The Car of Destiny
women who influenced kings, and made wars, and upset countries. Without
them and their love-stories, history would be like faded tapestry without
gold threads.”
So Dick ceased to argue, and in silence we left the gem-like perfection of
the third Mihrab, to wander once more through the wilderness of gleaming
columns that were now like over-arching trees, now like falling fountains.
No dusky vista out of those many changing ones framed the figure I longed
to see; and when we had left the cathedral and climbed to the gardens and
towers where stood once the Alcázar of Gothic and Moorish glories, it was
the same story of disappointment. Only the Americans we had seen in the
_paseo_ were there, more interested than I in such fragments as they could
catch of Pilar’s tales. Dungeons where Theodofredo had been blinded, and
Witica the wicked had paid for his crimes; vanished halls where Rodrigo
reigned and loved before the dark day beside the Guadalete lost the crown
for him and Christendom; what did they hold of interest since the garden
of lilacs and roses which covered their ruins was empty of one Presence?
When we had seen everything, I left my friends in the hall of the hotel
choosing curios from glass cases, and went out again in search of news
concerning the automobile which had passed in the morning.
Presumably it had attracted a crowd, yet no one seemed to know anything of
it until at last, just as I was giving up hope, I met an old man who had
seen a large grey motor-car at the railway station. A few minutes later, I
had solved the mystery of the Lecomte’s disappearance. It had arrived
early; its passengers had been conducted round Cordoba in the smallest
possible time by Carmona; it had then been driven to the station; and with
its late occupants had gone to Seville by the same train.
There might have been several motives for this move. The car might have
been partially disabled, not having been properly prepared at Manzanares;
or Carmona might have determined to thwart the destiny which so far had
kept me near him. I was inclined to accept the latter theory, and it did
not tend to promote my peace of mind.
I was glad to hear, however, that the train was not due at Seville until
late that evening. If we made an early start next day, it was not likely
that the situation could be much changed before I arrived, free of
obligations to the Duchess.
Of course, said Pilar, before I had time to ask, they would be ready to
start early, oh, very early. It would be beautiful to be in the country
before the sun had drunk up the dew on the grass, and withered the roses
of dawn in the clouds. There was no fear of cold now that we were in dear
Andalucía. Yes! we would have coffee at six, and leave at half-past.
I should not have dared suggest such a trial of moral courage, but I
accepted the sacrifice; so the roses of morning which Pilar loved still
bloomed in the garden of the sky, and trailed their reflection in the
Guadalquivir, as we rolled over the old bridge and past the white, Moorish
hills.
A morning in Paradise could scarcely be more beautiful; and the
pinky-purple blossoms of the _alamo_ shimmering in a rosy mist against
dark cypress trees, or mingling with the white lace of hawthorn was a
colour-symphony of Spring.
Dignified country houses no longer raised brown-tiled roofs from among
groves of olives; but an illimitable sea of waving downs lay bathed in the
amber light of Spain. Then, olive woods again, with a foam, of
field-flowers spraying their gnarled feet, hedges of sweetbrier, tangled
with tall, wild lilacs, and blossoming thorn. Beyond, high hills up which
the Gloria stormed boldly, frightening the horses of a troop of laughing
soldiers who rode without saddles; over stony roads, mere rough tracks
drawn through meadows, where bulls grazed, and bellowed at the automobile;
thus to a village which first showed itself like a white crown on a
hilltop, and proved to be inhabited by women and children of surpassing
beauty. Never were such eyes as those which looked from the faces in the
quick-gathering crowd; eyes like black wells with fallen stars in their
depths.
Peasant houses by the wayside had thatched roofs, grey and glistening as
silver plush; and outside ovens like huge cups turned upside down. The
fields were gay with flowers; the distance floated in waves of azure gauze
which touched the sky.
On we swept, as though to find the joining place, but found only Ecija,
the Town of the Seven Brigands, with its grand bridge and pearl-white
Moorish mills, in the yellow, swift-running Genil.
Kings had been lodged behind those brass-nailed doors and wrought-iron
balconies, the Cherub said; and malefactors famed in history and ballad
had swung from that tall gallows which caught the eye before Ecija’s eight
church towers. There had been famous fighting, too, by the river bank; but
now the place slept, dreaming of peace, and the whirr of the mill-wheels
sounded as comforting as the “chum-chum” of a motor that runs by night.
So we flashed out of the Province of Cordoba into the Province of Seville,
and tall, slender palms, rearing feathered heads among walnut trees and
oaks, were signposts pointing south. It was early in April, but the air
was the air of an English June, and I wondered to see men muffled in long
_capas_. “They do it to keep out the sun, as in the north to keep out the
wind,” explained Pilar; but she only laughed when Dick asked why they
shaved their donkeys’ backs, why they put red and yellow muzzles on their
donkeys’ mouths, why they always carried plaid “railway rugs” on their
beasts’ backs or their own, and why their trousers and leggings were made
in one piece?
Beyond the olives, black clumps of umbrella pines flung ink-blots against
the sky, and a purple carpet of budding heather was torn apart to let the
road pass through. It was ideal motor-country, and Dick recalled with
sneers the sixty horse-power man in Biarritz, who had feared the
experiment.
