Part 28

Pilar had looked disturbed, but she gave a little sigh at this, saying, “Come on, and see the museum.”

Nowhere in Spain can there be a more beautiful thing than that façade, well named Plateresque because of its resemblance to the workmanship of silversmiths; and inside the museum we found a collection of carved wooden figures marvellous enough, as Dick said, to “beat the world.” There were crucifixions, painted saints, and weeping virgins by Hernandez and Berruguete, faultlessly modelled, so vivid and beautiful as to be well-nigh startling; and I hoped that Monica might come while we lingered. But she did not, nor did we see her in the Colegio de San Gregorio. There, in the lovely inner court, however, I found a little grey glove on the marble pavement, and so like a certain other glove did it look that I annexed it, to compare with that other which lived in my breast-pocket with its friend the rose.

The pair matched in size, colour, and dainty shape. Even the fragrance of orris hung about it, and I knew this second glove had not been dropped by accident. Monica had been here, and she had left a message for me to read if I followed.

HOW THE DUKE CHANGED

“Lecomte getting ready, sir,” were Ropes’ first words to me next morning; “and I’ve brought our car to the door.”

He had other news, too. An automobile had come in last night from Madrid, a sixty horse-power Merlin, and the chauffeur had reported snow half a metre deep on the mountains. The Merlin had stuck, he said, and had to be pulled out with oxen. Supposing the Duke intended going to Madrid instead of turning off by way of Salamanca, he—and incidentally we—seemed likely to come in for an adventure.

We had all taken coffee and rolls in our rooms, as nobody dreams of going downstairs for breakfast in a Spanish hotel; and soon after eight we were jolting out of “Val” through streets as execrably paved as those by which we entered. We had kept Ropes waiting after his announcement only long enough to strap our luggage on the roof; and as the other car had luggage and passengers also to pick up, we were just in time to see it leaving the house of the Duke’s relations with everyone on board.

As the Lecomte took the road to the south on leaving town, it gave us an assurance that it would not make for Salamanca; but there was still doubt as to its movements. It could go to Madrid direct over the snow heights of the Sierra Guadarrama, or it could pay a visit to the Escurial. It might even halt there for the night; and as there were so many alternatives, we were anxious to keep our leader continually in view.

The wind was bitter cold, and Pilar shivered in her cloak, which was not made for motoring. When Dick saw this, before I could speak he had his own fur-lined coat off, insisting that she should put it on. “I can take Casa Triana’s,” said he, “since he’s still posing as a soldier of Spain.” And a glance warned me not to blunder by asking why, in the name of common sense, she shouldn’t have mine which I wasn’t using, instead of his, which was on his back. He wanted her to wear his coat, and hang common sense!

After an instant’s stupid bewilderment I saw this, and could hardly help chuckling. How many days had he known her? Two and a bit. At Biarritz he had given me sound advice on my affairs; couldn’t understand this fall-in-love-at-sight business; thought a girl wasn’t worth a red cent till she was twenty-two couldn’t see himself being sentimental in any circumstances; was going to wait to make his choice till he went back to America; believed a man owed it to his own country to put his country-women first; and anyhow couldn’t stand a girl who wasn’t able to converse rationally. Yet Pilar, if she were to talk with him in his own tongue, must perforce limit her scintillations to “Varry nice, lo-vely, all raight”; while, if he wrestled with hers, he could scarcely go beyond phrase-book limits.

The language of the eyes remained; but that has no place in the realm of common sense. My overcoat was singularly unbecoming to Dick; but he beamed with happiness in it, as he regarded Pilar cosily folded in his; and looking on the picture, certain things occurred to me which I might say to Dick when I got him alone. But after all, I thought I would keep them to laugh over myself.

On this morning of biting wind and brilliant sun, there was still more dazzle of snow to illumine the mountain tops; and though the road was dull, the beauty of the atmospheric effects was worth coming to Spain to see. The road we travelled and the near meadows seemed, as we went speeding on, the only solid ground in sight; as if we had landed on an island floating at the rate of thirty miles an hour, through a vast sea of translucent tints that changed with the light, as an opal changes.

Forests of strangely bunchy “umbrella” pines were blots of dark green ink splashed against the sky; and scarcely five minutes passed but we saw the finger of an old watch-tower pointing cloudward from a hill. Sometimes our road, dividing endless cornfields, stretched before us long and straight for miles ahead, over switchback after switchback, as if the hills chased each other but never succeeded in catching up. Then, when we had grown used to such an outlook, the road would twist so suddenly that it seemed to spring up in our faces. It would turn upon itself and writhe like a wounded cobra, before it was able to crawl on again.

