Morales pledged himself enthusiastically.

"But the other half, Quesada?" questioned Carson with characteristic acuteness. "What do you purpose doing with the remaining five thousand pesetas?"

"I have a plan wherewith to use them," returned Quesada evasively.

He started away. He would say no more. Waving his hand to them in adieu, he called back:

"Go thou with G.o.d, my friends. The orange trees of the Alpujarras are in white and fragrant bloom. To thee, Senor Carson, and to mia camarista Felicidad, I wish all the blessings of G.o.d on thy new and great happiness!"

A week later, a wolfishly gaunt man in gray tweeds and slouch traveling hat invaded the headquarters of the Guardia Civil at Getafe and presented himself before the desk sergeant.

"I am Monsenor Jacques Ferou," he said. "I come to claim the reward for the killing, up in Minas de la Sierra, of the bandolero, Jacinto Quesada."

The desk sergeant was very glad to meet Senor Ferou. He shook his hand warmly. He knew from the foreign swagger of his clothes that the man was an outlander. As with all Spaniards, he had two guesses as to the country of the stranger's nativity. From the man's name then and swarthy complexion, he decided, by some unaccountable quirk of the mind, that he was an Englishman!

To secure the authority and money, he dispatched one of the policemen waiting in the room to the office of the Ministro de Gobernacion.

Meanwhile, making conversation, he politely inquired whether Senor Ferou liked the country.

"Si; I like Spain very much," the pseudo-Englishman returned, smiling pleasantly. "I have made many good friends here, and Dios sabe! perhaps a few poor enemies. I shall remain here for some time."

"That was a very brave thing you did up in the Sierra Nevadas. Jacinto Quesada has long hara.s.sed and terrorized us poor Moors. All Spain thanks you and feels you well merit the reward. But have you any plans for the spending of all those pesetas?"

"I have two plans. One is to aid a protege of mine, a motherless little child; the other to pay the costs of a certain fete. There is going to be a wedding over in the foothills of the Sierra Morena. It is to be a wedding among the gypsies. You know how costly and lavish are the marital feasts of the Zincali. They celebrate for two weeks, hand-running, just like the Jews of Barbary. You see, sargento mio, I am to marry a girl of the Gitano, one Paquita, daughter of Pepe Flammenca, count of a gypsy clan!"

"Ah!" exclaimed the sergeant, his face wrinkling into a broad smile.

"Most certainly are you English both eccentric and adventurous! But you seek your love in such strange places! Do not our white, soft-eyed maids of Andalusia captivate you?"

"They do not," returned the man in the gray tweeds with vehemence. "When your Andalusian virgins caress me with languishing looks and their tongues drip liquid flattery and love, my masculinity rebels at the thought of being wooed by a woman. You know we Englishmen joy in being the seeker, the stalker, the predatory one!"

"Eh, eh! This Gitana treated you with disdain, what? She fled from you, was cold to your kisses, took on as if you were a dust-mote in her eye, no? Perhaps she even prodded a knife between your ribs--it is a way they have, these soft brown leopards of the Zincali!"

"She did more than that. She stabbed at my pride. She made love to another man, a sad fool, whom she had imitate and ape me just to show how little importa I was--"

The policeman returned, just then, holding in his hand two five-thousand peseta bills and a receipt to be signed. The man in the gray tweeds affixed his name with a flourish. Then the sergeant handed him the bills and although his eyes were greedy, he politely said:

"Go thou with G.o.d, my brave Englishman, and may Heaven bless your coming happiness."

He looked after the man as he went out the door, and sighed heavily.

"Ah, I knew them well when I was young, the brown maidens of the Zincali! They are wine to kiss and soft silk to caress, but the very tigers when aroused. But I am getting on now--getting on and too old for such thoughts!"

He looked down at the receipt in his hand. He started.

"Dios hombre!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed.

The policemen crowded around him. But he had recovered.

"It is nothing," he said.

He went back to his desk. There, for a long time, slyly and secretly he eyed the receipt the man had given him. Upon it was written:

"Received payment, Jacinto Quesada."

Very stealthily, the desk sergeant tore the paper into a thousand little bits.

THE END