Squish! The brown slush of melted snow gushed out in fountains as our fat tyres ploughed through, and on either hand it lay unbroken in virgin purity beneath the pines. Half a mile higher, and even the traffic of heavy ox-carts and the sun’s fierce fire had had no power to break the marble pavement. It was shattered and chipped, and carved into deep ruts by wooden wheels; but there were no muddy veins of brown. Ten minutes more, and our engine began to labour. Then, before there was time to count the moments, we were in snow to our axles.
The motor’s heart beat hard, but with a sturdy, dependable noise which comforted Pilar, who was half laughing, half frightened, at this her first adventure. At any instant now we might come upon the Lecomte held in the snow-trap which threatened to catch us.
Ropes kept the car in the wide ruts made by ox-carts, but even with his good driving we swayed to right and left, leaving the rough track and ploughing into drifts dangerously near the precipice edge, or skidding as if we skated on polished ice, failing to grip the frozen surface.
Now was the time to relieve the willing engine. Dick and I sprang out, and Colonel O’Donnel followed, though we would have persuaded him to keep his place. Only Pilar was left in the car, with Ropes driving, while we three men, knee deep in snow, set our shoulders to help the Gloria as she made the supreme effort. Pushing, and slipping at every step, our blood (which had run sluggishly with cold) racing through our veins, we were putting on a great spurt of united force, when gallantly rounding a bend we all but rammed the back of Carmona’s car.
There it was, stuck in a drift like a frozen wave; and there was Carmona himself up to his knees in diamond dust, gloomily superintending his chauffeur who packed snow into the radiator to cool the overheated motor.
All the extra power of the Lecomte gave no advantage over the Gloria here. Fate had set the stage for us, and we must obey the cue. No ingenuity of Pilar’s could hide us in the wings any longer, and we must play our parts as Destiny prompted.
Only one thing was clear. Carmona could have had no idea until now that the O’Donnels (with that young soldier so like the Forbidden Man) were travelling in the red car whence he had already plucked a suspected passenger. The coincidence would seem strange to him; and if he were sure enough of his ground to risk another error, he would probably denounce me to the police in the next big town. Disguising my outcast self as an officer in a Spanish regiment would not be a point in my favour; but—he could do nothing now. Monica was here, and the moment was mine.
There was a savage joy in the situation, born of exaltation, of the high altitude, and of uncertainty as to what might come next.
“Shall you keep out of the way?” asked Dick; for we were still screened from Carmona’s sight by our own car, which Ropes had stopped with a grinding of the brake; and Pilar’s face was veiled.
“Not I. I’m going to have some fun,” I answered. “It must come sooner or later, better sooner, or what’s the good of playing Cristobal O’Donnel?”
With that, I appeared from behind the car, and the others were following, while Pilar leaned out in anxious expectancy.
“How do you do?” said I, in Andaluz as lazy as the other Cristóbal could have used. I took off my cap to the ladies, and so did Dick and the Cherub, exposing heated foreheads, damp from honest toil. “Sorry to find you in such a difficulty. But we’ll soon get you out of that, won’t we, Señor Waring? Here are three of us with stout shoulders and willing hearts.”
“Four, counting my chauffeur,” said Dick in English, playing up to my lead, since there was no stopping me now. “We’re delighted to do anything we can.”
Carmona glared as an animal glares when it is at bay; only, an animal can attack his enemies, and he could not attack us; for he was not sure whether we were enemies or no, and whether he would not be making a fool of himself if he let us know what passed in his brain.
It was evident that he thought very hard for a moment, and was of two minds as to what he had better do. But suddenly the baited look vanished from his face, as a shadow is chased away by the sun, and I guessed that a course of action had occurred to him with which he was well satisfied. This seemed ominous for me, and I would have given something to read his thoughts.
He answered our “How do you do?” with great cordiality—for him; said that he had been taken by surprise, at first, as he had no idea the motoring tour of which Señorita Pilar spoke would begin so soon, or bring us upon his track. It was a good thing for him, however, that we were here, and not only was he pleased to see us for our own sakes, but would be glad to accept our kind offer.
Meanwhile Pilar had pushed up her veil, and she and Monica were exchanging greetings. As for Lady Vale-Avon, her veil was up, too, and her lorgnettes at her eyes. I did not doubt that she and the Duke had compared impressions concerning our family party, after the episode at Burgos, impressions startlingly confirmed now, and Carmona’s cordiality in such circumstances must have puzzled her. As to the Duchess, her large face was hidden behind a thick screen of lead-coloured tissue, and I could judge nothing of her feelings.
When Monica heard the proposal for propelling the grey car through the drifts, she had the door open in an instant, and would have been out in the deep snow, if we had not stopped her.
“You must all stay where you are,” said Carmona hurriedly, fearing, perhaps, that some opportunity for a word would be snatched in spite of him, if I were really Casa Triana. “The weight of three women makes no difference whatever; isn’t that true, señor?” and he turned to Dick, who, according to our story, was the owner of the red automobile as well as the host of the party.
Of course Dick agreed, and so did we all, that the ladies were not on any account to get out. The Duke’s chauffeur jumped into his place again, and, with a twist of the starting handle, the tired motor quivered to its iron entrails. There was a sudden awaking of carburetor, pistons, sparking-plugs, valves, trembler, each part which had been resting after the long pull, striving to obey its master. With a sighing scream of the gearing, the car stumbled forward and up, our united force pressed into service. Staggering, plunging, pushing, we gave all the help we could, and for a few minutes it seemed that with our aid the motor would claw its way to the highest point.
Our hearts drummed in our breasts, and sent the hot blood jumping to our heads as if in sympathy with the mighty struggle of the engine. But the Lecomte’s forty horses, and the strength and goodwill of five men—counting Carmona, who did as little work as he could—were not enough. The wheels sank to the axles, whizzing round in the snow without propelling the car; with the motor unable to do its part, we men alone could not do all. The automobile would not budge for all our pushing; and, seeing that labour was lost, we stopped to breathe and raise our eyebrows questioningly at one another. Carmona, alarmed at finding that his chestnuts could not be pulled out of the fire by any cat’s-paws at his service, wondered audibly what he ought to do.
“Someone who came to Valladolid last night was hauled through the drifts by oxen,” said I. And even as I spoke, like a ram caught in the bushes ready for the sacrifice, I spied in the white distance the black silhouette of an enormous ox.
He was not alone, for a more penetrating glance showed that he had a yoke-fellow as big and black as himself; and guided by a red-sashed boy in scarf and shawl they advanced towards us slowly but so surely that I suspected something more than a coincidence. The great lumbering animals were like blobs of ink against the snow, and the lithe figure of the boy made a fine spot of colour as he walked before his beasts, his stick to their noses as if it were a magnet which they, anchored head to head with a beam of wood, were compelled to follow.
It flashed into my mind that this youth and his oxen were not wandering through mountain snow-drifts for nothing. The wolves which howl in these same wild fastnesses on a winter night scent prey; and so I thought did the boy, with the trifling substitute of petrol for blood. This youth had made a good haul (in every sense of the word) by accident yesterday; was out searching for other hauls to-day, and would be while the snow lasted.
We hailed him. He feigned surprise, and hesitated, as if to enhance his value. Then, casting down long lashes as he listened to our proposal, pretended to consider pros and cons. It would be a terrible strain for his animals to drag such a great weight, but—oh, certainly they would be _able_ to do it. They were docile and strong. Every day nearly they drew heavy loads of cut logs over the mountains. For twenty pesetas he would risk injuring his oxen, but not a _real_ less; and they would drag the grey car to the top of the pass, that he could promise.