The Firebrand Read online

  THE FIREBRAND

  by

  S. R. CROCKETT

  LondonMacmillan and Co., LimitedNew York: The Macmillan Company1901

  All rights reserved

  Printed byWilliam Clowes and Sons, Limited,London and Beccles.

  Copyright in the United States of America by S. R. Crockett, 1901.

  CONTENTS

  I. THE MAKING OF AN OUTLAW

  II. THE MAN WITHOUT A FRIEND

  III. COCK O' THE NORTH

  IV. A LITTLE COMB-CUTTING

  V. THE ABBEY OF MONTBLANCH

  VI. BROTHER HILARIO

  VII. THE ABBOT'S DINNER

  VIII. SANCTUARY

  IX. THE SHADOW OF THE DESTROYER

  X. A MAN AND HIS PRICE

  XI. CARTEL OF DEFIANCE

  XII. THE CRYING OF A YOUNG CHILD

  XIII. DON TOMAS DIGS A GRAVE

  XIV. THE HOLY INNOCENTS

  XV. ROLLO INTERVENES

  XVI. DON LUIS IS WILLING

  XVII. A GRAVE IRREGULARITY

  XVIII. A FLUTTER OF RED AND WHITE

  XIX. SIGNALS OF STORM

  XX. THE BUTCHER OF TORTOSA

  XXI. TO BE SHOT AT SUNRISE!

  XXII. HIS MOTHER'S ROSARY

  XXIII. THE BURNING OF THE MILL-HOUSE

  XXIV. HOW TO BECOME A SOLDIER

  XXV. THE MISSION OF THE SENORITA CONCHA

  XXVI. DEEP ROMANY

  XXVII. THE SERGEANT AND LA GIRALDA

  XXVIII. THE DEAD AND THE LIVING

  XXIX. A LITTLE QUEEN AT HOME

  XXX. PALACE BURGLARS

  XXXI. THE QUEEN'S ANTE-CHAMBER

  XXXII. LIKE A FALLING STAR

  XXXIII. CONCHA WAITS FOR THE MORNING

  XXXIV. OUR ROLLO TO THE RESCUE

  XXXV. THE EXECUTIONER OF SALAMANCA

  XXXVI. THE DEATH-CART

  XXXVII. THE DEAD STAND SENTINEL

  XXXVIII. CONCHA SAYS AMEN

  XXXIX. A HANDFUL OF ROSES

  XL. ALL DANDIES ARE NOT COWARDS

  XLI. ROLLO USES A LITTLE PERSUASION

  XLII. A SNARE NOT SPREAD IN VAIN

  XLIII. THE RED BOINAS OF NAVARRE

  XLIV. "FOR ROLLO'S SAKE"

  XLV. FORLORNEST HOPES

  XLVI. THE SERGEANT'S LAST SALUTE

  XLVII. MENDIZABAL

  XLVIII. A POINT OF HONOUR

  XLIX. LIKE FIRE THROUGH SUMMER GRASS

  L. AVE CONCHA IMPERATRIX

  THE FIREBRAND

  CHAPTER I

  THE MAKING OF AN OUTLAW

  Ramon Garcia, called El Sarria, lay crouched like a wild beast. And hewas a wild beast. Yet he smiled as he blinked into the midnoon heat,under his shaggy brows, from his den beneath the great rock of limestonethat shadowed him.

  El Sarria was hunted, and there was on his hands the blood of a man--tobe more particular, on his left hand. For El Sarria had smitten hard andeager, so soon as he had seen Rafael de Flores--Rafael, the pretty boy,the cousin of his young wife, between whom and her relative there was atleast cousinly affection. So the neighbours said, all but Manuela, thepriest's housekeeper.

  So Ramon smote and wiped his Manchegan knife on his vest, in the placeunder the flap at the left side where he had often wiped it before. Heused the same gesture as when he killed a sheep.

  In his cave of limestone Ramon was going over the scene in his own mind.That is why he licked his lips slowly and smiled. A tiger does that whenafter a full meal he moves the loose skin over his neck twitchy-waysand yawns with over-fed content. And Ramon, even though hunted, did thesame.

  When he married little Dolores, Ramon Garcia had not dreamed that somany things would happen. He was a rich man as men go; had his house,his garden, his vines, a quintaine of olive-trees, was accounted quite amatch by old Manuela, the village go-between, the priest's housekeeper,in whose hands were the hearts of many maids.

  These things he, Don Ramon Garcia, had possessed (he was called Donthen) and now--he had his knife and the long, well-balanced gun whichwas placed across the rests in the dryest part of the cavern.

