But Rollo did his best for the unconscious man, and then when La Giralda had returned with a lamp, he turned sharply upon Don Luis.

"Sir," he said, "you know the causes of quarrel between yourself and Don Ramon Garcia, for whom I am acting. You know also what chances you have, if I do not use the influence I possess to counsel other and milder methods. Are you then willing to be guided entirely by me or do you prefer to be dealt with by my princ.i.p.al upon his own account, and without regard to my advice?"

Luis Fernandez clasped Rollo's hand.

"By the Virgin and all the saints," he cried, "I will do to the line and letter all that you desire of me in every particular. I know well that I have no other hope."

"Good," said Rollo; "then you will to-day show yourself about the Casa as usual. You will give any necessary orders to your foreman when he comes at the accustomed hour. This you will do in your own chamber and in my presence, urging a slight _calentura_ as a reason for not venturing out. You will speak to La Giralda as to your servant, and in fine--you will comport yourself as if nothing had occurred, and as if no such man as Ramon Garcia were within a thousand leagues of the mill-house of Sarria! Do you agree?"

"I agree to anything, to everything!" said Fernandez, eagerly.

"But remember," continued Rollo, "in order to compa.s.s this I am stretching a good many points. I saw your eye brighten just now when I spoke of giving orders. Now, remember, if there is the slightest attempt at foul play, we may indeed lose our game, and with it our lives, but first of all and quite suddenly, one man shall die, and that man is--Luis Fernandez."

He added this a.s.severation--

"And this, I, Rollo Blair, of Blair Castle in the Shire of Fife, swear by Almighty G.o.d and the honour of a Scottish gentleman."

CHAPTER XVII

A GRAVE IRREGULARITY

The day wore in the mill-house of Sarria precisely as many thousands of days had done before. The foreman came for the keys from his master's bedroom at six of the clock. He wondered at the unwonted sight of his patron up and fully dressed at that hour, and still more at the tall young foreigner who sat with his book so studiously silent at the table opposite his master. The old gipsy woman Elvira, too, was gone and another in her place. But after all it was none of his business, and the mill must go on. For the dam had filled up and there was much corn to grind. Old withered Elisa, the goatherd "patrona," led her tinkling flock past the door a score of yards and then returned with her pail as was her wont. She saw Senor Fernandez at his window, and he made a strange appealing motion with his hands to her, then glanced over his shoulder.

Perhaps (so she thought) the poor man had taken to drinking at night as that wicked brother of his used to do down at the _venta_. But the true nature of the Senor's complaint did not dawn upon her till later.

From nine till half-past eleven none outside of the mill-house saw Senor Luis. The stranger also was absent upon his occasions, and the doctor, coming early to see his patient, found only the gipsy woman, who did not appear to have understood the directions he had given her the day before. The Senor himself was out of the way, but the doctor, glad to find his patient so quiescent and apparently in such good condition, soon took his leave, and in the mill-house La Giralda ruled alone.

With Rollo now for a time the tale runs more briskly. He set off for the _venta_, where he found Etienne and John Mortimer sitting at meat.

Etienne was breaking his fast sparely upon a cup of chocolate and a gla.s.s of water, while John Mortimer had by hook or crook evolved something resembling a frying-pan, in which he had achieved the cooking of some bacon and eggs together with a couple of mutton chops. He was browning some bread before the fire to serve for English toast as Rollo entered, looking as fresh as if he had been newly roused from a twelve hour's sleep.

"Good morning, friends of mine," he cried; "you are in excellent case, I see. John, I have made arrangements for you to go and visit some vineyards to-day. Old Gaspar will guide you with his gun over his valiant shoulder. You can pick up points about wine-buying, without doubt. As to you, Etienne, _mon vieux_, I have found your Concha, and I am going to see her myself in half an hour. Shall I give her your love?"

"What!" cried Saint Pierre; "you jest. It cannot be my cruel, cruel little Conchita, she who fled from me and would not take the smallest notice of all my letters and messages? Where is she?"

"She is at the nunnery of the Sisters of Mercy outside the village.

Poor Etienne! I am indeed sorry for you. With your religious views, it will be impossible for you to make love to a nun!"

"Would I not?" cried Etienne, eagerly; "_mon Dieu_, only procure me a chance, and I will let you see! But a nunnery is a hard nut to crack.

How do you propose to manage it?"

"I intend to make friends with the Lady Superior," said Rollo, confidently.

