CHAPTER VII
THE ALTERNATIVEThe letter written by the Count de Sarrion to his son was delivered toMarcos, literally from hand to hand, by the messenger to whose care itwas entrusted.
So fully did the mountaineer carry out his instructions, that afterstanding on the river bank for some minutes, he deliberately walkedknee-deep into the water and touched Marcos on the elbow. For the riveris a loud one, and Marcos, intent on his sport, never turned his head tolook about him.
This, the last of the Sarrions, was a patient looking man, with the quieteyes of one who deals with Nature, and the slow movements of thefar-sighted. For Nature is always consistent, and never hurries those whowatch her closely to obey the laws she writes so large in the instinctsof man and beast.
The messenger gave his master the letter and then stood with the waterrustling past his woollen stockings. There was an odd suggestion ofbrotherhood between these men of very different birth. For as men areequal in the sight of God, so are those dimly like each other who live inthe open air and cast their lives upon the broad bosom of Nature.
Marcos handed his rod to the messenger, whose face, wrinkled like awalnut by the sun of Aragon, lighted up suddenly with pleasure.
"There," he said, pointing to a swirling pool beneath some alders. "Thereis a big one there, I have risen him once."
He waded slowly back to the bank where a second crop of hay was alreadyshowing its new green, and sat down.
It seemed that Marcos de Sarrion was behind the times--these new andwordy times into which Spain has floundered so disastrously since CharlesIII was king--for he gave a deeper attention to the matter in hand thanmost have time for. He turned from the hard task of catching a trout inclear water beneath a sunny sky, and gave his attention to his father'sletter.
"After all," it read, "I want you, and await you in Saragossa."
And that was all. "Marcos will come," the Count had reflected, "withoutpersuasion. And explanations are dangerous."
In which he was right. For this river, known as the Wolf, in which Marcoswas peacefully fishing, was one of those Northern tributaries of the Ebrowhich have run with blood any time this hundred years. The country,moreover, that it drained was marked in the Government maps as a blankcountry, or one that paid no taxes, and knew not the uniform of theGovernment troops.
Torre Garda, the long two-storied house crowning a hill-top farther upthe valley of the Wolf, was one of the few country houses that have notstood empty since the forties. And all the valley of the Wolf, from thegrim Pyrenees standing sentinel at its head to the sunny plain almost insight of Pampeluna, where the Wolf merges into other streams, was heldquiescent in the grip of the Sarrions.
"We will fight," said the men of this valley, "for the king, when we havea king worth fighting for. And we will always fight for ourselves."
And it was said that they only repeated what the Sarrions had told them.At all events, no Carlists came that way.
"Torre Garda is not worth holding," they said.
"And you cannot hold Pampeluna unless you take Torre Garda first,"thought those who knew the art of guerilla warfare.
So the valley of the Wolf awaited a king worth fighting for, and in themeantime they paid no taxes, enjoyed no postal service, and were perhapsnone the worse without it.
There were Carlists over the mountains on either side of the valley.Eternal snow closed the northern end of it and fed the Wolf in the summerheats. Down at the mouth of the valley where the road was wide enough fortwo carts to pass each other, and a carriage could be driven at the trot,there often passed a patrol from the Royalist stronghold of Pampeluna.But the Government troops never ventured up the valley which was like amouse-hole with a Carlist cat waiting round the corner to cut them off.Neither did the Carlists hazard themselves through the narrow defilewhere the Wolf rushed down its straightened gate; for there were fortythousand men in Pampeluna, only ten miles away.
Which reasons were sound enough to dictate caution in any written wordthat might pass from the Count in Saragossa to his son at Torre Garda.
A white dog with one yellow and black ear--a dog that might have been anightmare, a bad, distorted dream of a pointer--stood in front of Marcosde Sarrion as he read the letter and seemed to await the hearing of itscontents.
There are many persons of doubtful social standing, who seek to makeup--to bridge that narrow and unfathomable gulf--by affability. This dogit seemed, knowing that he was not quite a pointer, sought to conciliatehumanity by an eagerness, by a pathetic and blundering haste to try andunderstand what was expected of him and to perform the same withoutdelay, which was quite foreign to the nature of the real breed.