“The way is to _do_ what you want to do, and find out as you go along
whether it can be done or not,” he soliloquized.
I wondered if he were thinking of another difficult road, not to be
travelled by motors—a road where perhaps Don Cipriano already knew the
way.
Larks sprang skyward from beds of wild flowers as we fled by, little
fountains of music; tall cranes flew out of screening bushes beside bright
streams; and blurring the distance before us, a mist of rain floated like
a veil blown across the face of Spring.
In sight of Carmona’s splendid walls and ruined castle, the rain caught
us; and for Pilar’s sake we made the car cosey by fastening down the front
glass and filling in the space with drawn canvas curtains.
After this, our fleeting glimpses of pine and palm and olive were dimmed
as we bowled along a sandy road, yellow as beaten gold. Now and again a
patch of purple blossom burning through the mist sang a loud, exultant
note of spring and love; and pretty orange-pickers, in men’s jackets and
brown trousers, warbled of the same theme in that soft Andaluza which is
beyond all other languages of passion.
The colour, and the music, and the day went to my head. I knew that I was
young, and I wanted my chance of happiness—wanted it so much that I felt I
could kill a man who dared try to snatch it from me.
XXVI
IN THE PALACE OF THE KINGS
“Now I’ve something serious to say, Don Ramón,” began the Cherub, when we
had passed the first pink-and-white house which marked the suburbs of
Seville. “You mustn’t go to an hotel here. It would be dangerous. You must
be our guest; and Señor Waring, too. I feel now as if our little play were
true, and you were my son; while as for Señor Waring, we might have known
him for years, might we not, Pilarcita?”
“Of course. For my part, I’m ready to adopt him for a brother, too,”
replied Pilar.
I covered Dick’s recoil at this blow by thanking the Cherub. He was more
than kind, I said, but we couldn’t think of—
“You will not think of disappointing us,” broke in the dear brown fellow.
“Could you have imagined that our only reason is to keep you out of
danger? No. We’re not so unselfish. We want you. Partings will come soon
enough. We must have you with us, under our roof, at our table, as long as
we can. Now you understand, you will say ‘yes.’ ”
“In my country,” said Dick, as a broad hint to me, “when we tell people we
want them to visit us, we mean it; and I guess Colonel O’Donnel and Miss
O’Donnel are the same sort.”
Of course I wanted to say yes; and, of course, after this, I did say yes
without further parleying.
“Now begins the most critical time in this adventure of yours. Don Ramón,”
the Cherub went on. “You see, as our place is only five miles outside
Seville, we know many people; and though Carmona is seldom there with his
mother, he certainly has acquaintances, and some of them may be ours too.
You have travelled since Burgos as my son, though you wore his uniform
only for two days; but you may be sure Carmona has been looking forward to
shaking you off, once and for all, if you should venture to Seville to see
the show of _Semana Santa_ as other tourists see it.”
“He perhaps thinks that, because of our promise—which we’ve kept—he’s
shaken Ramón off already,” said Dick.
“He knows better. The trick answered for a few hours; but his car broke
down, and he had to accept our help. He said then that fate was against
him; I heard it; and Carmona’s a man to be actually superstitious about
you, now. So far, he’s kept the little señorita out of touch with you, but
that’s nearly all he has accomplished.”
“Thanks to you both,” I cut in. “If it hadn’t been for your help, I should
have been ‘pinched,’ and hustled over the border long ago. I see that now;
and though I should have come back and begun the chase again somehow, it
would have been a thousand times more difficult.”
“No use bothering about what _might_ have happened,” laughed Pilar. “Let’s
think of what did happen—and what will.”
“Nevertheless,” said I, “the thought’s often in my mind; what if we had
missed Colonel and Miss O’Donnel at Burgos?”
Dick chuckled; and when Pilar wanted to know what amused him, asked my
permission to tell. I gave him leave; and with a memory for detail which I
could have spared, to say nothing of an attempt at mimicry, he repeated,
word for word, my objections to meeting the Irish friends of Angèle de la
Mole.
We were so intimate now that my point of view before knowing them did seem
particularly comic, and Dick made the most of it.
“Well, think what we have to thank you for!” exclaimed Pilar; “this
delightful trip. If it hadn’t been for you, Cristóbal would be here
instead of with Angèle in Biarritz.”
“Come back to common sense,” implored the Cherub, “and help me plan for
the Cristóbal who is here. If he sits in our box for the processions,
Carmona will see him and say to some officious person, very different from
Rafael Calmenare, ‘who is that young man with the O’Donnels?’ And the
officious person will answer, ‘I never saw him in my life.’ ‘Ah,’ the Duke
will exclaim, ‘isn’t he Cristóbal O’Donnel?’ ‘Not at all,’ will come the
reply; and Carmona will proceed to make trouble.”
“For you as well as for me; that’s the worst of it,” said I.
“We care nothing for that. It’s of you we think,” said the Cherub. And
because I knew it was true, more than ever it became my duty to think of
him and his.
“Of course I don’t want to lose any chance of seeing Monica,” I said; “but
on the days of the processions I shall walk about in the crowd and keep
out of Carmona’s way.”
“As for us,” said Pilar, “we’ll try for a box near the Duke’s—though there