Part 65

“He has only kissed my hand,” she went on, “and I hated even that.”

“Yet you’re wearing his brooch,” a returning flash of jealousy made me say; “and a mantilla, to please him.”

“The brooch is his mother’s. So is the mantilla. She at least has been kind; so I let her put them both on for me to-day, when she asked.”

“Kind? When there’s time I’ll tell you one or two things. But now there’s no time for anything except to take you away.”

“Listen! The Miserere has begun,” she said. “Has it been long? I heard it only now. Can we get out before it’s over?”

“Of course we can—though not quite as easily, perhaps, as if the crowd were moving with us. However, we can’t afford to wait.”

“What wonderful music!” Monica whispered. “I wish I dared to feel it were blessing us.”

“Yes, feel it so,” I said, and involuntarily was silent to listen for an instant to the melodious flood which swept from aisle to aisle in golden billows. Out from the wave of organ music and men’s voices, boyish soprano notes sprayed high, flinging their bright crystals up, up, until they fell, shattered, from the vaulted ceiling of stone.

From each dimly seen column shot forth one of those slender-stemmed, flaming white lilies of light, such as had bloomed in Our Lady’s garden, as the pasos moved blossoming through the streets. It seemed as if they might have been gathered and replanted here, to lighten the darkness; and as the music soared and sank, its waves set the lily-flames flickering.

I peered out, and saw my man hovering near. In the gloom he did not catch the signal I gave him with my hand, but when I shook a handkerchief between the gratings he came quickly. As he unlocked the doors I slid the promised bribe into his palm; and having glanced about to make sure as far as possible that we were not watched, I called Monica.

“Take us out by the nearest way,” I said; and the man began to hurry us officiously through the crowd.

Monica clung to me tightly, and I could feel the tremblings that ran through her body. My heart was pounding too; for it is when the ship is nearest home, after a stormy voyage, that the captain remembers he has nerves. It seemed too marvellous to be true, that the girl was mine at last, and yet—what could separate us, now that I held her close against my side, and she was ready to go with me, out of her world into mine?

“This way, this way, señorito,” our guide warned me, plucking at my arm as I steered ahead, confused by a thousand moving shadows. I followed, brushing sharply against a tall man in conical capucha and trailing robe of blue. He turned, his masked face close to mine, so close that even in the dusk I caught a flash of glittering eyes. Then, giving me a sudden push, he cried out, “Help—murder! An anarchist—a free-thinker! To the rescue!”

It was Carmona’s voice, and I knew instantly that he must have borrowed this dress from some friend in the cathedral—perhaps a member of the cofradìa to which he himself belonged—so that he could search for me and Monica, without being seen by us.

Thrusting the girl behind me, yet keeping her close, I hurled him away, but he sprang at me again, and this time something glittered in his right hand. I fought with him for it, and pulled a slim length of steel up through his closed fingers, so that the sharp dagger-blade must have cut him to the bone. He gave a cry, and relaxed his grasp; but though he was disabled for the instant a dozen men in the crowd, which swirled round us now, caught and held me fast. Monica was wrenched from me; the dagger had fallen to the ground (but not before I had seen it was of Toledo make); the figure in the blue capucha was swept out of my sight, and I was fighting like a madman in a strait-jacket for freedom.

XXXII

ON THE ROAD TO CADIZ

It was a mouse who gnawed a hole in the net that entangled the lion.

Now, I am no lion in importance, nor was Colonel O’Donnel’s messenger of as little significance as a mouse; yet he was the last creature to whom I would have looked for succour in a moment of stress. Nevertheless to him I owed my rescue.

“A mistake, a mistake,” he chirped, jumping about, bird-like, just outside the circle of struggling men. “I am a verger here; this gentleman was with me. He did nothing. He is a most respectable and twice wealthy person, a tourist whom I guide. He is innocent—no anarchist, no free-thinker. That other—that pretended brother—has made a practical joke. See, he has run away to escape consequences. There is nothing against this noble señor; you have it on the word of a verger.”

Because it was bewilderingly dark, and they might have got the wrong man; because, too, the verger was probably right, and it had been a joke played upon them by a person who had now disappeared, the twelve or fifteen men who surrounded me fell back shamefacedly, glad on second thoughts to melt away before they could be identified and reproached for disturbing the public peace, and spoiling the music to which their King listened.

I was free, but I would not leave the cathedral yet, for my hope was to find Monica again. I wandered in every direction, while the verger went off to bring Dick and the O’Donnels to meet me in the Orange Court.

Pilar’s delight in the first part of my story was dashed by the sequel. Of course, she said, it must come right in the end, since Monica and I understood each other at last. But just for the moment everything seemed difficult. The Duke was sure now that I was Casa Triana, and not Cristóbal O’Donnel. He would almost certainly make all the trouble he could, and a man of his influence could make a good deal. As his attempt to stick a dagger into me—by way of a quick solution—had been covered by the capucha of a cofradìa, I could not take revenge by laying a counter accusation. I might say I had recognized his voice, and that I thought I had recognized the dagger bought in Toledo; but I could prove nothing, and the Duke would score.

Still, as the Cherub remarked consolingly, he could not do much worse than force me out of Spain. Neither I, nor anyone else, had ever said in so many words that I was Cristóbal O’Donnel. If people had taken my identity for granted because of a few round-about hints, and because for a joke I had borrowed a friend’s uniform for a day or two, nothing very serious could be made out of that after all; and as Cristóbal really was on leave, he need not be involved. He was a good officer, whose services were valued, and I was not to worry lest harm should come upon him. I need think only of Monica and of myself. Had I formed any idea of what to do next?

“I must get Monica out of Carmona’s house,” I said.

“You’ll have to lie in wait and snatch her from under their noses next time they show them,” suggested Dick; “unless—”

“Unless?”

“Carmona keeps his indoors until he’s arranged to have yours politely deported.”