Part 69

An instant later two black muzzles covered us; and the tide of battle might after all have turned disastrously, had not the shrill ping of a bullet warned the enemy that there was no time to waste upon reprisals.

One of the civil guard had fired from a distance, but with precise aim, as a yell of pain announced. A man already wounded got another souvenir of the encounter; and out of the seven only four could get to their saddles. One limped in the rear, but he had lost his carbine; one sat where his comrades had flung him in their flight, and the last of the seven—stunned by my stone—lay breathing stertorously on the road.

“After them—after them!” one of the young men who had fought so brilliantly shouted now to the civil guards. “Don’t let them get away.”

For the first time I looked at him with seeing eyes. Then, I could hardly stifle an exclamation. It was the King.

He gave me back look for look, smiling that brave and charming smile which has magic in it to transform an enemy into a loyal servant.

I had my cap off now, and so had Dick, who wore the jaunty air I had seen him wear in more than one battle.

“I have to thank you both,” said the King. “And—not for the first time. Our cars, as well as ourselves, have met before. Wasn’t it—near Biarritz?”

I felt the blood stream up to the roots of my hair. “Your Majesty has a King’s memory for faces,” I stammered.

“There are faces one doesn’t forget,” said he. “But we’ll talk of that presently. Now we have work here.”

The King’s companion was already down on one knee by the side of the chauffeur, pouring aguardiente from a flask into the man’s half-open mouth. As for the fellow I had hit, I was sure that he would presently come round, but little the worse for wear; and I suggested that Dick and I find a rope in the car, which would bind him and the two other half-disabled ones. But the King would not let us work alone. He did as much as we, and more, before we were joined by the young officer who was his friend.

Discouraged and weak from loss of blood, as well as the loss of their carbines and their comrades, the wounded brigands made no further fight. But they were silent, save for a muttered oath or two, and I made up my mind that the true secret of this morning’s work would never be torn from them.

For there was, of course, a secret. The King, who had not the clue which I held, saw that, and wondered why the brigands had not wished at first to shoot us. Plainly, their plan had been to make captives.

The obvious idea was that they would have conveyed their prisoners to some brigands’ nest in the mountains, in the hope of obtaining a rich ransom. But they had evidently expected an automobile, or they would not have raised a barricade, just round a sharp corner on a particularly lonely piece of road.

Could they have been lying in wait for the King? This seemed impossible, as he had told no one that he was going out, and the expedition had indeed been made on the impulse, in the company of but one companion beside the chauffeur. He had intended to have a spin, and discover the state of the roads as far as practicable on the way to Jerez before turning back for the procession in the afternoon. And that evening he must return to Madrid. No, it was not the King for whom the seven men had prepared.

Who, then, was to have been their prey?

I believed that I could have answered this question, but I kept silent; and there was no reason why the King should guess that I had a suspicion.

“At all events,” he said, “we have you and your friend to thank that the affair was not more serious. I hope we should have been able to give a good account of ourselves; but seven against two are long odds. And there seems a fate in it that you should have come to me in the nick of time to-day as well as at Biarritz. I should like to know your names.”

I had dreaded this. Foolishly, perhaps, I felt that I could not bear to see the cordial light in his eyes fade to proud coldness, as it must when he knew me for a son of the man who had tried to place another on his throne. Besides, that I should at such a moment announce myself a Casa Triana would seem like bidding for pardon as a reward for what I had done. The confession stuck in my throat; and while I hesitated, Dick spoke.

“My friend didn’t mean you to know, sir,” said he, gabbling so fast that I could not stop him; “but this isn’t the second time he’s happened to be around when there was a little thing to be done for your Majesty,—it’s the third. Yesterday it was he who snatched that bomb away from the man under the paso, collared the other fellow, and stuck the bomb in a smashed water-jar, although he gave the credit to the chauffeur—who, by the way, is ‘shover’ to this car. My friend here is travelling, as you might say, incog. for important private reasons, which he’ll want you to know some day, sir, if he doesn’t now; and that’s why, when Ropes the chauffeur happened along, he made him a present of all the praise.”

The King flushed, looking me straight in the eyes with an expression so noble and at the same time so kind that, had we lived a century or two ago, when men were not ashamed to show their true feelings, I should have thrown myself at his feet.

“I thank you again,” he said, “for everything. I’m glad to know you are Spanish, even if I am to know no more. But am I to know no more?”

“Will your Majesty pardon me,” I asked, “if I beg to remain nameless for the present?”

“I could pardon you far graver crimes,” the King said smiling; “and I’m sure your reason, whatever it is, reflects nothing but honour on yourself. I owe you a debt. Claim it’s payment in my gratitude whenever you will; the sooner the better. And if you want a friend, you’ll know where to find one.”

He held out his hand, and when I took it, shook mine warmly in English fashion. Something else he was about to say on a second thought, when his friend—who had now restored the chauffeur to dazed consciousness—drew his attention. “Sir,” he said, “the guardia civile are coming back without prisoners.”

A minute or two later the two men had galloped up to us, one wounded in the cheek. They had chased the brigands, exchanging shots, until suddenly, having passed beyond a clump of trees and a few lumpy hummocks of sand, the band had vanished as if by magic. The civil guards had explored the spot for some cleverly concealed hiding-place, which they knew must exist within the space of two hundred metres, but they had found nothing. And as they had had no time to ascertain the condition of the men left for us to deal with, they had thought it best to return lest the wounded enemy prove not to be hors de combat after all.

Fortunately the distance from this lonely spot to Jerez was not more than thirty kilometres, and within three miles there was a farm. Here a cart could be got to take the wounded brigands into the town; and from Jerez a posse of men would be immediately sent out to scour the country for the escaped brigands.

The King, whom the guardia civile recognized with respectful surprise, was now anxious to get back to Seville, where he was due in the royal box for the Good Friday procession, and must appear by five o’clock at latest. He delayed only long enough to be sure that his chauffeur was not hurt beyond a slight concussion of the brain, to speak a few kind words to the civil guard, and to say a significantly emphasized “Au revoir” to Dick and me. Then, taking the wheel himself, whilst the half-dazed chauffeur lay in the tonneau, he backed the big, reddish-brown car off the barricade, and darted away in a cloud of dust at a good forty miles an hour.

It was left for us to do what we could to advance the civil guard with their task; and though we had already lost too much time for my peace of mind, it was our plain duty to help those who had helped us. When we had levelled the rough barricade we reluctantly bundled the wounded men into our tonneau, and going at a pace which enabled the civil guards to gallop close behind us, we steered for the farm of which they had spoken. There, in a buzz of excitement, the brigands were piled into a cart; and leaving them to follow, presided over by one mounted guard leading his comrade’s horse, we took the other on to Jerez in our car, so that the search party might be organized the sooner.