  * * * * *

  He remembered the day well. He had been from home, down by Porta in theCerdagne, to buy cattle, and returning home more swiftly than he hadexpected, his cattle following after in the herdsman's care, the thoughtof pretty Dolores making his horse's feet go quicker, a song upon hislips, he had approached the village of Sarria de la Plana, and the homethat was his own--and hers.

  A swift-falling Spanish twilight it was, he remembered, the sky, broadlybanded of orange and rose, was seen behind the highly piled houses. Fromthe whiteness of the long frontage, dots and flecks flashed out. Blackoblongs of glassless window-space splashed the white. Here and there ahint of vivid colour flung itself out almost defiantly--a woman's redpetticoat drying on a cord, the green slats of a well-to-dowindow-blind. There came to the ears of Ramon Garcia the click ofcastanets from the semi-dark of wide-arched doors, and the softtink-a-tank of lightly thrummed guitars. He saw a lover or two "eatingiron," his hands clasping the bars behind which was the listening ear ofhis mistress.

  And throughout this village were peace and well-accustomed pleasance.Ramon smiled. It was his home.

  But not as he smiled up among the rocks of the Montblanch on theborderlands betwixt Aragon and Catalunia.

  He smiled well-pleased and minded him upon the nights not so long goneby, when he too had "eaten iron," and clung a-tip-toe to the window-barsof little Dolores, who lent him such a shy attention, scuttling off likea mouse at the least stirring within the house where all her kinsfolkslept.

  There was none like her, his little Dolores! God had given her to arough old fellow like him, one who had endured the trampling of thethreshing floor as the car oxen drave round.

  Little Dolores, how all the men had been wild to have her, but she hadloved none but Ramon Garcia alone! So said Manuela Durio, thego-between, the priest's housekeeper, and if any did, she knew. Indeed,there was little told at confession that she did not know. Ramon smiledagain, a wicked, knowing smile. For if Manuela owned the legitimatefifty years which qualified her for a place in the Presbytery of Sarriade la Plana, eyes and lips belied her official age. Anyway, she kept thepriest's conscience--and--what was more important, she swore that littleDolores loved Ramon Garcia and Ramon Garcia alone.

  "Caballero! Don Ramon!"

  He started. He had been thinking of the woman at that very moment, andthere was her voice calling him. He turned about. The broad rose-glowhad deepened to the smoky ruby of a Spanish gloaming, as it lingeredalong the western hill-tops. These last shone, in spite of the glowingdarkness, with a limpid and translucent turquoise like that of thedistant landscape in a Siennese picture.

  "Don Ramon! wait--I would speak with you!"

  It was indeed the priest's Manuela who called him, and though his hearthasted forward to Dolores, and overleaped boundaries as a dog leaps awall, still he could not refuse Manuela. Had she not brought themtogether at the first?

  "Ah, Manuela, you are kind--there is good news up at the house, is therenot? No ill has befallen the little one?"

  "What has brought you home so soon?" cried the woman, a touch ofimpatient eagerness in her tones. "You will frighten Dolores if youblunder it upon her all unshaven and travel-stained like that. Have youno more sense, when you know----?"

  "Know what? I know nothing!" Ramon slurred his speech in his eagerness."What is there to know?"

  Manuela laughed--a little strained sound, as if she had been recoveringa shaken equanimity, and was not yet sure of h
er ground.

  "You, so long married--five, six months, is it not so--and yet not toknow! But a fool is always a fool, Don Ramon, even if he owns a vineyardand a charming young wife ten times too good for him!"

  "Truth of God!" gasped Ramon, with his favourite oath, "but I did notknow. I am the father of all donkeys. But what am I to do, tell me,Manuela? I will obey you!"

  The woman's countenance suddenly cleared.

  "No, Don Ramon, we will not call the promised one--the blessed one, adonkey. A father! Yes, Don Ramon, but no father of _borricos_. No, no!There will not be so brave a babe from Navarra to Catalunia as yours andLola's. But we must go quietly, very quietly. He walks far who beginsslowly. He who treads upon eggs does not dance the _bolero_. You willbide here and talk to the holy Father, and I myself will go to the houseof Ramon of the Soft Heart and the Lumbering Hoofs, and warn the littleone warily. For I know her--yes, Manuela knows her. I am a widow andhave borne children--ay, borne them also to the grave, and who, if notI, should know the hearts of young wives that are not yet mothers!"