"You have a letter of introduction to her, doubtless?" said Etienne.

"I do not at present even know her name; but all in good time!" said the youth, coolly.

"For stark a.s.surance commend me to a Scot," cried Etienne, with enthusiasm. "You take to adventure as if it were chess. We poor French take the most ordinary affairs as if they were dram-drinking, and so are old and _ennuyes_ at thirty."

"And the English?" asked Rollo.

"Oh," laughed Etienne, "the English take to adventure as our friend there takes to his breakfast, and that perhaps is the best way of all."

He pointed with a smile to where, at the table's end, John Mortimer of Chorley, having made all preparations with the utmost seriousness for his repast, was on the point of turning on the operating mill. The cook of the _venta_, who had been much interested in John's culinary operations, had come up to see how he would deal with the result when completed.

John had brewed himself some tea from a small parcel he carried in his saddle-bags. This, made in a coffee-pot, was arranged at a certain distance from his dexter elbow. The bacon and eggs were on a platter exactly in front, flanked on the left by the smoking mutton chops, while the toast was stuck erect in an empty cruet-stand. In fact a Chorley breakfast-table was reproduced as exactly as circ.u.mstances would admit.

Then John Mortimer bent his head a moment over his plate, murmured something in memory of his father, the Primitive Methodist, in lieu of a blessing, said "Hem" in a loud gruff tone, hitched his chair forward a little, squared his shoulders, and fell to.

"That is why we French have no colonies!" said Etienne, admiringly. "In this little Spanish village he has found all the materials of an English breakfast."

"And that is why _I_ shall never make any money," said Rollo, and proceeded to break his fast on a couple of eggs dropped into white wine, before setting out for the convent.

"Etienne," said Rollo, suddenly checking his gla.s.s in mid-air as an idea occurred to him, "lend me that ring of your sainted uncle's, the one with the picture of Don Carlos."

The young Frenchman indolently drew it from his hand, laid it on the polished marble top of the table, and with his forefinger flipped it across to Rollo.

"Who is the girl?" he said simply.

But Rollo with equal simplicity ignored his question, and did not even pause to thank him for the loan. It was a way these young men had with one another. Like the early Christians, they had all things in common.

It was their single point of resemblance to the primitive Church.

"What shall I say to your Concha--that is, if I chance to see her?" said Rollo, as he brushed his clothes and saw to the neatness of his neck ribbon.

Etienne held down his head.

"Indeed," he said a little reluctantly, "I am not so anxious that you should say anything at all about me. The little minx did not treat me so very well when I came this way on my last visit to my uncle. And to tell the truth, there is an exceedingly pretty girl living only three doors from the _venta_. I have already spoken to her, and she has smiled at me thrice over the fence."

"Take my advice, and stick to the little Andaluse," said Rollo, laughing. "They do not understand that kind of thing here, dear Etienne.

Remember Master Rafael, who got a knife somewhere between his shoulder-blades in this same village."

"I shall bear in mind what you say, my good Rollo," said Etienne; "meantime I shall dress myself afresh and walk in the gardens. They are, as it seems to me, contiguous. Perhaps it may chance that I shall see--_her_!"

"That leaves me a freer hand with Concha, then," murmured Rollo to himself, as he stuck his hat on the back of his head, and strode out into the stable yard smiling to himself.

He had his horse brought out and saddled. Then he mounted and rode down the village street towards the convent of the pious Sisters of Mercy.

The plan he meant to adopt had entered his mind, as it were, with the eggs and white wine. He had not given the matter a thought before. He smiled to himself as he rode, for he wondered how he would succeed with this good Mother Superior, and what manner of girl he would find that wicked, tricksome Concha to be, whose name was in all men's mouths with a certain approving flavour, as of a pleasant naughtiness to be alternately scolded and cajoled. One thing this Master Rollo was as sure of as that he was a Scot. And that was--he never could, would, or should fall in love with such a girl.

So Rollo rode with a clatter of spurs and accoutrement up to the gate of the convent. Dismounting, he advanced briskly to the gate and knocked loudly upon it with his riding-whip.

In a few moments a sour-faced portress opened the little square wicket and looked through at him. The diamond-shaped lattice bars, which cut her features into minute lozenges, did not improve her good looks.

"I must see the Mother Superior immediately on important business!"

quoth the brisk youth, slapping his waistcoat and settling the hilt of his sword in a businesslike manner, as if he had all his life been in the habit of making early morning calls upon Mothers Superior.