The Car of Destiny
The Cherub shook his head. “The prudent thing would be to go away
to-night, and trust Lady Monica’s loyalty. She can’t be forced into
marrying the Duke, you know; and if she breaks the engagement he’ll have
to let her alone, for dignity’s sake.”
“That might be prudent; but of course I won’t do it.”
“Of course you won’t,” returned the Cherub, as if it went without saying.
“Very well, then; matters are desperate, and desperate remedies must be
tried; things can’t be worse than they are. I shall hang about Carmona’s
house early in the morning, and when the first person comes out I’ll go
in. If I don’t come out, you will know what’s become of me; and I don’t
suppose in these days even a Duke can kill a man without getting into
trouble?”
“He would merely have you arrested as a housebreaker,” said the Cherub.
“Well, I should have seen Monica first, and perhaps have got her on the
right side of the door.”
“We’ll have a go at the business together,” said Dick. “It would be more
sociable.”
“All right, thank you,” said I. “Then something’s settled; and these best
of friends can go home and sleep.”
“Sleep!” echoed Pilar scornfully. “Oh, if I were a man, and could do
_something_ to punish the Duke!”
“I wish you could set your bull at him,” said Dick. “Only, now I think of
it, it’s _his_ bull still.”
Try as we might, it was impossible to persuade either Colonel O’Donnel or
Pilar that they ought to return quietly to bed, if not to sleep. No, they
would do nothing of the kind. Besides, no properly disposed person within
ten miles of Seville would lie in bed that night. Processions would go on
till early morning. Many people would watch them, or spend the hours till
early mass in prayer in the cathedral, which would be open all night. Why
should not the O’Donnel family do as others did?
There was no answer to this; and it was finally arranged that, if they
wished to rest at all, it should be at the hotel in the Plaza de San
Fernando, where we had dined. That was to be the rendezvous; and the
Cherub would engage the verger we knew to watch the Duke’s house in the
morning, bringing news of our fate to the hotel—if we did not bring it
ourselves.
Never—if I live beyond the allotted threescore years and ten—shall I
forget that strange night of Holy Thursday in Seville.
Dick and I wandered through the streets, and in the Plaza de la
Constitución, where electric lamps and moonlight mingled bleakly, while
never-ending _cofradìas_ passed.
A sky of violet was like a veil of silky gauze, and as the moon slid down
the steeps of heaven the vast dome paled. One by one the stars went out
like spent matches; dawn was on its way. Electric lights flared and died,
leaving a pearly dusk more mysterious than any twilight which falls with
night.
The crowds had thinned; but silent brotherhoods moved through streets
where there was no other sound than the rustling of their feet, the tap of
their leaders’ silver batons. So faint was the dawn-dusk, that they were
droves of shadows on their way back into night, their candle-lights lost
stars. Now and then the clink of a baton brought to some half-shuttered
window a face, to be presently joined by other faces, peering down at the
dark processions of men and black-robed, penitent women.
Outside the great east door of the cathedral halted a _paso_, like a huge
golden car. Christ was nailed to a cross not yet lifted into place. A
Roman soldier, of exaggerated height and sardonic features, stood reading
the parchment with the mocking inscription about to be nailed above the
thorn-crowned head. His evil mouth was curled in a satirical smile. Two
centurions in armour sat their impatient horses, and gave directions for
raising the cross. The effect was startling; for in this pale beginning of
light, and the atmosphere of tingling exaltation which steeped the town,
it was difficult not to believe that the terrible carved figures of wood
had life, and that with the eyes of one’s flesh one beheld the world’s
great tragedy.
Somehow the impression of horror was but deepened by the fact that the
bearers had come out from under the curtains of the _paso_, to take off
the large pads they wore on their heads, to drink water, and smoke
cigarettes with the penitents who had rolled up the masks from their pale,
damp faces. They might have been comrades of the Roman soldiers, in their
obliviousness of that tortured form on the cross.
It was not yet five o’clock when Dick and I plunged into the cool gloom of
the cathedral, passing the spot where Carmona had struck at me, and the
chapel where I had taken Monica. The stones were slippery as the floor of
a ballroom, with wax dropped from innumerable candles, and the air was
heavy with the smoke of stale incense.
The searchlight of dawn could scarcely penetrate the black curtains which
throughout Holy Week had draped the cathedral; therefore a solitary beam,
like a bar of gold, slanted in through one superb window.
The amethysts, emeralds, and rubies of incomparable painted glass
transformed the yellow bar into a rainbow which streamed down the length
of the majestic aisle and struck full upon a golden altar. Then slowly the
jewelled band moved from the gold carvings, the flames dying as it passed.
Travelling, still like a searchlight, it found the prostrate forms of
sleeping men exhausted by their vigils, snatched out of veiling darkness
kneeling women clad in black, and at last rested on the Holy Week monument
itself, paled its myriad candles, and made pools of liquid gold on the
vestments of priests who had knelt all night in adoration of the Host.
“Say,” said Dick, half whispering, “I don’t gush as a rule; but doesn’t it
look like the light of salvation coming to save lost souls?”
Not a hotel in Seville had shut its doors that night of Holy Thursday; not
a _concièrge_ had done more than nod and wake out of a broken dream, for
there had been an excited coming and going through all the dark hours.