In Spain one addresses a man by the plain term: Man. And after all, it issomething--deja quelque chose--to be worthy of that name. This dog wascalled Perro, which being translated is Dog. He had been a waif in hisearly days, some stray from the mountains near the frontier, where dogsare trained to smuggle. Full of zeal, he had probably smuggled tooeagerly. Marcos had found him, half starved, far up the valley of theWolf. He had not been deemed worthy of a baptismal name and had beencalled the Dog--and admitted as such to the outbuildings of Torre Garda.From thence he had worked his humble way upwards. By patience and comforthis mind slowly expanded until men almost forgot that this was adisgraceful mongrel.
Perro had risen from a slumberous contemplation of the tumbling water andnow stood awaiting orders, his near hind leg shaking with eagerness toplease, by running anywhere at any pace.
Marcos never spoke to his dog. He had seen Spain humbled to the dust bybabble, and the sight had, perhaps, dried up the spring of his speech.For he rarely spoke idly. If he had anything to say, he said it. But ifhe had nothing, he was silent. Which is, of course, fatal to socialadvancement, and set him at one stroke outside the pale of politicallife. Spain at this time, and, indeed, during the last thirty years, hadbeen the happy hunting ground of the beau sabreur, of those (of all men,most miserable) who owe their success in life to a woman's favour.
This silent Spaniard might, perhaps, have made for himself a name in theworld's arena in other days; for he had a spark of that genius whichcreates a leader. But fate had ruled that he should have no wider spherethan an obscure Pyrenean gorge, no greater a following than the men ofthe Valley of the Wolf. These he held in an iron grip. Within his deepand narrow head lay the secret which neither Madrid nor Bayonne couldever understand; why the Valley of the Wolf was neither Royalist norCarlist. The quiet, slow eyes had alone seen into the hearts of the wildNavarrese mountaineers and knew the way to rule them.
It may be thought that their small number made the task an easy one. Butit must also be remembered that these mountain slopes have given to theworld the finest guerilla soldiers that history has known, and arepeopled by one of the untamed races of mankind.
Moreover, Marcos de Sarrion was a restful man. And those few who seebelow the surface, know that the restful man is he whose life's task iswell within the compass of his ability.
Perro, it seemed, with an intelligence developed at the best and hardestof all schools, where hunger is the usher, awaited, not word, but actionfrom his master; and had not long to wait.
For Marcos rose and slowly climbed the hill towards Torre Garda, halfhidden amid the pine trees on the mountain crest above him. There was amidnight train, he knew, from Pampeluna to Saragossa. The railway stationwas only twenty miles away, which is to this day considered quite aconvenient distance in Navarre. There would be a moon soon afternightfall. There was plenty of time. That far-off ancestress of themiddle-ages had, it would appear, handed down to her sons forever, withthe clear cut profile, the philosophy which allows itself time to getthrough life unruffled.
The Count de Sarrion was taking his early coffee the next morning at theopen window in Saragossa when Marcos, with the dust of travel across theAlkali desert still upon him, came into the room.
"I expected you," said the father. "You will like a bath. All is ready inyour room. I have s
een to it myself. When you are ready come back hereand take your coffee."
His attitude was almost that of a host. For Marcos rarely came toSaragossa. Although there was a striking resemblance of feature betweenthe Sarrions, the father was taller, slighter and quicker in his glance,while Marcos' face seemed to bespeak a greater strength. In any commonpurpose it would assuredly fall to Marcos' lot to execute that which hisfather had conceived. The older man's presence suggested the Court, whileMarcos was clearly intended for the Camp.
The Count de Sarrion had passed through both and had emerged halfcynical, half indifferent from the slough of an evil woman's downfall.
"You would have made a good soldier," he said to Marcos, when his son atlast came home to Torre Garda with an education completed in England andFrance. "But there is no opening for an honest man in the Spanish Army.Honesty is in the gutter in Spain to-day."
