished the form and face of the newcomer. It was his old friendEvasio Mon--smart, well-brushed, smiling a good-morning to all the worldthis sunny day.
They had not met for many years. Their friendship had been one of thosebegun by parents, and carried on in after years by the children more fromhabit than from any particular tie of sympathy. For we all find at lengththat the nursery carpet is not the world. Their ways had parted soonafter the nursery, and, though they had met frequently, they had nevertrodden the same path again. For Evasio Mon had been educated as apriest.
"I have often wondered why I have never clashed--with Evasio Mon,"Sarrion once said to his son in the reflective quiet of their life atTorre Garda.
"It takes two to clash," replied Marcos at length in his contemplativeway, having given the matter his consideration. And perhaps that was theonly explanation of it.
Sarrion looked up now and met the smile with a grave bow. They took offtheir hats to each other with rather more ceremony than when they hadlast met. A long, slow friendship is the best; a long, slow enmity thedeadliest.
"One does not expect to see you in Saragossa," said Mon gently. A manbears his school mark all through life. This layman had learnt somethingin the seminary which he had never forgotten.
"No," replied the other. "What is this house? I was just going into it."
Mon turned and looked up at the building with a little wave of the hand,indicating lightly the stones and mortar.
"It is just a house, my friend, as you see--a house, like another."
"And who lives in it?"
"Poor people, and foolish people. As in any other. People one must pityand cannot help despising."
He laughed, and as he spoke he led the way, as it were, unconsciouslyaway from this house which was like another.
"Because they are poor?" inquired Sarrion, who did not move a step inresponse to Evasio Mon's lead.
"Partly," admitted Mon, holding up one finger. "Because, my friend, nonebut the foolish are poor in this world."
"Then why has the good God sent so many fools into the world?"
"Because He wants a few saints, I suppose."
Mon was still trying to lead him away from that threshold and Sarrionstill stood his ground. Their half-bantering talk suddenly collapsed, andthey stood looking at each other in silence for a moment. Both were whatmay be called "ready" men, quick to catch a thought and answer.
"I will tell you," said Sarrion quietly, "why I am going into this house.I have long ceased to take an interest in the politics of this poorcountry, as you know."
Mon's gesture seemed to indicate that Sarrion had only done what was wiseand sensible in a matter of which it was no longer any use to talk.
"But to my friends I still give a thought," went on the Count. "Twonights ago a man was attacked in this street--by the usual streetcutthroats, it is to be supposed. I saw it all from my balcony there.See, from this corner you can perceive the balcony."
He drew Mon to the corner of the street, and pointed out the Sarr
ionPalace, gloomy and deserted at the further end of the street.
"But it was dark, and I could not see much," he added, seemingunconsciously to answer a question passing in his companion's mind; forMon's pleasant eyes were measuring the distance.
"I thought they brought him in here; for before I could descend helpcame, and the cutthroats ran away."
"It is like your good, kind heart, my friend, to interest yourself in thefate of some rake, who was probably tipsy, or else he would not have beenabroad at that hour."
"I had not mentioned the hour."
"One presumes," said Mon, with a short laugh, "that such incidents do nothappen in the early evening. However, let us by all means make inquiriesafter your dissipated protege."
He moved with alacrity to the house, leading the way now.
"By an odd chance," said Sarrion, following him more slowly, "I haveconceived the idea that this man is an old friend of mine."
"Then, my good Ramon, he must be an old friend of mine, too."
"Francisco de Mogente."
Mon stopped with a movement of genuine surprise, followed instantly by aquick sidelong glance beneath his lashes.
"Our poor, wrong-headed Francisco," he said, "what made you think of himafter all these years? Have you heard from him?"
He turned on the stairs as he asked this question in an indifferent voiceand waited for the answer; but Sarrion was looking at the steps with adeep attention.
"See," he said, "there are drops of blood on the stairs. There was bloodin the street, but it had been covered with dust. This also has beencovered with dust--but the dust may be swept aside--see!"
And with the gloves which a Spanish gentleman still carries in his handwhenever he is out of doors, he brushed the dust aside.
"Yes," said Mon, examining the steps, "yes; you may be right. Come, letus make inquiries. I know most of the people in this house. They are poorpeople. In my small way I help some of them, when an evil time comes inthe winter."
He was all eagerness now, and full of desire to help. It was he who toldthe Count's story, and told it a little wrong as a story is usuallyrelated by one who repeats it, while Sarrion stood at the door and lookedaround him. It was Mon who persisted that every stone should be turned,and every denizen of the great house interrogated. But nothing resultedfrom these inquiries.
"I did not, of course, mention Francisco's name," he said,confidentially, as they emerged into the street again. "Nothing was to begained by that. And I confess I think you are the victim of your ownimagination in this. Francisco is in Santiago de Cuba, and will probablynever return. If he were here in Saragossa surely his own son would knowit. I saw Leon de Mogente the day before yesterday, by the way, and hesaid nothing of his father. And it is not long since I spoke withJuanita. We could make inquiry of Leon--but not to-day, by the way. Itis a great Retreat, organised by some pilgrims to the Shrine of our Ladyof the Pillar, and Leon is sure to be of it. The man is half a monk, youknow."
They were walking down the Calle San Gregorio, and, as if in illustrationof the fact that chance will betray those who wait most assiduously uponher, the curtain of the great door of the cathedral was drawn aside, andLeon de Mogente came out blinking into the sunlight. The meeting wasinevitable.
"There is Leon--by a lucky chance," said Mon almost immediately.
Leon de Mogente had seen them and was hurrying to meet them. Seen thus inthe street, under the sun, he was a pale and bloodless man--food for thecloister. He bowed with an odd humility to Mon, but spoke directly to theCount de Sarrion. He knew, and showed that he knew, that Mon was not gladto see him.
"I did not know that you were in Saragossa," he said. "A terrible thinghas happened. My father is dead. He died without the benefits of theChurch. He returned secretly to Saragossa two days ago and was attackedand robbed in the streets."
"And died in that house," added Sarrion, indicating with his stick thebuilding they had just quitted.
"Ye--es," answered Leon hesitatingly, with a quick and frightened glanceat Mon. "It may have been. I do not know. He died without the consolationof the Church. It is that that I think of."
"Yes," said Sarrion rather coldly, "you naturally would."