At six o’clock Dick and I were at the _fonda_, inquiring for Colonel
O’Donnel and his daughter. They had come in at two, and were now asleep,
it seemed; but had left a note for the señores. In this note we were
assured that the friendly verger of last night’s adventure would be
lurking in the neighbourhood of Carmona’s house as early as six o’clock,
and should we want him we would know where he was to be found.
We took bedrooms, bathed, dressed again, and after hot coffee and rolls
decided that is was time to go on guard. To be sure, it was absurdly
early; but by this time the Duke’s household might be astir, and we must
not risk letting Monica be carried away before we had had a chance to
practise the gentle art of housebreaking.
The clocks of Seville were spasmodically telling the hour of seven when we
entered the narrow and dusky lane of the Calle de las Dueñas. So fast
asleep were the shuttered windows that our mission seemed a fool’s errand;
but as we came in sight of the Duke’s closed door the Cherub’s messenger
loomed out of the shadows.
Unshaven and haggard, his eyes glittered like black beads in the daylight;
and he greeted us excitedly. “Señores,” he began, “I was going to look for
you at the hotel. A thing has happened. The Señor Colonel told me I must
watch the house of His Grace the Duke, and let you know when you came if
anyone had been out or in. Who would think of people starting upon a
journey before the day is awake? But so it is. The Duke, whom I have seen
in other years, has gone away in an automobile with his honourable mother
and two other ladies.”
“You are sure it was he?” I asked, completely taken aback.
“Sure, my señorito. The car was a large grey car. And”—his face grew sly
as a squirrel’s—“I can tell you where it is going, if you would like to
know.”
“I want to know all you can tell,” I said.
“Well, the grey car arrived a little before half-past six, I should think.
In it there was only the young man who drives, dressed in leather. ‘What
is going to happen?’ I asked myself. It seemed better to wait and see than
run to the hotel to say, ‘there’s an automobile at the door for the Duke,’
and perhaps find it gone, no one could tell where, when I got back. But I
do not sleep on my feet. There are always ideas running in my head. I
pretended to be strolling past, and stopping for a look at such a fine
machine. Perhaps I had matches in my pocket, perhaps not; in any case I
asked the young man in leather to give me a light for my cigarette. He
did, and it was a natural thing to fall into talk. ‘You make an early
start,’ I said. He nodded. ‘Going far?’ ‘To Cadiz to-day, by Jerez.’ That
is all, honoured señores; but I tell it for what it is worth. A few
minutes later the grand people came out, and the automobile shot away.”
“Did they put on luggage?” I asked.
“All the automobile would hold.”
“By Jove!” exclaimed Dick. “Carmona’s thrown sand in our eyes this time.
Who’d have supposed he’d turn tail and run away like a coward in the midst
of the Holy Week show, with the King still in town?”
“I was a fool not to expect the unexpected,” I said. “If anyone except
Colonel O’Donnel’s man had told me I should have been between two minds
whether to accept the story or not. But O’Donnel called him a trusty
fellow; and he served me well last night. If we wait to verify his story,
by the time we find out it’s true the grey car will have got too long a
start. I don’t like Carmona’s stealing off. It looks as if there were
something up.”
“He showed last night that he was desperate,” said Dick. “I guess we’d
better get on the road before much grass grows.”
“You’re the best of friends,” said I. And paying the verger well for his
services, we hurried back to the hotel to find Ropes and have the car got
ready.
It was still very early, and the Cherub and Pilar had not had many hours
beauty sleep; but we could not leave for an indefinite absence without
bidding them good-bye; and we were on our way to knock at Colonel
O’Donnel’s door when Pilar appeared from the room adjoining.
A moment, and she understood everything. “You’ll follow!” she exclaimed,
without waiting to hear my plans.
“And I’ll go with him,” said Dick, looking wistfully at her; for he had
not had his answer yet, and who could tell when he would have it now, or
what it would be when it came?
“Of course. I knew you would,” Pilar replied. And a light leaped up in her
dark eyes. If it meant nothing warmer, it meant approval. “You’ll want to
go at once. Oh, I _am_ sorry you’ll miss the fair. You don’t know what a
fairyland Seville is, with miles of streets and park roofed in with arches
of coloured lights, like jewels; and papa has a tent in the gayest place,
where we stay all day, and see our friends, and it’s such fun visiting the
booths and side-shows! But maybe next spring you’ll come back for the
_feria_ with your bride, Don Ramón; and as for you, Señor Waring—”
“As for me?” repeated Dick, anxiously. “Am I not to come back before
that?”
“You’re to come back when you like, and—papa will be glad to see you,” she
answered, just as any conventional little señorita might have answered.
But at least she had the kindness to blush; and I would have moved away to
give Dick a last chance if at that moment the Cherub had not come out of
his room.
Instantly Pilar dashed into explanations, and between the three of us he
soon had the history of events.
No one on earth looks less practical than the dreamy-eyed, soft-voiced
Cherub; yet it was he who thought of practical details which we had
forgotten. He it was who reminded us that it would not be prudent to take
Ropes away from Seville. As the man who said he had discovered the bomb,
his evidence would be wanted, and if he disappeared it would look