And Marcos always followed his father's advice. Later he found that Spainindeed offered no career to honest men at this time. Gradually hesupplanted his father in an unrecognised, indefinable monarchy in theValley of the Wolf; and there, in the valley, they waited; as goodSpaniards have waited these hundred years until such time as God's wrathshall be overpast.
"I have a long story to tell you," said the Count, when his son returnedand sat down at once with a keen appetite to his first breakfast ofcoffee and bread. "And I will tell it without comment, without prejudice,if I can."
Marcos nodded. The Count had lighted a cigarette and now leant againstthe window which opened on to the heavily barred balcony overlooking theCalle San Gregorio.
"Four nights ago," he said, "at about midnight, Francisco de Mogentereturned secretly to Saragossa. I think he was coming to this house; butwe shall never know that. No one knew he was coming--not even Juanita."
The Count glanced at his son only long enough to note the passage of asort of shadow across his dark eyes at the mention of the schoolgirl'sname.
"Francisco was attacked in the street down there, at the corner of theCalle San Gregorio, and was killed," he concluded.
Marcos rose and crossed the room towards the window. He was, it appeared,an eminently practical man, and desired to see the exact spot whereMogente had fallen before the story went any farther. Perro went so faras to push his plebeian head through the bars and look down into thestreet. It was his misfortune to fall into the fault of excess as it isthe misfortune of most parvenus.
"Does Juanita know?" asked Marcos.
"Yes. My sister Dolores has told her. Poor child! It is more in thenature of a disappointment than a sorrow. Her heart is young; anddisappointment is the sorrow of the young."
Marcos sat down again in silence.
"We must remember," said the Count, "that she never knew him. It willpass. I saw the incident from this window. There is no door at this sideof the house. I should, as you know, have had to go round by the Paseodel Ebro. To render help was out of the question. I went down afterwards,however, when help had come and the dying man had been carried away--by afriar, Marcos! I had seen something fall from the hand of the murderedman. I went down into the street and picked it up. It was the sword-stickwhich Juanita sent to her father for the New Year."
"Why did he not let us know that he was coming to Europe?" asked Marcos.
"Ah! That he will tell us hereafter. The mere fact of his being attackedin the streets of Saragossa and killed for the money that was in hispockets is, of course, quite simple, and common enough. But why should hebe cared for by a friar, and taken to one of those numerous religioushouses which have sprung into unseen existence all over Spain since theJesuits were expelled?"
"Has he left a will?" asked Marcos.
Sarrion turned and looked at him with a short laugh. He threw hiscigarette away, and coming into the room, sat down in front of the smalltable where Marcos was still satisfying his honest and simple appetite.
"I have told my story badly," he said, with a curt laugh, "and spoilt it.You have soon seen through it. Mogente made a will on hisdeath-bed--which was, by the way, witnessed by Leon de Mogente as asupernumerary, not a legal witness--just to show that all was square andabove board."
"Then he left his money--?"
"To Juanita. One can only conclude that he was wandering in mind when hedid it. For he was fond of her, I think. He had no reason to wish herharm. I have picked up what unconsidered trifles of information I can,but they do not amount to much. I cabled to Cuba for news as to Mogente'sfortune; for we know that he has made one. There is the reply." He handedMarcos a telegram which bore the words:
"Three million pesetas in the English Funds."
"That is the millstone that he has tied round Juanita's neck," saidSarrion, folding the paper and returning it to his pocket.
"To saddle with three million pesetas a girl who is at a convent school,in the hands of the Sisters of the True Faith, when the Carlist cause isdying for want of funds, and the Jesuits know that it is Don Carlos or aRepublic, and all the world knows that all republics have been fatal tothe Society--bah!" the Count threw out his hands in a gesture of despair."It is to throw her into a convent, bound hand and foot. We cannot leavethat poor girl without help, Marcos."
"No," said Marcos, gently.
"There is only one way--I have thought of it night and day. There is onlyone way, my friend."
Marcos looked at his father thoughtfully, and waited to hear what thatway might be.
"You must marry her," said the Count.