  She patted his arm softly as she spoke, and the great rough-husked heartof Ramon of Sarria, the Aragonese peasant, glowed softly within him. Helooked down into Manuela's black eyes that hid emotion as a stone ishidden at the bottom of a mountain tarn. Manuela smiled with thinflexible lips, her easy subtle smile. She saw her way now, and to do herjustice she always did her best to earn her wages.

  Lovers would be lovers, so she argued, God had made it so. Who was she,Manuela, the housekeeper of Padre Mateo of Sarria, to interfere for theprevention of the designs of Providence? And cousins too--the youngcavalier so gallant, so handsome--and--so generous with his money. Hadhe not even kissed Manuela herself one night when he came coaxing her tocontrive something? _Who_ could resist him after that? And what was ahand thrust through the _rejas_? What a kiss if the bars of the grillehappened to be broken. A glass that is drunk from, being washed, isclean as before. And when Ramon Garcia, that great Aragonese oaf, kissedlittle Dolores, what knew he of pretty Don Rafael de Flores, the_alcalde's_ son? They had been lovers since childhood, and there was noharm. 'Twas pity surely, to part them before the time. Rafael was tomarry the rich Donna Felesia, the daughter of the vine-grower ofMontblanch, who farmed the revenues of the great abbey. He could notmarry pretty little Dolores! It was a pity--yes, but--she had a feelingheart, this Manuela, the priest's housekeeper, and the trade had been apaying one since the beginning of the world.

  "Padre--Padre Mateo!" she cried, raising her voice to the pitchcalculated by long experience to reach the father in his study. "Comedown quickly. Here is Don Ramon to speak with your reverence!"

  "Don Ramon--what Don Ramon?" growled a voice from the stair-head, a richbaritone organ, unguented with daily dole of oil and wine, not to speakof well-buttered trout in a lordly dish, and with rappee coloured redwith the umber of Carthagena to give timbre and richness thereto. It wasthe voice of Don Mateo Balin, most pious and sacerdotal vicar of Christin the township of Sarria.

  "Don Ramon Garcia, most reverend father!" said Manuela, somewhatimpatiently. "If you will tap your snuff-box a little less often, youwill be all the sooner able to hear what he has to say to you!"

  "_Don_ Ramon, indeed!--here's advancement," grumbled the priest,good-humouredly descending the staircase one step at a time. To do thishe held his body a little sideways and let himself down as if uncertainof the strength of the Presbytery stairs, which were of stone ofMartorel, solid as the altar steps of St. Peter's.

  "Good, good!" he thought to himself, "Manuela wants something of thischuckle-head that she goes Don-ing him, and, I wager, battening him withcompliments as greasy as an old wife's cookery the first day after Lent.'Tis only eggs in the pan that are buttered, and I wonder why she hasbeen buttering this oaf." Then he spoke aloud. "Ah, Ramon, back already!We thought you had been buying beeves in the Cerdagne. I suppose thelittle Dolores dragged you back. Ho, ho, you young married men! Yourhearts make fools of your feet. 'Tis only celibacy, that most sacred andwise institution of Holy Mother Church, that can preserve man hisliberty--certainly, Manuela, I will put away my snuff-box, I was notaware that it was in my hand! And I will _not_ drop any more on my newsoutane, which indeed, as you say, I had no business to be wearing on anordinary day."

  While Don Mateo thus spoke, and, talking all the time, moved lightly forso gross a man to and fro on his verandah, Manuela with a quick hitch ofher muffling mantilla about the lower part of her face, took her wayswiftly up the village street.

  "This way, Ramon--this way! A plague take those spider-legged chairs.They are all set crosswise in the way of an honest man's feet. Manuelakeeps all so precise, nothing is ever left where it would be mostconvenient. Not that she is not the best of souls, our good Manuela anda pearl of price--a very Martha in the house, a woman altogether aboverubies! Is she quite gone? Sit you down then, Ramon, here is thewine-skin, under the seat to the left, and tell me of your journey,speaking at ease as man to man. This is no confessional, which remindsme, sirrah, that you have not come to your duty since Easter. Ah, againthe married man! 'He minds the things of his wife,' saith the holyapostle, in my opinion very justly."

  Ramon had seated himself on a chair at one corner of the priest'sverandah--a deep screen of leaves was over them. The mosquitoes andgnats danced and lit, hummed and bit, but neither the priest nor yetRamon minded them in the least. They were men of Sarria, bred of thereed-fenced villages of the Aragonese border, blooded by thegrey-backed, white-bellied mosquitoes which took such sore toll alike ofthe stranger within the wall, and through the skin of the Proselyte ofthe Gate.