Ours was a silent, uninhabited world, without a house visible anywhere, save here and there some stony ruin—a landmark of the Peninsular War. One could but think that gnomes stole out at night from holes under the hills, to till the land for absentee owners; for the illimitable fields were cultivated down to the last inch. We shared a queer impression that we had strayed into a country which no human eye had seen for centuries; but when we crossed the broad Douro running to the Bay of Biscay and Oporto, and steered the car jerkily through the ragged village of Mojales, at an abrupt turn of the road we were in a different world—a desert of stones.

Prehistoric giants had played with dolmens and cyclopean boulders, and left their toys scattered in confusion. Stonehenge might have been copied from one of their strange structures; and they had given later races a rough idea of forts and cities. Giant children had fashioned stone elephants, heads of warriors, dogs sitting on their haunches, granite drinking cups, and misshapen baskets, all of astonishing size. Or was it water, slow as the mills of the gods, and as sure, which had wrought all these fantastic designs, and piled these tremendous blocks one upon another?

A high stone bridge spanned a rocky ravine carved by that slow power in a few leisure millions of years; and there, sheltered from the wind, would have been an ideal place for motorists to picnic. But the Duke did not picnic, therefore we must not. Following hard upon his heels we went on, up and up into the mountain world, still in the playground of vanished giants, winding along a road as wild as the way to Montenegro. Rising at regular intervals before us, on either side stood tall stone columns, sentinel-like, placed in pairs to guide wayfarers through white drifts in time of winter storms. The country was wooded, and began to have the air of a private park, though the heights were close above us now, and our road ascended steadily. From the scenery of Montenegro we came plump into the Black Forest; and Baden-Baden might have lain in the valley below these pointed mountains clothed in mourning pines.

Squish! The brown slush of melted snow gushed out in fountains as our fat tyres ploughed through, and on either hand it lay unbroken in virgin purity beneath the pines. Half a mile higher, and even the traffic of heavy ox-carts and the sun’s fierce fire had had no power to break the marble pavement. It was shattered and chipped, and carved into deep ruts by wooden wheels; but there were no muddy veins of brown. Ten minutes more, and our engine began to labour. Then, before there was time to count the moments, we were in snow to our axles.

The motor’s heart beat hard, but with a sturdy, dependable noise which comforted Pilar, who was half laughing, half frightened, at this her first adventure. At any instant now we might come upon the Lecomte held in the snow-trap which threatened to catch us.

Ropes kept the car in the wide ruts made by ox-carts, but even with his good driving we swayed to right and left, leaving the rough track and ploughing into drifts dangerously near the precipice edge, or skidding as if we skated on polished ice, failing to grip the frozen surface.

Now was the time to relieve the willing engine. Dick and I sprang out, and Colonel O’Donnel followed, though we would have persuaded him to keep his place. Only Pilar was left in the car, with Ropes driving, while we three men, knee deep in snow, set our shoulders to help the Gloria as she made the supreme effort. Pushing, and slipping at every step, our blood (which had run sluggishly with cold) racing through our veins, we were putting on a great spurt of united force, when gallantly rounding a bend we all but rammed the back of Carmona’s car.

There it was, stuck in a drift like a frozen wave; and there was Carmona himself up to his knees in diamond dust, gloomily superintending his chauffeur who packed snow into the radiator to cool the overheated motor.

All the extra power of the Lecomte gave no advantage over the Gloria here. Fate had set the stage for us, and we must obey the cue. No ingenuity of Pilar’s could hide us in the wings any longer, and we must play our parts as Destiny prompted.

Only one thing was clear. Carmona could have had no idea until now that the O’Donnels (with that young soldier so like the Forbidden Man) were travelling in the red car whence he had already plucked a suspected passenger. The coincidence would seem strange to him; and if he were sure enough of his ground to risk another error, he would probably denounce me to the police in the next big town. Disguising my outcast self as an officer in a Spanish regiment would not be a point in my favour; but—he could do nothing now. Monica was here, and the moment was mine.

There was a savage joy in the situation, born of exaltation, of the high altitude, and of uncertainty as to what might come next.

“Shall you keep out of the way?” asked Dick; for we were still screened from Carmona’s sight by our own car, which Ropes had stopped with a grinding of the brake; and Pilar’s face was veiled.

“Not I. I’m going to have some fun,” I answered. “It must come sooner or later, better sooner, or what’s the good of playing Cristobal O’Donnel?”

With that, I appeared from behind the car, and the others were following, while Pilar leaned out in anxious expectancy.

“How do you do?” said I, in Andaluz as lazy as the other Cristóbal could have used. I took off my cap to the ladies, and so did Dick and the Cherub, exposing heated foreheads, damp from honest toil. “Sorry to find you in such a difficulty. But we’ll soon get you out of that, won’t we, Señor Waring? Here are three of us with stout shoulders and willing hearts.”