  But as the priest boomed forth his good-humoured gossip in a voicemonotonous and soothing as the _coo-rooing_ of a rock pigeon, suddenlythere rose out of the tangle of roses and vine leaves behind him, anevil thing against which Don Ramon's birthright gave him no immunity. Itstung and fled.

  "Go home, fool!" hissed a voice in his ear, as he sat silent andspellbound in the dusk, "go home, shamed one. Your wife is with herlover, and Manuela has gone to warn them!"

  The good priest hummed on, plaiting and replaiting his fingers andpursing his lips.

  "As I was saying, 'tis no use marrying a woman without money. That isthe _olla_ without bacon. But for pleasure to himself, neither should aman marry without love. 'Tis a lying proverb which sayeth that allwomen are alike in the dark. A fair maid is surely worth a farthingcandle to kiss her by. Not that I know aught about the matter, being aclerk and a man of years and bodily substance. But a wise man learnsmany things in spite of himself. What is the use of being a priest andnot knowing? But believe me, if money be the bacon and beef, love is theseasoning of the dish, the _pimientos_ and Ronda pippins of a wise man's_olla_!"

  Through this sacerdotal meditation the hissing whisper lifted itselfagain. Ramon had not moved. His great hand lay along the stonebalustrade. A mosquito was gorging himself at a vein upon the hairywrist.

  "There is a broken bar on the lower window, Ramon the fool! They arekissing each other thereat and calling sweet names--these two, thecousin whom she loves--Rafael, the pretty boy, and little Dolores whomyou have made your wife----"

  "God's blood, for this I will have your life!" cried Ramon so suddenlythat the worthy priest tumbled backward before he had even time to crosshimself. And Ramon was over the parapet with his long knife bare in hishand. It had gone ill with the traitor if Ramon Garcia had caught himthen.

  But even as he had arisen, exhaled from the undergrowth like an evilbreath, so he vanished into the night, blown away by Ramon's rush overthe edge of the balcony like a fly escaping before a man's hand.

  "I will follow the liar to the world's end!" said Ramon between histeeth, furiously, and he threshed through the tangle as an elephantcharges through young jungle.

  But even as he went the words of the viper fermented in his brain tillhe went mad.

  "There _is_ a broken bar--what more likely! The house is old--myfather's father's. There was a tale of my grandfathe
r's sister--avengedtruly, but still a tale told in whispers in the twilight. God's truth,could it be even thus with Dolores, little Dolores, whom I have heldnext in honour and purity to Mary the mother of God?"

  So he meditated, dashing this way and that to find his enemy.

  "Ah, fool! Three times fool to trust a woman! How true the proverb, 'Whosees his wife crane her neck through the jalousies, had better twist itand be done!'"

  He would go! Yes, he would know. If this thing were false (as he prayedGod), he would kneel and kiss her little white feet. They werepink--yes, pink on the instep as the heart of a sea-shell. And he,Ramon, would set the arched instep on his neck and bid her crush him fora faithless unbelieving hound to suspect his own--his purest--his only!

  But, that cousin, Rafael de Flores--ah, the rich youth. He rememberedhow once upon a time when he was a young man going to market driving hisfather's oxen, he had seen Rafael rushing about the orchard playing withDolores. They had been together thus for years, more like brother andsister than cousins.

  Was it not likely? How could it be otherwise? He knew it all now. Hiseyes were opened. Even the devil can speak truth sometimes. He knew away, a quicker road than Manuela dreamed of--up the edge of the ravine,across by the pine tree which had fallen in the spring rains. He wouldgo and take them together in their infamy. That would be hishome-coming.

  * * * * *

  "_You dog of dogs!_"

  In the darkness of the night Ramon saw a window from whose grille, bentoutward at the bottom like so many hoops, one had been slipped cunninglyaside.

  "Chica, dearest--my beloved!"

  The face of the speaker was within, his body without.

  Up rose behind him the great bulk of Ramon Garcia, henceforward to be ElSarria, the outlaw.

  The Albacete dagger was driven deep between the shoulder-blades. Theyoung lithe body drew itself together convulsively as a clasp knifeopens and shuts again. There was a spurt of something hot on Ramon'shand that ran slowly down his sleeve, growing colder as it went. Ashriek came from within the _rejas_ of bowed iron.

  * * * * *

  And after this fashion Ramon Garcia, the vine-dresser, the man of means,became El Sarria, the man without a home, without friends, an outlaw ofthe hills.